Saying foreign men are hot would be nothing short of an understatement. Foreign men are bangin’- from gorgeous Greek gods to seductive Spartan warriors to foxy French courtiers, sexiness undeniably runs in their blood and leave it to us American chicks on the other side of the Atlantic to be the ones lusting after them…Quel dommage!
In our minds, these European men are there, in numbers, anxiously awaiting our arrival to sweep us off our feet and take us off to never-never land to live happily ever after in our Italian villa in Tuscany, a chic flat in London, or a castle in the South of France. Either way, we idealize that the moment we arrive in one of these far-off places, we will meet our European lover and forever live in a reverie- thanks to all the movies that made me think this could happen (cough* cough* every single Mary-Kate and Ashley film). Anyway, there’s no doubt us girls daydream about our Euro-lovers, but what do they think of us?
So, I decided to ask one of my chums from jolly ol’ England about his opinion on American girls and this is what I got (prepare yourself, my friends):
“In earlier times it was much simpler for the average European guy to have a conception of what the average American girl was like. Paraded in front of us through our TVs and radios, American women were to us a little bit Cyndi Lauper, a little bit Beyonce; a little bit Pam Anderson, a little bit Rosie O’Donnell. Of course, we never spent a great deal of time thinking about the Rosie O’Donnel aspect, rather, in infantile reverie we clung tenderly to that image of the sublime American woman: the strong, sexy, fun-loving woman. In fact, we didn’t much care for average, because average is our hometown. For each European man knew that waiting for them across the Atlantic were classy buxom ladies, only too happy to flash a perfect smile to a little British charm and who would smack them upside the head if they stepped out of line.
Things have changed somewhat. Now, the average beret-wearing surrender-monkey, haggle-toothed beer-lout or schnitzel-eating kraut (yes, “Europe” has been trimmed to the main World War II players) loves stereotypes as much as the next Joe Bloggs, because, frankly, there’s football on the telly (which kind? The one where the majority of the game is played by kicking a ball with your foot), and we don’t have time to consider that there may be more than five different types of people in America. We are informed by the tabloids, movies, sitcoms, music videos and occasionally the first hand experience of the one lucky bastards in the pub who actually made it over there. However, there are two new ambassadors for the American woman being beamed across our screens which, even for a mind moulded entirely by mainstream media, have confused things: Paris Hilton and Lady Gaga.
Much can, and has, been said about these two women. I will continue to paint in broad brushstrokes what I think the impact these two has been on the generic image of American women as perceived by me, the archetypal European: Gaga good, Paris bad. Paris and her brand of nihilistic materialism elicits quite strong emotions amongst my European brethren, but there is no better way to sum up the general consensus than the aphorism, “stupid spoiled whore”. This feeds a pervading idea amongst Europeans that America glorifies vacuous, talentless, dimwits, who we’d like to see fall off their piles of money and die.
Lady Gaga, on the other hand, is pretty much considered to be madder than a box of frogs, but we like her. In fact, she represents everything that turned us on to the US of A in the first place: individualism with a conscience, fun, spectacle, and boobs that shoot fire. She makes us happy. Packed like dour-faced sardines on our way to the daily grind, accosted by apocalyptic headlines from the tabloid newspapers, it’s nice to turn a few pages in and see Lady Gaga dressed like a slutty wheel of cheese. She doesn’t take herself too seriously. We like.
So where does this leave us? How do we reconcile our infantile dreams from yester-year with these two new symbols of the American woman? We don’t. Because this entire exercise has been farcical nonsense, which I hope proves that trying to understand what the ‘average European’ thinks of American women requires one to make sweeping generalisations about another people’s sweeping generalisations.”
Shocking? Kinda. Saddening? Maybe. Funny? Definitely. I guess you can say that we American girls tend to get a little too carried away with the whole romance, European lover, Prince Charming thing, huh? Or maybe that’s just making a “generalisation”, as my friend would say, and the only way to seek the truth about love, foreigners, and all things pertinent would be to go to Europe and see for yourself. Bisous, bisous mes amours!