My country does not belong to Joe Sixpack

[rachelmanija]

I am not a hugely patriotic person in the "My country can beat up your country" sense, but I am an American citizen, and I fucking hate the popular American media narrative in which the only real Americans are white, rural, Republican or independent, middle or working class, uneducated, parents, heterosexuals, Christians, and aggressively folksy-- the "Joe Sixpack" noted by Sarah "Doggone It" Palin.

Those people do exist, and they are real Americans, but they are a relatively small slice of the population. The majority of Americans are either urban or suburban. In some urban areas, the majority of Americans are not white.

Jews, Muslims, Baha'i, people of color, college professors, white collar workers, union organizers, childless people, leftists, urban yuppies, street hustlers, queer activists, recent immigrants who don't speak English, subway riders, taco truck drivers -- even Wall Street millionaires -- are Americans too. Whether or not we look like a whitebread Norman Rockwell painting of some right-wing regressive fantasy of an America that only ever existed in little pockets of the country fifty years ago makes no difference. We are all citizens, we have the vote, and our country belongs to all of us.

Adrian asked me if Japan has an equivalent of "Joe Sixpack." "Maybe 'Sazae-san?'" I hazarded.

People from countries other than the US, do you also have an obnoxious stereotype of the "ideal" citizen? Who is he or she, and does she have a name?

Comments

[croaky.livejournal.com]

Hm. In Sweden, I can only think of the expression "A regular Svensson" as a view of a typical Swedish citizen. However, I'd say it is closer to a "John Doe" description mixed with both an ideal, a comical or even satirical view, rather than just an 'ideal citizen' in mind. Then again, Sweden is a country who officially hasn't been at war for 200yrs or somesuch and when it comes to being nationalistic and carving ourselves some ego, we quite fail. xD

[lattara.livejournal.com]

And yeah, that's basically the situation in Denmark, too. The only thing I can come up with is Hr. og Fru Danmark (Mr and Mrs Denmark), and really mostly refers to the average citizen (for example when talking census), when it's used. The terms do have the connotation that the people they refer to are not avant-garde or for example masters at using technology. But again, the way I've heard it used it refers to an average citizen, so perhaps that isn't very surprising.

[smtfhw.livejournal.com]

Nope, we pretty much don't, but then here in the UK most people regard flag waving "patriotism" with deep suspicion and in the main - thankfully - anyone seen waving a St. George's flag would probably be considered some sort of extremist if not actually a member of the loathsome national front by most of their fellow citizens. The stereotype "Englishman" really doesn't exist in the popular imagination within England.

[tammypierce.livejournal.com]

The stereotype "Englishman" really doesn't exist in the popular imagination within England.

What about John Bull? Or is he more like Uncle Sam than Joe Sixpack?

[smtfhw.livejournal.com]

What about John Bull? Or is he more like Uncle Sam than Joe Sixpack?

Insofar as anyone is aware of him - and I suspect the younger generations aren't anyway - he's more like Uncle Sam I'd say.

[eredien]

This is a really great online exhibit from the US Library of Congress about the history of John Bull/Uncle Sam.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/british/

[maramala.livejournal.com]

Juan Tamad, or Johnny M. Lazy, if translated to American. The implication is pretty obvious. Not as much as "ideal" but more as a (black) satire on how Filipinos view each other: self-centered happy-go-lucky procrastinators who think the world owes them.

It was so bad that the government at one point attempted to change this cultural image by introducing and heavily promoting a counter stereotype, Juan Masipag (John Industrious, Esq.). It didn't work out too well, since Masipag was a much more negative opposite to Tamad: a content, cheerless sycophantic drone.

Actually, I wasn't aware of this Joe Sixpack stereotype. Is this the "redneck", Homer Simpson-esque image popularized by the media.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

"Joe Sixpack" is actually a term I hadn't heard before this debate, but I immediately knew the "real American" stereotype that it referred to.

Homer Simpson is more of a satire of the Joe Sixpack idea. It's a similar character, but poked fun at rather than worshipped and toadied to.

[sarashina-nikki.livejournal.com]

I love to watch debates on CNN for the audience reaction ticker, and it was fascinating that actually when Palin said her "folksy" "blah blah Joe Sixpack" spiel, the uncommitted men being tracked had a very negative reaction. They weren't fans of that either, which I think is probably a good sign for America.

