Discussion Main / CreatorsCultureCarryover

I feel like I'm missing something here:

• Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum: The TV movie has Yadina heartbroken to learn there's never been a female U.S. president, despite the show being produced and animated in Canada, France, and Ireland. All three countries, for better or worse, have had at least one female leader each. Justified in that Yadina specifically wants to be the President of the United States of America, which is why the lack of a female U.S. president upsets her.

The trope is when a creator forgets that a work isn't set in their home country, right? Now, I've never seen this show, but either it's set in America, in which case the creators are specifically not doing that, or it isn't, in which case it's downright odd that they forgot that, but it's still not an example of the trope. The "justification" just confuses things further, either she wants to be president of the US because she's American, in which case point one, or she wants to be president even though she isn't, rather than the leader of whatever country she's from, which makes the oddity of point two even weirder.

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Nuke RL section and trim the description, started by Deboss on Apr 15th 2011 at 12:20:37 AM

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Ambiguous Name, started by thatother1dude on Dec 15th 2014 at 12:29:06 AM

Is the article image from the actual Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, or is it from Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series?

• In Dragon Bones, hamamelis (witch-hazel) is used to treat wounds, despite the overall cold climate and medieval Europe-ish setting. The plant does grow in China, and could be imported, but there are less expensive options.

Two problems here. First of all, the setting is designed to be "Europe-ish", but not actual Europe, and since it's a fantasy setting, some liberties are possible. Secondly the author is american(not sure which country, but her T Vtropes entry only names the continent), not from china, so she's not assuming that things everywhere work like home, which is what the trope is about.

"Doglands" - " It is heavily implied to take place in Great Britain and it's written by an English writer, but the characters use American terminology, such as "TV" instead of "tele", and use the Imperial system instead of the Metric system. "

Can't get this. We talk about "TV" and "telly" (not "tele") interchangeably and even British people who are literate in and knowledgeable about the metric system will use the imperial system for preference - miles, feet, inches, pints are more intuitive than kilometres, litres, centimetres, et c. imperial measures are the default position if you're British, even if you think and can visualise in S.I. so this entry is as best confused and at worst completely wrong?

This bit in the 50 Shades entry threw me a bit...

Chapter Ten talks about the villain being "released from hospital". An American would be more likely to say "released from THE hospital".

The more I think about it, the more I think a Briton would probably say "released from the hospital" as well. Is it just me? Is it one of those differences between Scotland and England I've never noticed?

Neil Gaiman briefly but memorably flirts with this in The Sandman. In #7, the American John Dee calls Morpheus "a spittle-arsed, poxy pale wanker", which is the least American (and most British) thing he could have possibly said.

There's no way that's accidental. That's practically Spike dialogue - it's downright parodically British. I don't recall the context but I can only assume the character is supposed to either be British, or be taking the piss out of British people?

Ah, the real life section. Why do I feel like "they" and "them" are referring to a particular kind of people?

Not like anyone'll read this, just wondering.

... Somehow, a lot of measurements have been deleted from the page. Can anyone who knows more fix that?

Can we please ax the Real Life section? It's nothing more than a bungle of personal rants, and it's completely unnecessary.

I think all the examples about a part of a country being considered default for the rest of the same country would belong better in Socalization. Unlike Britain Is Only London, I'd suppose most media guilty of these examples come from the same country referenced, rather than writers in a foreign one getting confused. Coincidentally, Socalization is not properly indexed.

"The title is inspired by (but is not a direct quote of) a line in the Rammstein song "Amerika", which points out the spread of American values and culture across the globe (and, as you can tell by the "k", that's not exactly a glowing endorsement)."

Uh, isn't "Amerika" the German spelling for America? Yes, the bit about the song not really being a positive opinion on Americanization is correct, but I'm not exactly sure what spelling it in the German fashion has to do with it (especially since, you know, Rammstein is German and the song is mostly in German). Am I missing a joke here (that likely has to do with the Godwin's Law pothole)?

Am I understanding the trope wrong, or are all the anime examples backwards?

I understand that in small countries like Israel a couple hours drive is fairly realistic.

Removed this:

• You Know, thats not the reasons the Jews is celebrating Passover (which is when Easter is traditionally)

which was a response to this:

• Another Final Fantasy VIII fic had them celebrating Easter. One reviewer: "Why do the FFVIII characters celebrate the traditional resurrection narrative of a religious figure from a different universe?"

