American Culture
How to tell if you're American
Not long ago, one of those earnest-freshman puppydogs on the Net declared that there was "no such thing as American culture." Right. Fish have also been known to doubt the existence of water.
The following is a first crack at an ostensive definition of 'American culture'-- things shared by the vast majority (let's say 90%) of native-born Americans. Many of these won't sound 'cultural' at all to Americans; they'll sound like just descriptions of the way things are. But each one of them would be contested in one or more non-American cultures.
This test has spawned a growing host of responses (most of them better written than mine). To wit:
Canada
John Bayko and Damien Ponech
Quebec
Valérie Bourdeau
France
Nicolas Duvernois
Italy
Riccardo Distasi
Brazil
Emilio Neto
Mexico
Acoyani Garrido Sandoval
Colombia
Carlos Thompson
Scotland
Geoff Eddy
England
Justin M.
The Netherlands
Bas Suverkropp
Germany
Raphael Landeck
Sweden
Anders Janson
Ukraine
Vadim Urasov
Poland
Pawel Stachura
Greece
Chris TDAQ
Japan
Hirofumi Nagamura
New Zealand
Gareth Wilson
Australia
Chris O'Regan
South Africa
T'Mar
Turkey
Cyril Alebard
China
Agile Software students
India
Apurva Mishra
Offsite
Brittany
Damien Erwan Perrotin
Austria
Klaus A. Brunner
Finland
Johanna Laakso
Louisiana
Andrew Chaney
Texas
Tom Wier
Russia
W. Shedd and K. Andreyeva
Conworlds
Verduria
me
Skouras
me
Charya
Boudewijn Rempt
Khadra
wligon1
Gnomish
Aidan Elliott-McCrea
Nekilotyri
Joel Heikkila
Ill Bethisad
Over a dozen tests from a collaborative alternative history
These pages are all organized by nation or culture. Robert Delaney has put up an interesting page with the same information organized by subject.
--Mark Rosenfelder
If you're American...
You believe deep down in the First Amendment, guaranteed by the government and perhaps by God.
You're familiar with David Letterman, Mary Tyler Moore, Saturday Night Live, Bewitched, the Flintstones, Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby, Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Donald Duck, the Fonz, Archie Bunker, Star Trek, the Honeymooners, the Addams Family, the Three Stooges, and Beetle Bailey.
You know how baseball, basketball, and American football are played. If you're male, you can argue intricate points about their rules. On the other hand (and unless you're under about 20), you don't care that much for soccer.
You count yourself fortunate if you get three weeks of vacation a year. If you died tonight...
You're fairly likely to believe in God; if not, you've certainly been approached by people asking whether you know that you're going to Heaven.
You think of McDonald's, Burger King, KFC etc. as cheap food.
You probably own a telephone and a TV. Your place is heated in the winter and has its own bathroom. You do your laundry in a machine. You don't kill your own food. You don't have a dirt floor. You eat at a table, sitting on chairs.
You don't consider insects, dogs, cats, monkeys, or guinea pigs to be food.
A bathroom may not have a bathtub in it, but it certainly has a toilet.
It seems natural to you that the telephone system, railroads, auto manufacturers, airlines, and power companies are privately run; indeed, you can hardly picture things working differently.
You expect, as a matter of course, that the phones will work. Getting a new phone is routine.
The train system, by contrast, isn't very good. Trains don't go any faster than cars; you're better off taking a plane.
You find a two-party system natural. You expect the politicians of both parties to be responsive to business, strong on defense, and concerned with the middle class. You find parliamentary systems (such as Italy's) inefficient and comic.
You don't expect to hear socialism seriously defended. Communism, fuhgeddaboudit.
Between "black" and "white" there are no other races. Someone with one black and one white parent looks black to you.
You think most problems could be solved if only people would put aside their prejudices and work together.
You take a strong court system for granted, even if you don't use it. You know that if you went into business and had problems with a customer, partner, or supplier, you could take them to court.
You'd respect someone who speaks French, German, or Japanese-- but you very likely don't yourself speak them well enough to communicate with a monolingual foreigner. You're a bit more ambivalent about Spanish; you think the schools should teach kids English.
It's not all that necessary to learn foreign languages anyway. You can travel the continent using nothing but English-- and get by pretty well in the rest of the world, too.
You think a tax level of 30% is scandalously high.
School is free through high school (at least, it's an option, even if you went to private school); college isn't, unless you get a scholarship.
College is (normally, and excluding graduate study) four years long. Everybody knows that
Mustard comes in jars. Shaving cream comes in cans. Milk comes in plastic jugs or cardboard boxes, and occasionally in bottles.
The date comes second: 11/22/63. (And you know what happened on that date.)
The decimal point is a dot. Certainly not a comma.
