How are Americans portrayed in German movies?

Question

In American movies Germans are portrayed as obese cowardly sausage eating drunks, or metrosexuals with a real nice car playing techno music.

They are also portrayed as having strange sexual interests (as nicely as i could put it)

The only time Germans are portrayed as powerful and imposing is in war movies or in action movies where they are portrayed as clever terrorists with an expertise in martial arts or getting others to do there dirty work

Answer 1

Americans portrays every other culture as they wanna show it the world but not how really as it is.... i saw it alot in thiere movies. And i can tell you this, my friend works as a Tour Guide here in Egypt and he tells me that "the Germans are the smartest people between the other nationalities plus they come to our country and they already have studied it's history"

but the Americans.... do you really want to know what did he say?

Answer 2

I haven't watched enough German movies to know how Americans are portrayed in them.  I do know that many Germans think that most Americans are obese, badly dressed, poorly educated and shallow.  Everybody has their own stereotypes.  That just stems from ignorance and misinformation.

Answer 3

OMG!!! I have to see them answers.........Germany is asleep now, but just wait until they wake up....!

we gonna have a thumbs down party here!!! ha ha ha ha

Answer 4

In postwar German movies, the American is usually a tourist - or an industrialist - or the industrialist's rich wife.  They are usually portrayed as believing that they can spend their way out of any situation - and place ridiculous demands on the service people.

American English is often referred to in Germany as the chewing gum language - so at least in the old movies, they were given very severe, humorous accents - and will often throw out words or phrases like, "Oh my", "well", and "thank you."

In more current movies, the portrayal is not as severly characatured - but there are trends.  They are often portrayed as very friendly, open and honest (to a fault) people.  They are admired - but scoffed at for their lack of sophistication.  They are seen as putting business ahead of propriety.  But they are also seen as no-nonsense types who take action independently, where others sit by passively.

They are portrayed with what Germans call a cowboy mentality - someone who acts alone, takes unexpected and independent action - and someone who may not consider the circumstances or colateral damage as much as they should.  This is why the George Bush (a Texan, no less) administration has done little to change that perception.

(I am not trying to make a political statement (I voted for him) - but he does fit perfectly into the stereotype - a cowboy from Texas, rich, unsophisticated, independent, perceived as wreckless, but really nice and open personality and a no nonsense guy.

I believe the German Prime Minister fits their stereotype too - funny.

Edit:

Hey Coco K - relax!! Chill!! Entspann dich mal!!! Mensch!!!

It was a question about how movies portray people - it wasn't a question assuming any stereotypes were true.

Answer 5

Mostly men are portrayed as corrupt, rich, wearing cowboy hats and keep firing into the air

or they are dumb but handsome, and like to go surfing..

Women are usually in the late 40ies wear a LOT of Make up and fur or younger ones again pretty but dumb...

It's like everywhere people are prejudiced and you can see that in movies. Very interesting.

Answer 6

You already have some very good answers from Germans (we are not all alsleep :-), but one more thing should be mentioned:

About every new Hollywood production is shown here. You see them on TV and you rent videos or you go to the Movies. Boys on the streets pretend to be "Ice Cube" of "Boys in the hood" or "Will Smith" with his newest film and Eminem which brings me to the music in the charts over here. Most young people watch MTV for Music.etc.

We have plenty of soap-operas here every day like "King of Queens", "The Huxtables", "Roseanne", you would just feel like home if it was for the TV. Only the fact that they all speak German would be kind of strange to you. (smile)

Last not least you should not forget all the Americans who were here as soldiers since 1948. Many Germans have contact to US Americans, grown throughout the years.

Answer 7

I think pretty much every nation has its stereotypes that the world knows them for. And movies tend to emphasize these stereotypes a lot, some are even completely based on them. Germans are known to work like clocks, machines, always being absolutely perfectly on time, working really really hard, being super smart, very serious, not having humour, being dried up and boring, sausage and sauerkraut eating, bear drinking and everybody always running around in the costumes like in the movie about "Heidi". But thats not true!!!

In Germany (or also in many many other countries) the Americans are known for being completely arrogant and not exepting that they dont OWN the world, being super obese and only eating at McDonalds and drinkin coke, being super dumb and hipocrits, thinking to be able to get out of every uncomfortable situation, either with money or because theyre the "greatest nation on the planet". But thats not true either!!!

There are fat people, dumb people, hipocritical and arrogant people, that only eat McDonalds and drink coke all over the world. Just like the bear drinking, sausage eating smart, punctual, dried up people without humour that Germany is known for.

So the only thing I can advise you to do is....Stop believing everything the media tells you and if you really want to know what Germans are like, buy a plane ticket and travel around Germany and you will see that just like in the States, in Germany as well every region has its own special sense of humour, their own way of living, their own accent and their own stereotype that they are known for in Germany. Oh and you will find out, I know shocking but true, that Bavaria doesnt automatically mean Germany.

I find it quite sad, that some people live with these stereotypes all their life not wanting to change their point-of-view because their stuck in their own circle of lies around those prejudices. So if you really want to know what people in other countries are like, travel there and make your own experiences that you can live with, because even if you find out that some people perfectly fit the stereotype or the impression you had before, Im very very sure you will also find a great number of people that DO NOT fit those types at all. I can give you one example:

I am German (my parents are german, my grandparetns are german and my whole family goes many generations back of being absolutely GERMAN), I was born in Tuebingen - a city close to Stuttgart in the South of Germany - but I grew up in Hamburg - in the North of Germany and my absolute favourite city in Europe - . I left home with 16, going off to Boarding School in the UK, and now spending time in Spain to learn Spanish. So far that already proves that some of the typical things the world 'knows' about Germany dont apply to EVERYONE. NORMALLY people dont live in the south and north of Germany, because the south doesnt like the norht and the other way round, WRONG! then people think that we dont like the British, WRONG! Would my whole family go to the UK to study if we didnt like the British?? I dont think so. Maybe I am a special case, but although I have the typical german appearance (tall, blonde, blue eyes) I am the only one in my family with that combination. Also all my foreign friends tell me i have humour, Im known to generally not be on time and most importantly I absolute HATE beer. Hows that???

Oh and just to make sure. I did not make any of that up. So maybe I could make it clear enough to inspire you to maybe travel around the world yourself. You will always make bad experiences, but the good ones you will keep for the rest of your life. TRUST ME!

Answer 8

Americans in German movies I know are very rare, since they are more from an "european view".

If one is appearing it is mostly a oil tycoon/Company Boss that think's everything can be made with money, and is proven wrong in the end.

Or it is one of the "great mans of freedom" in WWII-films.

Answer 9

We are talking about the movies. If you think everything shown in a movie is real then I suppose you will be standing there a long time clicking your heels together waiting to get home......

I would like to know more about those strange sexual interests??? *smile*

Several other answers have given you good points about how Americans are portrayed in German films. But, I should point out that very few films made in Germany are just 'German Movies' Many films made in Germany are multi-country productions. So, it often easier to take the easy way and show Americans in the typical stereotype; The Cowboy, WW II GI Joe handing out Hershey bars, and the newest figure(sadly based on fact) the greedy profit driven business person who puts people of work by moving the production line to China......

P.S. My favorite German stereotype; The aggressive BMW driver on the Autobahn!