My reasoning:

1. When Jews celebrate Passover, they call it Passover, not Easter. Since the characters in the 'fic call it Easter, the reader can assume they mean Easter. If the writer really wanted it to be an in-universe holiday, he could've researched or invented one.
2. The reason Passover happens at about the same time as Easter is because the event Easter celebrates happened at about the same time as Passover. (To be specific, Jesus reportedly died the day before Passover and rose from the dead on the day after.)
3. Passover is itself a celebration of the narrative of the Exodus, an event that is also presumably unknown in the world of FF 8, which makes the Justifying Edit itself an example of the trope.

"In one episode of Axis Powers Hetalia where different countries are discussing how they celebrate Christmas, America shows off his garishly-decorated Christmas... cake. Christmas Cakes are a Japanese tradition; while the decorating is culturally in-line with America, it's usually applied to cookies. (Note, though, that the creator has lived in the US for years so it may be a case of misunderstanding.) "

This example is itself an example of the trope. Christmas cakes are not "a Japanese tradition". They may not be an American tradition, but that's not the same thing.

According to the other Wiki, there is a difference, it appears, between christmas cakes as made in Japan and in the UK, but the description, "standard American wintertime Fruitcake" makes it sound more like the British version, if anything. I've edited the phrase "a Japanese tradition" to "not an American tradition".

Uh, yeah. Anyone okay with me editing this to not be so long? It sounds like something that belongs in Useful Notes.

• Discussing politics on an international forum can be difficult, as many people equate words like 'liberal' and 'conservative' or the colours of those parties with the title of the appropriate popular party in their country. The fact that those words suggest different things depending on country is also a confusing matter.
  • Part of the problem lies in that the US has a two-party system, while parliamentary democracies are a bit more flexible. Canada, for example, has four major federal parties: the Liberals, the Conservatives, the New Democratic Party or NDP, and the Bloc Quebecois. Provincially, there's even more variation. The BQ, for example, doesn't fit neatly into the left-centre-right distinction and has no analogy of any kind to American politics, since the US has no equivalent to Quebec's history with English Canada. Americans are therefore advised to avoid commenting on it.
  • Following Gordon Brown's calling an old lady "bigoted", which (obviously) hurt his popularity ratings, an American news station said something along the lines of "Liberal Democrat, Gordon Brown, is likely to be defeated in the polls by a Conservative Republican".  ^*
    ^{The Liberal Democrats are actually a completely separate party to Brown's Labour party. While David Cameron is a Conservative, he is not a Republican in either title or beliefs.}
  • It gets even sillier when talking about Australian politics. It's as if it's designed to confuse Americans. There is a party which uses the colour blue, opposes the republicans, and is favoured by Liberals. No, it's not the Democrats - it's the Liberal Party of Australia, the more conservative of the two major parties. Hence ridiculous terminology like "small-l liberal".
    • It's not that silly. The Liberal Party still houses the nearly-dead remnant of the Australian liberal movement (which is why some liberals still vote Liberal), but compared to the Australian Labor Party  ^*
      ^{spelled the American way on purpose, as was fashionable back in 1912}
      even a liberal is a flaming conservative. The Liberal Party was called such because its original founders wanted it to have a looser operating procedure (they were conservatives and liberals who teamed up against Labor). In any case, a liberal in Australia is more conservative than a Laborite (or a Socialist, which isn't a dirty word down here.)
  • Truth be told, America has completely messed up the definition of "liberal" to the point where it doesn't mean in the U.S. what it means elsewhere around the world. A "liberal" in the rest of the world is what would be known as "libertarian" in the United States, and what is considered a "liberal" in the U.S. is considered a "statist" elsewhere around the world. So the Lib Dems (led by Nick Clegg) are a globally "liberal"/American "libertarian" party while the Labour party are an American "statist" party. And "conservative" in America really means "reactionary" elsewhere: the British Conservatives are more laissez-faire economically/old-fashioned "conservative" socially (i.e. what "conservative" used to mean in the U.S. back when Dwight Eisenhower was considered "conservative").

Created a Quotes page for this article and moved the Californication quote there.

* Avatar: The setting is the far-flung future in some unknown faraway quadrant of the galaxy, YET: the overt political issues of the day are EXACTLY the same as those of late 20th/early 21st century USA, the unnamed corporation is unmistakably American and the army representing Earth are — you got it — the US Marine Corps. Moreover, the 'alien' race is portrayed the way many Americans uncritically and romantically view pre-industrial foreign (especially African) cultures, ie. Lion King style, complete with African accents, witchdoctors, singular 'familial' social hierarchy, loincloth coverings, nature worship (with accompanying African style vocalised music!) and coming-of-age 'hunting' rituals. So even in designing COMPLETE ALIENS, the best James Cameron could come up with was some noble-savage view of pre-industrial African tribes.

This isn't an example. The Navi are a completely made-up species, so Cameron is free to make their culture whatever he likes. The rest is clearly intended as an allegory.