I have a question about the reaction of the audience to something Roy or Jessie said when they were being pulled down of
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Screen-7 — 16 years ago(September 28, 2009 08:03 PM)
They said something like: "You can't do this to us, we're American!!" I watched this in Spain and here the audience laughed at that line, and I think it wasn't supposed to be funny.
I think it was supposed to be humorous but in an "insider" way.
Like how some conservatives don't realize that The Colbert Report is actually mocking them. It makes it all the funnier knowing that. -
buddy6102 — 16 years ago(September 29, 2009 10:48 AM)
As an American I can tell you that we are truly spoiled by our Constitution. We've never had to worry about our homes being invaded or being "questioned" by corrupt police officers. Most of us have never known poverty, starvation or desperation. Things like kidnapping, organized crime, and human trafficking are federal crimes and they rarely enter our personal radar and if they do it's only on the news and we are only shown how the FBI has "broken it up". Never that it's ongoing.
But as my wife, who's from Mexico City, says all the time, "Gringos never think that anything bad can happen to them."
So yeah we chuckled a little bit but kinda understood it. -
ganiscol — 16 years ago(October 12, 2009 07:02 AM)
All the points you state are also true for most of europe - I guess we're also spoiled by our countries
I'm saying this, because you (from my point of view) seem to imply that this is an almost exclusive privilege of being a US citizen, which is of course false and sort of nails the point home of the thread starter.
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buddy6102 — 16 years ago(October 12, 2009 07:53 AM)
No no no, please don't get me wrong. I didn't try to say it's an exclusive privilege of being a US citizen. Even though I've been to other countries, I feel I can only speak on my views and observations and things that I've witnessed in my home country. As well as casual conversations I have had with foreign nationals. I possess no education or experience in Foreign Governments and was simply trying to offer up my opinion as an everyday, John Q. Public American as to why the character said what he did out of desperation.
Plus, if you watch a lot of movies like The Ruins, Turistas, Trade, Taken, or Hostel you will see a lot of Americans in foreign countries making really bad, incredibly naive choices and then say, "But we're americans?"
And for the people that say, "Oh these are just bad movies.", think of the 18 year old American girl from Alabama who went missing in Aruba back in 2005. She appears to have been a gullible, ignorant girl who smoked pot and drank with some locals and now she is gone forever because she most likely thought "that nothing bad could happen". We know her story because she came from money and her parents offered up a huge reward and her stepfather had a little political influence. Imagine all the stories we don't hear about. -
Screen-7 — 16 years ago(January 10, 2010 10:20 PM)
As an American, I totally got your original point that many Americans have an almost abstract view of catastrophe. It's something that happens to other people.
It not only makes us feel invulnerable, I think it also makes us insensitive to the suffering of others outside America.
Of course, this is probably not just an American thing but we should only speak for ourselves. -
Dollhouse_89 — 16 years ago(November 01, 2009 12:15 PM)
i am an american. when i heard that line i sort or raised and eyebrow and chuckled. i thought "is that supposed to mean something"?
i didn't know if they were supposed to be under the impression that their american origin somehow made them important or if they wanted the other people to think "hey someone is going to come down hard on this place if these americans go missing". -
Sabracad — 16 years ago(November 07, 2009 07:29 PM)
Yes it was meant to be funny and yes there is a perception that all Americans think they are untouchable and the words "we're American" will solve all problems.
I'm not sure where this perception came from.
I almost came as a Shark actually, but then I realised that an Eagle was slightly better. -
g-463 — 16 years ago(December 06, 2009 03:30 AM)
It's meant to be kinda funny, yes. But it's also something someone might say in a situation like that. They're under the impression that this is how Russians take care of business. They don't yet know that Ben Kingsley's character is a crooked cop.
Plus, the movie recognized that this was a humorous line. That's why Ben Kingsley's character said, "They're American. Shoot him in the knee." -
LawDawg95 — 16 years ago(December 29, 2009 04:37 PM)
like Roy & Jessie would never say that.
But to most Americans who rarely travel outside the U.S. this would seem like a reasonable protest to make. It would seem like a realistic statement to most Americans. -
itsmymailaccount — 15 years ago(April 26, 2010 07:58 PM)
Nobody in America really cared one way or the other. The thing is in Spain, and probably most of the rest of the world, you apparently obsess about America and American culture. Here, I hate to say it, most Americans don't give a moment's thought about the rest of the world. We sort of like British TV shows and music, and that's about it. The rest of the world is a quaint Disneyland to us. Sorry to burst your bubble that Americans were somehow sitting around thinking about that line one way or the other. The reality is most Americans didn't see this movie, those that did forgot it two minutes after it ended, and those that did certainly didn't think about that line at all. But we're glad the line gave you a few moments of escape from your life of bullfighting and poverty though
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Shteve3 — 15 years ago(May 05, 2010 04:54 PM)
I was kind of taken aback by this line too (I'm American) but I think what Roy was getting at is that they stand out in Russia because they are American and it would be noticeable if they were missing. At least that's what I tell myself to be convinced that Roy wasn't an idiot. Except his character is a littlenaive, I guess. I don't know; just throwing that out there.
I think beep just happens, but that's just me. -
Kronborggade — 15 years ago(June 03, 2010 05:25 PM)
At first I found the line stupid, but I believe that his intention was to state that they as foreign citizens have rights and are to be treated according to international laws. The line just came out goofy and should have been rewritten. Or ditched.
Do Americans really feel more protected because of their foreign policies? Well, some do I guess and some don't. I would like to think that my country (Denmark) would do what it could to help me, should I accidently end up in a siberian beep (or just a simple cartoon-misunderstanding about bombs and turbans).
*** IMDB beeped me. The line was 'siberian gangster/drugs/beep-up. Figure out the beep yourself. *** -
donald-rando — 15 years ago(June 06, 2010 03:42 PM)
I didn't laugh, but I can see why some would. It is like black comedy I guess, laughing at their foolishness for their thinking their citizenship should protect them. When they say we are american they should be saying we are humans, sadly that may not mean much to some people either.
How am I not myself?