I don’t think it’s hard for outsiders to understand. I think it’s harder for Americans to understand. Those of us on the outside can see it easily and obviously. And it’s not subtle.
In the movie U-571, it depicts the Americans capturing the first enigma machine, thus helping to lead to an end to WW2. The reality is, the Royal Navy had them before the US even entered the war.
As a Canadian, I know that we were heavily involved with freeing the Iranian hostages, but if you watch the movie Argo, you would think the United States did everything. Jimmy Carter, President at the time of the event, decried the movie saying that Canada did 90% of the op.
The Great Escape portrays the escape from Stalag Luft III as an American affair, when it was a Commonwealth operation, and not a single American escaped.
Black Hawk Down. If you watched the movie, you would think the rescue was done by US forces, completely disregarding the fact it was largely Pakistani and Malaysian forces that rescued the American service people.
That’s not even getting into the non-war movies where the US is represented as the ultimate moral authority in all things.
How about the “World Series”, where with the exception of one team, every one is in the United States.
Co-opting the term “American”. The Americas includes more than just the USA. Mexicans, Argentinians, Canadians, Hondurans, Columbians, etc. are all “American”.
Even the implication that no one outside the United States would understand how bad the propaganda there is, is American exceptionalism.
I have spent almost my whole life outside the USA myself, and though I saw these things in American movies etc., I wasn’t really aware of how little Americans know about what’s going on in the world, and how tilted all the information they consume is, in school and in the general culture, until I spent some time living in the USA. You make a good point though, and I wasn’t the most perceptive.
I don’t think it’s hard for outsiders to understand. I think it’s harder for Americans to understand. Those of us on the outside can see it easily and obviously. And it’s not subtle.
In the movie U-571, it depicts the Americans capturing the first enigma machine, thus helping to lead to an end to WW2. The reality is, the Royal Navy had them before the US even entered the war.
As a Canadian, I know that we were heavily involved with freeing the Iranian hostages, but if you watch the movie Argo, you would think the United States did everything. Jimmy Carter, President at the time of the event, decried the movie saying that Canada did 90% of the op.
The Great Escape portrays the escape from Stalag Luft III as an American affair, when it was a Commonwealth operation, and not a single American escaped.
Black Hawk Down. If you watched the movie, you would think the rescue was done by US forces, completely disregarding the fact it was largely Pakistani and Malaysian forces that rescued the American service people.
That’s not even getting into the non-war movies where the US is represented as the ultimate moral authority in all things.
How about the “World Series”, where with the exception of one team, every one is in the United States.
Co-opting the term “American”. The Americas includes more than just the USA. Mexicans, Argentinians, Canadians, Hondurans, Columbians, etc. are all “American”.
Even the implication that no one outside the United States would understand how bad the propaganda there is, is American exceptionalism.
I have spent almost my whole life outside the USA myself, and though I saw these things in American movies etc., I wasn’t really aware of how little Americans know about what’s going on in the world, and how tilted all the information they consume is, in school and in the general culture, until I spent some time living in the USA. You make a good point though, and I wasn’t the most perceptive.