Visions of America

Résumé du document

As most of the exchange students who came here in Lund for one or two semesters, and who decided to attend the class on Swedish society and everyday life, I've been struck in several occasions by the Swedes, some of their behaviours or some elements of their everyday life I could barely recognize at home.
I think this is the normal process of discovery of a new culture -at least partially new culture, as we cannot really say that the Swedish culture is as far from the French culture as for example the culture of some African or Asian countries and peoples. But the fact remains that I've been able to discover a very proud people, somehow attached to its land, to its traditions, and I have to admit it, very respectful when it comes to obey the law. We've also seen in our various lectures how the Swedish society broadly evolved during the last century; transforming it from what historians and ethnologists are used to calling the old peasant society to a very modern nation, build on the European model of the nation's states. This transformation has gone through the population and also has had consequences it.

Extraits

[...] But then again, if we look with closer attention, is Glorias that Americanized? The answer will be once again no. Let's have a look at the schedule. If we except the football games (mainly Swedish and other European leagues) and the Swedish sports (mainly hockey), no other sports are regularly shown in Glorias. Formula 1 is when a Grand Prix occurs, that is to say not so often. American football, baseball and NBA replays (because, due to different time zones, the matches are normally played late at night when the bar is usually closed) are not programmed systematically, even the big events of the regular season. [...]

[...] Looking at the menu can also give us relevant hints. First, the food. Even if some meals have an American name -Texas Big Ride, Mississippi Pecan Ice Cream - and despite a large choice of hamburgers, the majority of the food proposed there doesn't really suffer any influence from the United States: the customer has also a great choice of Swedish food, fish courses and vegetarian meals. Then if we look at the drinks, and more particularly to the beers, the observation is almost the same. [...]

[...] She describes her Mc Donald's as “full of symbols of America”. Those symbols are the Star spangled banner (the American flag) some pictures of American actors, said to represent America”, of the typical very broad roads (like the famous road 66) which go from one coast of the United States to the other, but also some pictures and jerseys Northern American sports such as American football or baseball. This place reaches therefore all the clichés an average European would put forward when thinking to an American bar. [...]

[...] Lund in general cannot also really be described as a very Americanized town. The only presence of the Americanisation can be felt in the streets when you come across the Burger King or the McDonald's (but as we've seen for the latter, its American characteristics lie more on the image of the brand and on the general type of food you can buy inside more than on a real will from the restaurant itself to look American) or also the Glorias. [...]

[...] I guess that the biggest part of what Swedish people watch when they watch television is American. A lot of music that we listen to here in Sweden is American as well.” The explanation for such a strong statement is in my opinion a direct consequence of this point itself; they feel like a kind of saturation towards those TV shows. But at the same time, it's largely thanks to these American TV shows that the Swedes can nowadays boast of having the high level of English they have. Is the claim of omnipresence relevant? [...]