A billion is a thousand times a million.
World War II was a just war, and (granted all the suffering of course) ended all right. It was a time when the country came together and did what was right. And instead of insisting on vengeance, the US very generously rebuilt Europe instead, with the Marshall Plan.
You expect marriages to be made for love, not arranged by third parties. Getting married by a judge is an option, but not a requirement; most marriages happen in church. You have a best man and a maid or matron of honor at the wedding-- a friend or a sibling. And, naturally, a man gets only one wife at a time.
If a man has sex with another man, he's a homosexual.
Once you're introduced to someone (well, besides the President and other lofty figures), you can call them by their first name.
If you're a woman, you don't go to the beach topless.
A hotel room has a private bath.
You'd rather a film be subtitled than dubbed (if you go to foreign films at all).
You seriously expect to be able to transact business, or deal with the government, without paying bribes.
If a politican has been cheating on his wife, you would question his ability to govern.
Just about any store will take your credit card.
A company can fire just about anybody it wants, unless it discriminates by doing so.
You like your bacon crisp (unless it's Canadian bacon, of course).
Labor Day is in the fall. Contributions to world civilization
You've probably seen Star Wars, ET, Home Alone, Casablanca, and Snow White. If you're under forty, add Blazing Saddles, Terminator, Jaws, and 2001; otherwise, add Gone with the Wind, A Night at the Opera, Psycho, and Citizen Kane.
You know the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Michael Jackson, Simon & Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt. If not, you know Frank Sinatra, Al Jolson, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, and Kate Smith.
You count on excellent medical treatment. You know you're not going to die of cholera or other Third World diseases. You expect very strong measures to be taken to save very ill babies or people in their eighties. You think dying at 65 would be a tragedy.
You went over US history, and some European, in school, Not much Russian, Chinese, or Latin American. You couldn't name ten US interventions in Latin America.
You expect the military to fight wars, not get involved in politics. You may not be able to name the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Your country has never been conquered by a foreign nation.
You're used to a wide variety of choices for almost anything you buy.
You still measure things in feet, pounds, and gallons.
You are not a farmer.
Comics basically come in two varieties: newspaper comics and magazines; the latter pretty much all feature superheroes.
The people who appear on the most popular talk shows are mostly entertainers, politicians, or rather strange individuals. Certainly not, say, authors.
You drive on the right side of the road. You stop at red lights even if nobody's around. If you're a pedestrian and cars are stopped at a red light, you will fearlessly cross the street in front of them.
You think of Canada as a pleasant, peaceful, but rather dull country, which has suddenly developed an inexplicable problem in Québec. You probably couldn't explain why the Canadians didn't join the other British colonies in rebelling against King George.
You consider the Volkswagen Beetle to be a small car.
The police are armed, but not with submachine guns.
If a woman is plumper than the average, it doesn't improve her looks.
The biggest meal of the day is in the evening.
The nationality people most often make jokes about is the French.
There's parts of the city you definitely want to avoid at night. Outside the Beltway
You feel that your kind of people aren't being listened to enough in Washington.
You wouldn't expect both inflation and unemployment to be very high (say, over 15%) at the same time.
You don't care very much what family someone comes from.
The normal thing, when a couple dies, is for their estate to be divided equally between their children.
You think of opera and ballet as rather elite entertainments. It's likely you don't see that many plays, either.
Christmas is in the winter. Unless you're Jewish, you spend it with your family, give presents, and put up a tree.
You may think the church is too powerful, or the state is; but you are used to not having a state church and don't think that it would be a good idea.
You'd be hard pressed to name the capitals or the leaders of all the nations of Europe.
You aren't familiar with Mafalda, Lucky Luke, Corto Maltese, Milo Manara, Guido Crepax, Gotlib, or Moebius.
You've left a message at the beep.
Taxis are generally operated by foreigners, who are often deplorably ignorant about the city.
You are distrustful of welfare and unemployment payments-- you think people should earn a living and not take handouts. But you would not be in favor of eliminating Social Security and Medicare.
If you want to be a doctor, you need to get a bachelor's first.
There sure are a lot of lawyers. Space and time
If you have an appointment, you'll mutter an excuse if you're five minutes late, and apologize profusely if it's ten minutes. An hour late is almost inexcusable.
If you're talking to someone, you get uncomfortable if they approach closer than about two feet.
About the only things you expect to bargain for are houses, cars, and antiques. Haggling is largely a matter of finding the hidden point that's the buyer's minimum.
Once you're past college, you very rarely simply show up at someone's place. People have to invite each other over-- especially if a meal is involved.
When you negotiate, you are polite, of course, but it's only good business to 'play hardball'. Some foreigners pay excessive attention to status, or don't say what they mean, and that's exasperating.
