Doug Lansky on how American travelers are perceived in remote countries
“In more remote countries, Americans are still something of a novelty and they look at us the way we look at the Hollywood B-actor set. For example, you may think that Pamela Anderson is a surgically enhanced bad actress who’s out of touch with reality and gets paid too much for her minimal talent. But if she showed up at your BBQ party, you’d probably think it was pretty cool. You’d certainly tell your friends that Pamela Anderson showed up at your party. And if she was kind and polite, you might not be as quick to bash her next acting performance. In the eyes of many foreigners (who haven’t met an American), Americans are overweight, gun-carrying versions of Pamela Anderson.”
–Doug Lansky, e-Marginalia interview (2005)
October 27th, 2006 at 8:28 am
Speaking as a writer and editor from South Africa, I can confirm that Americans (or, more correctly, the few Americans in charge of the rest of them), do not look good and are not very liked. However, writers like Rolf Potts – whose syndicated work I use all the time in my travel and food supplement of a leading South African weekend newspaper – is going someway to changing that percepction.