[tammypierce.livejournal.com]

All of what you say is true, but it is those couch-bound white Americans who will give John McCain the White House if he can but tear them away from "Dancing With the Stars" and "Survivor." It's a population that the Republican Party has worked long and hard to make afraid of everything, from Al Qaeda to Obama, from immigrants stealing their jobs to queers seducing their children. Then they tell this population that only the Republican Party can save them, when it's the party of the job cutters, the golden parachuters, the outsourcers, the spending slicers, all of whom work toward making the constituency they try to brainwash complicit in their ignorace, joblessness, and futurelessness.

Sorry for the rant, Rachel. They make me crazy. They deserve to be taken by the likes of Bush, McCain, and Palin, but why must they drag the rest of us with them? Because if enough of the people on the other side of the divide don't show up, or also vote Republican, we will have a monster running the government.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

WORD.

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

I think there is a stereotypical English person who exists in the English imagination, but studying law really does rub this into you (the "man on the Clapham omnibus"; judges like to suggest substituting the Underground for the omnibus these days). As does, of course, the fact that I resemble the stereotypical English person existing in the national imagination in no respect.

In Malaysia there are generally three ideal citizens, one Malay, one Chinese and one Indian. That is what the government would like us to think it thinks. But in certain circles it's still an issue whether non-bumiputra (i.e. people who are not Malay or from one of the indigenous peoples) are really Malaysian, and things just get complicated from there.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Have you seen copperwise's excellent post on this? SHe agrees the country belongs to Joe Six-pack, the average American ... but redefines Joe Six-pack to include *all* average Americans.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

A wonderful post I just happen to have open in another tab (http://copperwise.livejournal.com/680972.html)!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's excellent.

[em-h.livejournal.com]

Here's what disturbs me: until recently, the "ideal Canadian" stereotype was a *parody* -- specifically, Bob and Doug MacKenzie sitting in the woods with cans of beer, unsuccessfully trying to hunt things, and having rambling absurd conversations. But it seems like the Conservatives are now seriously trying to invoke the idea of "ordinary people", specifically in opposition to the arts; in response to protests against recent cuts to arts funding, Stephen Harper came up with a bizarre spiel about how artists, apparently, spend all our time in ballgowns at fancy galas, funded by taxpayers, and televised on the CBC, and "ordinary people" don't like seeing such shenanigans.

I'm not sure the "ordinary people" are currently defined by anything other than their dislike of highfalutin artists and intellectuals, but if the tactic seems to fly for him, I'm sure he'll make more out of it.

Of course there's a whole different dynamic in Quebec, but I don't feel fully qualified to comment on the ideal Quebecois. The pur laine idea still has strength, though.

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

Australia has an odd mix of these ideas going. We idolise the "Aussie battler" - someone who's "doing it tough" but still struggling, even though it's not really the life that anyone wants to live, or that very many people think they ARE living. The True Blue Aussie stereotype used to exist, but these days, in a more multicultural Australia that also feels a bit uncomfortable with, well, the Crocodile Hunter version of Australian language and identity, that kind of thing isn't used much.

In the last election, the political target that the party who won were citing hard and wanting to appeal to was "working families". I think it's probably preferable; certainly they got a landslide win, against the Howard government who had, indeed, always cast the Typical Australian as being:

a) white
b) male
c) straight
d) sports-loving
e) Arts-disliking
f) married
g) (sub)urban

G is important, given how much rural communities were screwed over.

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

I was surprised to hear "Joe Sixpack" used as a term of approbation. I always thought it was something elitist (white, middle-to-upper-class, educated) people called white people who didn't make their standards of class and education.

I find it very disturbing to hear Sarah Palin use it as a badge of honor on MANY levels, among them all those you have mentioned. What really disturbs me is to hear a term, like "Archie Bunker" (who I think of when I hear "Joe Sixpack"), that's meant to place certain widely spread attitudes among the perceived underclasses, used without any change in racist, sexist, or otherwise chauvinistic nuance--the views Archie/Joe are supposed to hold, the bad behavior, ignorance, etc., that are supposed to be his--and yet as a badge of pride of trueblue Americanism, without any irony at all. Not only has Palin typed herself as a chauvinist, not only has she excused inexcusable attitudes, but she's shown herself to be ignorant of what "Joe Sixpack" really means AND also of the slur on the very populations she's claiming to defend.