If you have a business appointment or interview with someone, you expect to have that person to yourself, and the business shouldn't take more than an hour or so.
The following is a first crack at an ostensive definition of 'American culture'-- things shared by the vast majority (let's say 90%) of native-born Americans. Many of these won't sound 'cultural' at all to Americans; they'll sound like just descriptions of the way things are. But each one of them would be contested in one or more non-American cultures.
This test has spawned a growing host of responses (most of them better written than mine). To wit:
Canada
John Bayko and Damien Ponech
Quebec
Valérie Bourdeau
France
Nicolas Duvernois
Italy
Riccardo Distasi
Brazil
Emilio Neto
Mexico
Acoyani Garrido Sandoval
Colombia
Carlos Thompson
Scotland
Geoff Eddy
England
Justin M.
The Netherlands
Bas Suverkropp
Germany
Raphael Landeck
Sweden
Anders Janson
Ukraine
Vadim Urasov
Poland
Pawel Stachura
Greece
Chris TDAQ
Japan
Hirofumi Nagamura
New Zealand
Gareth Wilson
Australia
Chris O'Regan
South Africa
T'Mar
Turkey
Cyril Alebard
China
Agile Software students
India
Apurva Mishra
Offsite
Brittany
Damien Erwan Perrotin
Austria
Klaus A. Brunner
Finland
Johanna Laakso
Louisiana
Andrew Chaney
Texas
Tom Wier
Russia
W. Shedd and K. Andreyeva
Conworlds
Verduria
me
Skouras
me
Charya
Boudewijn Rempt
Khadra
wligon1
Gnomish
Aidan Elliott-McCrea
Nekilotyri
Joel Heikkila
Ill Bethisad
Over a dozen tests from a collaborative alternative history
These pages are all organized by nation or culture. Robert Delaney has put up an interesting page with the same information organized by subject.
--Mark Rosenfelder
If you're American...
You believe deep down in the First Amendment, guaranteed by the government and perhaps by God.
You're familiar with David Letterman, Mary Tyler Moore, Saturday Night Live, Bewitched, the Flintstones, Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby, Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Donald Duck, the Fonz, Archie Bunker, Star Trek, the Honeymooners, the Addams Family, the Three Stooges, and Beetle Bailey.
You know how baseball, basketball, and American football are played. If you're male, you can argue intricate points about their rules. On the other hand (and unless you're under about 20), you don't care that much for soccer.
You count yourself fortunate if you get three weeks of vacation a year. If you died tonight...
You're fairly likely to believe in God; if not, you've certainly been approached by people asking whether you know that you're going to Heaven.
You think of McDonald's, Burger King, KFC etc. as cheap food.
You probably own a telephone and a TV. Your place is heated in the winter and has its own bathroom. You do your laundry in a machine. You don't kill your own food. You don't have a dirt floor. You eat at a table, sitting on chairs.
You don't consider insects, dogs, cats, monkeys, or guinea pigs to be food.
A bathroom may not have a bathtub in it, but it certainly has a toilet.
It seems natural to you that the telephone system, railroads, auto manufacturers, airlines, and power companies are privately run; indeed, you can hardly picture things working differently.
You expect, as a matter of course, that the phones will work. Getting a new phone is routine.
The train system, by contrast, isn't very good. Trains don't go any faster than cars; you're better off taking a plane.
You find a two-party system natural. You expect the politicians of both parties to be responsive to business, strong on defense, and concerned with the middle class. You find parliamentary systems (such as Italy's) inefficient and comic.
You don't expect to hear socialism seriously defended. Communism, fuhgeddaboudit.
Between "black" and "white" there are no other races. Someone with one black and one white parent looks black to you.
You think most problems could be solved if only people would put aside their prejudices and work together.
You take a strong court system for granted, even if you don't use it. You know that if you went into business and had problems with a customer, partner, or supplier, you could take them to court.
You'd respect someone who speaks French, German, or Japanese-- but you very likely don't yourself speak them well enough to communicate with a monolingual foreigner. You're a bit more ambivalent about Spanish; you think the schools should teach kids English.
It's not all that necessary to learn foreign languages anyway. You can travel the continent using nothing but English-- and get by pretty well in the rest of the world, too.
You think a tax level of 30% is scandalously high.
School is free through high school (at least, it's an option, even if you went to private school); college isn't, unless you get a scholarship.
College is (normally, and excluding graduate study) four years long. Everybody knows that
Mustard comes in jars. Shaving cream comes in cans. Milk comes in plastic jugs or cardboard boxes, and occasionally in bottles.
The date comes second: 11/22/63. (And you know what happened on that date.)
The decimal point is a dot. Certainly not a comma.
A billion is a thousand times a million.
