Americana isn't real

US television and cinema promote images of Americans that are... well ... wrong, says the Bureau of International Information Programs, US Department of State, which is out with a new book

US television and cinema promote images of Americans that are... wellu00a0... wrong, says the Bureau of International Information Programs, US Department of State, which is out with a new book

"I know that the stereotypes of the United States are out there," American President Barack Obama told a gathering of university students in Istanbul last year. "And I know that many of them are informed not by direct exchange or dialogue, but by television shows and movies and misinformation."



Wrong impressions
Pop Culture versus Real America is an effort to correct some of the misimpressions. The premise of the free-to-download e-book by the Bureau of International Information Programs, US Department of State, is simple and the technique straightforward: the world is often misled, as President Obama said, to see the United States through the icons its pop culture has produced. And the stereotypes can best be rebutted by exposing them to that universal disinfectant, real life.

Debunks myths
"Through the icons the world sees a quite different sort of American: vain and oversexed, miserly and self-obsessed, prone to violence, a bit nutty," writes Andrew Ferguson, senior editor at The Weekly Standard magazine, in the introductory essay.

That imaginary country is ripe for debunking, which is why the book is so welcome. It contrasts images of American life promulgated by television, cinema, with profiles of real Americans engaged in similar walks of life.

You can download Pop Culture Versus Real America from www.america.gov/publications/books-content/pop-culture-vs-real-america.html