I'm a white American, first generation, but since I'm German it becomes awkward. But I will say that there is at least one obnoxious stereotype of the Bostonian that is put forward as an ideal type. The Irish Catholic boob from Southie confused, perhaps via the Kennedys and Tip O'Neill, with an ivy league type--that's a very weird stereotype but one that kicks around a lot.

Married into Armenian culture, I think the Armenians from the former Soviet Union have several obnoxious-ideal stereotypes--the up and comer in America, the former-Communist corruption magnate; those from Persia and the Middle East don't seem to have as many obnoxious-ideal stereotypes, for some reason, at least not among men. There is an obnoxious-ideal stereotype of the gossipy Armenian female that is very much like the Jewish "yente."

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

Let me say here that one of my best friends is an Irish-Ukrainian Catholic from Southie, who is no boob; I am referring to a strange conflation of different Bostonian stereotypes that you get. I suppose "the cultural boob whose family is rich enough to go Ivy League." Does exist, but is often as obnoxious as portrayed; and very seldom exists in the form portrayed, which seems to derive directly from the Kennedys. It's not so often that you have a combination of oldish money and Southie rough edges and when you do the families are quite well known, not a type you just find walking down the street.

Actually yes we do

[estara.livejournal.com]

He's called the deutsche Michel or 08/15 or Otto Normalverbraucher (and is of course male). I guess they're actually different versions of the typical German. You don't hear his name used much these days though...

The deutsche Michel comes from Prussian Empire times it seems
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1341/1483110488_ee95e7368b.jpg
he's the guy who has to carry the load for everyone else.

Otto Normalverbraucher comes from the Film Berliner Ballade where a former German World War II soldier returns after being a prisoner of war of the Russians and has to face the fact that the war has been over for four years and he has to adapt to the new Germany
http://www.wdr.de/themen/politik/deutschland/wiederaufbau/kino/_img/berliner_ballade_400h.jpg
These days that's also a placeholder name, much like Max Mustermann.

08/15 can be used to say that something is average, but it's also a film trilogy based on young recruits' experiences before, during and after World War 2. The number comes from a German machine gun that was standard for a long time and then became old-fashioned.
http://german.imdb.com/title/tt0046671/
So if you say that a person is 08/15 it means you find them uninteresting or average.

Re: Actually yes we do

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Since my family is German this is very interesting information.

Re: Actually yes we do

[estara.livejournal.com]

You're welcome ^^. Come to think of it, the very derogatory tone that Joe Sixpack seems to include may not be part of the German cliche version so much. More of a dullness, I'd say.

Re: Actually yes we do

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

I think that is why no German versions occurred to me--there wasn't the implicit derogatory element in anything I could think of ("Jemand von Niemand," "Fritz"). The "yente," Jewish or Armenian, is already a bit implicitly derogatory. (I don't know what she's called in Armenian--my personal name for her is "Serpouhi Hamalian," but that's just me.)

"Michael" or "Michel" has meant German for a long time. In the work of the inventor of the comic book, the very funny, very prejudiced Wilhelm Busch, "Gottlieb Michael" is Germany, courted by various parties during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Which is interesting because it's not the name most non-Germans think of right away--since I was born in this country, I don't either.

Re: Actually yes we do

[estara.livejournal.com]

I can pick true derogatory cliches from World War 2 like "Hun" of course, but those don't have the everyday man idea behind them.

I guess the German average cliche amongst ourselves is dull, average and long-suffering.

And then we have all the regional cliches, heh. East-Frisians are stupid, Suebians are very careful with their money, Prussians are uptight and very disciplined... and so on.

Re: Actually yes we do

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

Dull, average and long-suffering="Fritz" the common soldier. Yes.

The regional stereotypes I do know something about. My mother is East-Frisian (Elsfleth).

[jelliclekat.livejournal.com]

I couldn't figure out exactly why her "Joe Sixpack" comments bothered me so much, but there it is--you've nailed it. She spent so much time talking about Your Average Middle-Class American, but I'm just not Your Average Middle-Class American. In fact, I'm a lot of things Palin doesn't like, doesn't want to think about, and doesn't want to exist. (Plus, I have the audacity not to apologise for existing!) Palin promised so many good things for Real Americans, but the way she described it, I don't know if she'd consider me one of them.