World War II was a just war, and (granted all the suffering of course) ended all right. It was a time when the country came together and did what was right. And instead of insisting on vengeance, the US very generously rebuilt Europe instead, with the Marshall Plan.
You expect marriages to be made for love, not arranged by third parties. Getting married by a judge is an option, but not a requirement; most marriages happen in church. You have a best man and a maid or matron of honor at the wedding-- a friend or a sibling. And, naturally, a man gets only one wife at a time.
If a man has sex with another man, he's a homosexual.
Once you're introduced to someone (well, besides the President and other lofty figures), you can call them by their first name.
If you're a woman, you don't go to the beach topless.
A hotel room has a private bath.
You'd rather a film be subtitled than dubbed (if you go to foreign films at all).
You seriously expect to be able to transact business, or deal with the government, without paying bribes.
If a politican has been cheating on his wife, you would question his ability to govern.
Just about any store will take your credit card.
A company can fire just about anybody it wants, unless it discriminates by doing so.
You like your bacon crisp (unless it's Canadian bacon, of course).
Labor Day is in the fall. Contributions to world civilization
You've probably seen Star Wars, ET, Home Alone, Casablanca, and Snow White. If you're under forty, add Blazing Saddles, Terminator, Jaws, and 2001; otherwise, add Gone with the Wind, A Night at the Opera, Psycho, and Citizen Kane.
You know the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Michael Jackson, Simon & Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt. If not, you know Frank Sinatra, Al Jolson, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, and Kate Smith.
You count on excellent medical treatment. You know you're not going to die of cholera or other Third World diseases. You expect very strong measures to be taken to save very ill babies or people in their eighties. You think dying at 65 would be a tragedy.
You went over US history, and some European, in school, Not much Russian, Chinese, or Latin American. You couldn't name ten US interventions in Latin America.
You expect the military to fight wars, not get involved in politics. You may not be able to name the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Your country has never been conquered by a foreign nation.
You're used to a wide variety of choices for almost anything you buy.
You still measure things in feet, pounds, and gallons.
You are not a farmer.
Comics basically come in two varieties: newspaper comics and magazines; the latter pretty much all feature superheroes.
The people who appear on the most popular talk shows are mostly entertainers, politicians, or rather strange individuals. Certainly not, say, authors.
You drive on the right side of the road. You stop at red lights even if nobody's around. If you're a pedestrian and cars are stopped at a red light, you will fearlessly cross the street in front of them.
You think of Canada as a pleasant, peaceful, but rather dull country, which has suddenly developed an inexplicable problem in Québec. You probably couldn't explain why the Canadians didn't join the other British colonies in rebelling against King George.
You consider the Volkswagen Beetle to be a small car.
The police are armed, but not with submachine guns.
If a woman is plumper than the average, it doesn't improve her looks.
The biggest meal of the day is in the evening.
The nationality people most often make jokes about is the French.
There's parts of the city you definitely want to avoid at night. Outside the Beltway
You feel that your kind of people aren't being listened to enough in Washington.
You wouldn't expect both inflation and unemployment to be very high (say, over 15%) at the same time.
You don't care very much what family someone comes from.
The normal thing, when a couple dies, is for their estate to be divided equally between their children.
You think of opera and ballet as rather elite entertainments. It's likely you don't see that many plays, either.
Christmas is in the winter. Unless you're Jewish, you spend it with your family, give presents, and put up a tree.
You may think the church is too powerful, or the state is; but you are used to not having a state church and don't think that it would be a good idea.
You'd be hard pressed to name the capitals or the leaders of all the nations of Europe.
You aren't familiar with Mafalda, Lucky Luke, Corto Maltese, Milo Manara, Guido Crepax, Gotlib, or Moebius.
You've left a message at the beep.
Taxis are generally operated by foreigners, who are often deplorably ignorant about the city.
You are distrustful of welfare and unemployment payments-- you think people should earn a living and not take handouts. But you would not be in favor of eliminating Social Security and Medicare.
If you want to be a doctor, you need to get a bachelor's first.
There sure are a lot of lawyers. Space and time
If you have an appointment, you'll mutter an excuse if you're five minutes late, and apologize profusely if it's ten minutes. An hour late is almost inexcusable.
If you're talking to someone, you get uncomfortable if they approach closer than about two feet.
About the only things you expect to bargain for are houses, cars, and antiques. Haggling is largely a matter of finding the hidden point that's the buyer's minimum.
Once you're past college, you very rarely simply show up at someone's place. People have to invite each other over-- especially if a meal is involved.
When you negotiate, you are polite, of course, but it's only good business to 'play hardball'. Some foreigners pay excessive attention to status, or don't say what they mean, and that's exasperating.
If you have a business appointment or interview with someone, you expect to have that person to yourself, and the business shouldn't take more than an hour or so.
