September 15, 2004

The Jim Rose Dubya World Circus of Freaks. Jim Rose is bringing his latest freakshow to Europe and this time it's "a mirrored reflection of what's wrong with American society" Including Mighty Konn, a native American who gets his testicles smashed with a sledgehammer. What part of American society does Mr. Lifto Represent?
posted by The Onanist 20 years ago
  • It looks like this is the guy from that awesome episode of the X-Files, Humbug. Interesting..
  • It is.
  • Its a bit PT Barnum, but I like the idea of satirizing America with a freak show, it would hold some people's attention, but could be taken as intentionally condesending by others. A crass, insulting protest with an audience. I love it. Too bad its not coming here.
  • Is this really true?: "Europeans have got a Hollywood view (of America) for the most part, glamour from movies and TV," he said. "There's a whole America out there that they're only vaguely aware of. We're going to go ahead and put it front and centre." I'd gotten the impression that most Europeans had a much more realistic view of us USAians than we had of ourselves.
  • Silly me, there I was volunteering for the Kerry campaign. The true patriotic Americans* are profiting off freaks and playing down to condescending Euro stereotypes of our country. *common shorthand for "citizens of the United States of AMERICA." live with it and move on, people.
  • Naw - the Europeans don't really grok America, or North America. The spaces and culture, though close, are just different enough to throw you off . They've seen images of New York and Los Angelas, but not much of the rest. And they hold lots of stereotypes, especially regarding consumption and obesity. (Which is very funny in the UK, where the levels of obesity are only slightly lower, and people seem more likely to be a bit plump, esp among the young well-to-do (who would be stick thin in the US). Now, Canadians - we know America, as much as any foreigner can know another country. It's not just that we have similar geography and very similar lifestyles and travel there fairly often, but we see more than media than just Hollywood - we see local news, PBS, Foxnews - even sattalite BBC is often BBC America. We watched Mr Rogers (a Canadian), alongside our Mr Dress-up (an American).
  • *blows a raspberry at drjimmy*