Needs Help: Quirky Neighbour Country

What IS this? Most of the examples are zero context real life examples, and I'm not even sure if this is a trope. There's a country near your country. And it's quirky. I'm not sure even how.

Send this back to YKTTW if we're not willing to cut it outright. But really, I don't see how this would be a media trope. It would be a cultural thing, which you could say is reflected in each culture's media. Wacky Ukranian could be a media trope, popular in Russia, but Every Cpountry Has A Wacky Counterpart is not a single trope.

It seems to be a trope about the tendency to joke about your neighbouring countries, which are otherwise fairly similar. You ascribe them weird traits to differ from yourself.

I can confirm that this is how the Scandinavian countries see each other. Sweden has a similar relationship with Finland as well.

Do you have any examples of Swedish TV shows that tell these jokes?

Not really. They exist, but aren't that common. It much more frequently appears as jokes. Take your average (usually non-sexual) blonde joke and replace her with a Norweigan, and you've got the typical one.

It's something that appears in word-of-mouth, especially among children (when I was young, at least), but rarely printed.

edited 23rd Jun '12 4:35:08 PM by Feather7603

Ah...but if it only happens IRL, it's hard to trope it.

The real life section should be removed, and this should be sent back to YKTTW.

Yeah, it's hard to trope, but it still is a trope.

Most of that Real Life is more about culture, folk tales, and oral tradition (though far more modern than most things there). They're about places (rather than works) where people use this trope in storytelling and jokes.

edited 24th Jun '12 6:35:09 AM by Feather7603

I'm not sure we need this. The few legit examples seem like Acceptable Nationality Targets Only With Neighbouring Countries.

But if there's anything there worth salvaging, it should at least be sent back to YKTTW.

As the one who started this article, I have to say in its defence that this is undeniably a cultural pattern. The way we see the Belgians, the way the British see the Irish, the way the Americans see the Canadians, the way the Germans see the Swiss and Austrians... they're awful similar. The idea of 'a country that's very much like our own country except quirky' is something you see in many places.

Granted, maybe the description needs work, but the pattern is definitely there.

But we don't catalog cultural patterns, unless we can show they're media patterns.

For example, in China, it's considered normal to slurp your soup, but in the United States, it isn't (or so I'm told). That's a cultural pattern. But it's not a media trope. Characters Discuss International Dining Ettiquette might be a trope, but someone politely slurping their soup would simply be PSOC in Chinese media and absent in American media.

Oh, it's a media pattern all right. Just look at the many examples for Canada Eh, which is a subtrope of this. Stereotypes like these often show up in media produced in the countries involved.

Yes, but that begs the question why it lacks media examples. The majority of the examples are Zero Context Examples about real life.

edited 24th Jun '12 8:23:57 AM by lu127

Sure. Like I said, Wacky Ukranian could be a trope, and Canada Eh is a trope. But both depend on media portrayal, not vague assertions about societal beliefs.

If we only have one trope about wacky neighbor countries then this can't be an index either.

Ugh. You know what? Fuck it. I don't care enough about this article to keep debating it. Cut it, send it back to YKTTW, do whatever you like with it.

That's not "begging the question". Though the answer you're looking for is that it is mainly found in oral tradition, and not used as much in stories. It's also not used much because people know it's a fabricated stereotype, and people aren't actually like that. It's also generally not things that are remembered much. It's sort of like remembering which TV shows have ever brought up the question of whether the egg or the chicken came first.

It's not about societal beliefs. It's about a specific type of stereotyping that occurs mainly in oral tradition. People don't actually believe in these stereotypes (well, necessarily); they're just used for amusement in good humour.

It's very much a direct supertrope to Canada Eh. The difference is that that stereotype is much more known to Americans that it's spread to other places. Otherwise it's a stereotype only used by neighbours. Other people, the targets included, may not even be aware it exists.

If you want examples of the jokes, here are a few. This page has a lot of them. Here are more: [1], [2], [3], [4]

This series plays on it as well, along with parodying reality shows.

There are probably other examples as well, such as minor characters in old comedy films.

Ole in Sällskapsresan probably counts.

edited 24th Jun '12 12:49:12 PM by Feather7603

Good. What I want is more examples in fiction, so that it's more uh...tropey?

It's also how the English see the Welsh, Scots and Irish, and to a lesser extent vice-versa.

I suggest we define it as being, for any one culture, a nearby country that shares a language or there is a large extent of bilingualism, which is close enough for familiarity and shared history, but different enough that they feel like quirky neighbours rather than, you know, another country.

It's definitely there, the problem with troping it is that it is a pervasive pattern rather than a number of identifiable occurrences. I suggest looking at comedies and seeing how small-part characters from these are portrayed. We may have to make into an index of specific articles like Canada Eh.

Clocking due to lack of activity.

I don't think it can be saved.

Locking.