Culture of the United States
The development of the culture of the United States of America—music, cinema, dance, architecture, literature, poetry, cuisine and the visual arts—has been marked by a tension between two strong sources of inspiration: European sophistication and domestic originality.
American music is heard all over the world, such as through MTV, Channel V, VH1 and by singers such as Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Cyndi Lauper, Mariah Carey, and the Backstreet Boys; American movies and television shows can be seen almost anywhere[citation needed], including icons like Star Wars, Titanic and The Matrix; American sports figures are widely known, such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Venus Williams, Mike Tyson and Michael Johnson; and American movie actors and actresses are widely recognized such as Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Marilyn Monroe, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Cruise. This is in very stark contrast to the early days of the American republic, when the country was generally seen as an agricultural backwater with little to offer the culturally advanced world centers of Europe and Asia. At the beginning of her fifth century, nearly every major American city offers classical and popular music; historical, scientific and art research centers and museums; dance performances, musicals and plays; outdoor art projects and internationally significant architecture. This development is a result of both contributions by private philanthropists and government funding.
One way that American culture differs from that of similar countries (e.g. Canada and the United Kingdom) is that American culture exhibits a tendency to hybridize pop culture and so-called high culture, and generally questions normative standards for artistic output.[citation needed] This is likely an effect of the country's egalitarian tradition, and the nation's history of constitutionally protected freedom of speech and expression, as enshrined in the First Amendment.
Contents[hide]
1 Literature
1.1 Poetry
1.2 Comic books
2 Television
3 Dance
4 Visual arts
4.1 Architecture
4.2 Sculpture
5 Theater
6 Cuisine
7 Fashion
8 Popular culture
8.1 Exportation of popular culture
9 References
10 See also
//
[edit] Literature
Main article: Literature of the United States
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, American art and literature took most of its cues from Europe. Writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau established a distinctive American literary voice by the middle of the nineteenth century. Mark Twain and poet Walt Whitman were major figures in the century's second half; Emily Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, would be recognized as America's other essential poet. Eleven U.S. citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently Toni Morrison in 1993. Ernest Hemingway, the 1954 Nobel laureate, is often named as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century.[1] A work seen as capturing fundamental aspects of the national experience and character—such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925)—may be dubbed the "Great American Novel." Popular literary genres such as the Western and hardboiled crime fiction developed in the United States.
[edit] Poetry
Main article: Poetry of the United States
The poetry of the United States naturally arose first during its beginnings as the Constitutionally-unified thirteen colonies (although prior to this, a strong oral tradition often likened to poetry existed among Native American societies[2]). Unsurprisingly, most of the early colonists' work relied on contemporary British models of poetic form, diction, and theme. However, in the 19th century, a distinctive American idiom began to emerge. By the later part of that century, when Walt Whitman was winning an enthusiastic audience abroad, poets from the United States had begun to take their place at the forefront of the English-language avant-garde.
This position was sustained into the 20th century to the extent that Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot were perhaps the most influential English-language poets in the period during World War I.[3] Toward the end of the millennium, consideration of American poetry had diversified, as scholars placed an increased emphasis on poetry by women, African Americans, Hispanics, Chicanos and other subcultural groupings. Poetry, and creative writing in general, also tended to become more professionalized with the growth of creative writing programs in the English studies departments of campuses across the country.
[edit] Comic books
Main article: American comic book
Since the invention of the comic book format in the 1930s, the United States has been the leading producer with only the British comic books and the Japanese manga as close competitors in terms of quantity.
Comic book sales began to decline after World War II, when the medium was competing with the spread of television and mass market paperback books. In the 1960s, comic books' audience expanded to include college students who favored the naturalistic, "superheroes in the real world" trend initiated by Stan Lee at Marvel Comics. The 1960s also saw the advent of the underground comics. Later, the recognition of the comic medium among academics, literary critics and art museums helped solidify comics as a serious artform with established traditions, stylistic conventions, and artistic evolution.
[edit] Television
Main article: Television in the United States
Television is one of the major mass media of the United States. In an expansive country of more than 300 million people, television program is one of the many things all Americans can share. Ninety-nine percent of American households have at least one television and the majority of households have more than one.
[edit] Dance
Main article: Dance in the United States
There is great variety in dance in the United States, it is the home of the Lindy Hop and its derivative Rock and Roll, and modern square dance (associated with the United States of America due to its historic development in that country--nineteen U.S. states have designated it as their official state dance) and one of the major centers for modern dance. There is a variety of social dance and concert or performance dance forms with also a range of traditions of Native American dances.
[edit] Visual arts
Main article: Visual arts of the United States
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, American artists primarily painted landscapes and portraits in a realistic style. A parallel development taking shape in rural America was the American craft movement, which began as a reaction to the industrial revolution. Developments in modern art in Europe came to America from exhibitions in New York City such as the Armory Show in 1913. After World War II, New York replaced Paris as the center of the art world. Painting in the United States today covers a vast range of styles.
[edit] Architecture
Main article: Architecture of the United States
The United States has a history of architecture that includes a wide variety of styles.
The United States of America is a relatively young country, and the Native Americans did not leave any buildings comparable to the grandeur of those in Mexico or Peru. For this reason, the overriding theme of American Architecture is modernity: the skyscrapers of the 20th century are the ultimate symbol of this modernity.
Architecture in the US is regionally diverse and has been shaped by many external forces, not only English. US Architecture can therefore be said to be eclectic, something unsurprising in such a multicultural society.
[edit] Sculpture
Main article: Sculpture of the United States
The history of sculpture in the United States reflects the country's 18th century foundation in Roman republican civic values as well as Protestant Christianity, both of which sought truth in the spoken word of orator or minister and neither of which required the visualizaton of magnificence, power, solemnity, or profundity that characterized the sculptural traditions of European (as well as Asian) civilizations.
[edit] Theater
Main article: Theater in the United States
Theater of the United States is based in the Western tradition, mostly borrowed from the performance styles prevalent in Europe, especially England. Today, it is heavily interlaced with American literature, film, television, and music, and it is not uncommon for a single story to appear in all forms. Regions with significant music scenes often have strong theater and comedy traditions as well. Musical theater may be the most popular form: it is certainly the most colorful, and choreographed motions pioneered on stage have found their way onto movie and television screens. Broadway in New York City is generally considered the pinnacle of commercial U.S. theater, though this art form appears all across the country. Off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway diversify the theatre experience in New York. Another city of particular note is Chicago, which boasts the most diverse and dynamic theater scene in the country. Regional or resident theatres in the United States are professional theatre companies outside of New York City that produce their own seasons. There is also community theatre and showcase theatre (performing arts group). Even tiny rural communities sometimes awe audiences with extravagant productions.
[edit] Cuisine
Main article: Cuisine of the United States
Mainstream American culinary arts are similar to those in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses ingredients such as turkey, white-tailed deer venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, indigenous foods employed by Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American styles. Soul food, developed by African slaves, is popular around the South and among many African Americans elsewhere. Syncretic cuisines such as Louisiana creole, Cajun, and Tex-Mex are regionally important. Iconic American dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants. So-called French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed.[4] Americans generally prefer coffee to tea, with more than half the adult population drinking at least one cup a day.[5] Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk (now often fat-reduced) ubiquitous breakfast beverages.[6] During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%;[4] frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what health officials call the American "obesity epidemic." Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular; sugared beverages account for 9% of the average American's daily caloric intake.[7]
[edit] Fashion
Main article: Fashion in the United States
Apart from professional business attire, fashion in the United States is eclectic and predominantly informal. Blue jeans were popularized as work clothes in the 1850s by merchant Levi Strauss, a German immigrant in San Francisco, and adopted by many American teenagers a century later. They are now widely worn on every continent by people of all ages and social classes. Along with mass-marketed informal wear in general, blue jeans are arguably U.S. culture's primary contribution to global fashion.[8] The country is also home to the headquarters of many leading designer labels such as Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Labels such as Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, Hollister, and Eckō cater to various niche markets.
[edit] Popular culture
American popular culture has expressed itself through nearly every medium, including movies, music, and sports. Mickey Mouse, Barbie, Elvis Presley, Madonna, Aerosmith, Babe Ruth, Baseball, American football, Basketball, screwball comedy, G.I. Joe, jazz, the blues, Rap & Hip Hop, The Simpsons, Michael Jackson, Superman, Gone with the Wind, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jordan, Indiana Jones, Sesame Street, Catch-22—these names, genres, and phrases have joined more tangible American products in spreading across the globe.
It is worth noting that while the U.S. tends to be a net exporter of culture, it absorbs many other cultural traditions with relative ease, for example: origami, soccer, anime, and yoga.
It can be argued that this ability to easily absorb parts of other cultures and other languages is its greatest strength and helps American culture and language spread. Americans in general do not worry about protecting their "indigenous culture" (see below) but instead eagerly create and adopt new things and then change or modify to make them their own.
[edit] Exportation of popular culture
The United States is an enormous exporter of entertainment, especially television, movies and music. This readily consumable form of culture is widely and cheaply dispersed for entertainment consumers worldwide. It's even considered to be an "entertainment superpower" along with Europe, India, and Japan.
Many nations now have two cultures: an indigenous one and globalized/American popular culture. That said, what one society considers entertainment is not necessarily reflective of the "true culture" of its people. More popular syndicated programs cost more, so overseas entertainment purchasers often choose older programs that reflect various, and dated, stages of United States cultural development. Pop culture also tends to neglect the more mundane and/or complex elements of human life
American music is heard all over the world, such as through MTV, Channel V, VH1 and by singers such as Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Cyndi Lauper, Mariah Carey, and the Backstreet Boys; American movies and television shows can be seen almost anywhere[citation needed], including icons like Star Wars, Titanic and The Matrix; American sports figures are widely known, such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Venus Williams, Mike Tyson and Michael Johnson; and American movie actors and actresses are widely recognized such as Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Marilyn Monroe, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Cruise. This is in very stark contrast to the early days of the American republic, when the country was generally seen as an agricultural backwater with little to offer the culturally advanced world centers of Europe and Asia. At the beginning of her fifth century, nearly every major American city offers classical and popular music; historical, scientific and art research centers and museums; dance performances, musicals and plays; outdoor art projects and internationally significant architecture. This development is a result of both contributions by private philanthropists and government funding.
One way that American culture differs from that of similar countries (e.g. Canada and the United Kingdom) is that American culture exhibits a tendency to hybridize pop culture and so-called high culture, and generally questions normative standards for artistic output.[citation needed] This is likely an effect of the country's egalitarian tradition, and the nation's history of constitutionally protected freedom of speech and expression, as enshrined in the First Amendment.
Contents[hide]
1 Literature
1.1 Poetry
1.2 Comic books
2 Television
3 Dance
4 Visual arts
4.1 Architecture
4.2 Sculpture
5 Theater
6 Cuisine
7 Fashion
8 Popular culture
8.1 Exportation of popular culture
9 References
10 See also
//
[edit] Literature
Main article: Literature of the United States
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, American art and literature took most of its cues from Europe. Writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau established a distinctive American literary voice by the middle of the nineteenth century. Mark Twain and poet Walt Whitman were major figures in the century's second half; Emily Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, would be recognized as America's other essential poet. Eleven U.S. citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently Toni Morrison in 1993. Ernest Hemingway, the 1954 Nobel laureate, is often named as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century.[1] A work seen as capturing fundamental aspects of the national experience and character—such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925)—may be dubbed the "Great American Novel." Popular literary genres such as the Western and hardboiled crime fiction developed in the United States.
[edit] Poetry
Main article: Poetry of the United States
The poetry of the United States naturally arose first during its beginnings as the Constitutionally-unified thirteen colonies (although prior to this, a strong oral tradition often likened to poetry existed among Native American societies[2]). Unsurprisingly, most of the early colonists' work relied on contemporary British models of poetic form, diction, and theme. However, in the 19th century, a distinctive American idiom began to emerge. By the later part of that century, when Walt Whitman was winning an enthusiastic audience abroad, poets from the United States had begun to take their place at the forefront of the English-language avant-garde.
This position was sustained into the 20th century to the extent that Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot were perhaps the most influential English-language poets in the period during World War I.[3] Toward the end of the millennium, consideration of American poetry had diversified, as scholars placed an increased emphasis on poetry by women, African Americans, Hispanics, Chicanos and other subcultural groupings. Poetry, and creative writing in general, also tended to become more professionalized with the growth of creative writing programs in the English studies departments of campuses across the country.
[edit] Comic books
Main article: American comic book
Since the invention of the comic book format in the 1930s, the United States has been the leading producer with only the British comic books and the Japanese manga as close competitors in terms of quantity.
Comic book sales began to decline after World War II, when the medium was competing with the spread of television and mass market paperback books. In the 1960s, comic books' audience expanded to include college students who favored the naturalistic, "superheroes in the real world" trend initiated by Stan Lee at Marvel Comics. The 1960s also saw the advent of the underground comics. Later, the recognition of the comic medium among academics, literary critics and art museums helped solidify comics as a serious artform with established traditions, stylistic conventions, and artistic evolution.
[edit] Television
Main article: Television in the United States
Television is one of the major mass media of the United States. In an expansive country of more than 300 million people, television program is one of the many things all Americans can share. Ninety-nine percent of American households have at least one television and the majority of households have more than one.
[edit] Dance
Main article: Dance in the United States
There is great variety in dance in the United States, it is the home of the Lindy Hop and its derivative Rock and Roll, and modern square dance (associated with the United States of America due to its historic development in that country--nineteen U.S. states have designated it as their official state dance) and one of the major centers for modern dance. There is a variety of social dance and concert or performance dance forms with also a range of traditions of Native American dances.
[edit] Visual arts
Main article: Visual arts of the United States
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, American artists primarily painted landscapes and portraits in a realistic style. A parallel development taking shape in rural America was the American craft movement, which began as a reaction to the industrial revolution. Developments in modern art in Europe came to America from exhibitions in New York City such as the Armory Show in 1913. After World War II, New York replaced Paris as the center of the art world. Painting in the United States today covers a vast range of styles.
[edit] Architecture
Main article: Architecture of the United States
The United States has a history of architecture that includes a wide variety of styles.
The United States of America is a relatively young country, and the Native Americans did not leave any buildings comparable to the grandeur of those in Mexico or Peru. For this reason, the overriding theme of American Architecture is modernity: the skyscrapers of the 20th century are the ultimate symbol of this modernity.
Architecture in the US is regionally diverse and has been shaped by many external forces, not only English. US Architecture can therefore be said to be eclectic, something unsurprising in such a multicultural society.
[edit] Sculpture
Main article: Sculpture of the United States
The history of sculpture in the United States reflects the country's 18th century foundation in Roman republican civic values as well as Protestant Christianity, both of which sought truth in the spoken word of orator or minister and neither of which required the visualizaton of magnificence, power, solemnity, or profundity that characterized the sculptural traditions of European (as well as Asian) civilizations.
[edit] Theater
Main article: Theater in the United States
Theater of the United States is based in the Western tradition, mostly borrowed from the performance styles prevalent in Europe, especially England. Today, it is heavily interlaced with American literature, film, television, and music, and it is not uncommon for a single story to appear in all forms. Regions with significant music scenes often have strong theater and comedy traditions as well. Musical theater may be the most popular form: it is certainly the most colorful, and choreographed motions pioneered on stage have found their way onto movie and television screens. Broadway in New York City is generally considered the pinnacle of commercial U.S. theater, though this art form appears all across the country. Off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway diversify the theatre experience in New York. Another city of particular note is Chicago, which boasts the most diverse and dynamic theater scene in the country. Regional or resident theatres in the United States are professional theatre companies outside of New York City that produce their own seasons. There is also community theatre and showcase theatre (performing arts group). Even tiny rural communities sometimes awe audiences with extravagant productions.
[edit] Cuisine
Main article: Cuisine of the United States
Mainstream American culinary arts are similar to those in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses ingredients such as turkey, white-tailed deer venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, indigenous foods employed by Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American styles. Soul food, developed by African slaves, is popular around the South and among many African Americans elsewhere. Syncretic cuisines such as Louisiana creole, Cajun, and Tex-Mex are regionally important. Iconic American dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants. So-called French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed.[4] Americans generally prefer coffee to tea, with more than half the adult population drinking at least one cup a day.[5] Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk (now often fat-reduced) ubiquitous breakfast beverages.[6] During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%;[4] frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what health officials call the American "obesity epidemic." Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular; sugared beverages account for 9% of the average American's daily caloric intake.[7]
[edit] Fashion
Main article: Fashion in the United States
Apart from professional business attire, fashion in the United States is eclectic and predominantly informal. Blue jeans were popularized as work clothes in the 1850s by merchant Levi Strauss, a German immigrant in San Francisco, and adopted by many American teenagers a century later. They are now widely worn on every continent by people of all ages and social classes. Along with mass-marketed informal wear in general, blue jeans are arguably U.S. culture's primary contribution to global fashion.[8] The country is also home to the headquarters of many leading designer labels such as Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Labels such as Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, Hollister, and Eckō cater to various niche markets.
[edit] Popular culture
American popular culture has expressed itself through nearly every medium, including movies, music, and sports. Mickey Mouse, Barbie, Elvis Presley, Madonna, Aerosmith, Babe Ruth, Baseball, American football, Basketball, screwball comedy, G.I. Joe, jazz, the blues, Rap & Hip Hop, The Simpsons, Michael Jackson, Superman, Gone with the Wind, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jordan, Indiana Jones, Sesame Street, Catch-22—these names, genres, and phrases have joined more tangible American products in spreading across the globe.
It is worth noting that while the U.S. tends to be a net exporter of culture, it absorbs many other cultural traditions with relative ease, for example: origami, soccer, anime, and yoga.
It can be argued that this ability to easily absorb parts of other cultures and other languages is its greatest strength and helps American culture and language spread. Americans in general do not worry about protecting their "indigenous culture" (see below) but instead eagerly create and adopt new things and then change or modify to make them their own.
[edit] Exportation of popular culture
The United States is an enormous exporter of entertainment, especially television, movies and music. This readily consumable form of culture is widely and cheaply dispersed for entertainment consumers worldwide. It's even considered to be an "entertainment superpower" along with Europe, India, and Japan.
Many nations now have two cultures: an indigenous one and globalized/American popular culture. That said, what one society considers entertainment is not necessarily reflective of the "true culture" of its people. More popular syndicated programs cost more, so overseas entertainment purchasers often choose older programs that reflect various, and dated, stages of United States cultural development. Pop culture also tends to neglect the more mundane and/or complex elements of human life
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