Can you notice that it’s a bit leaning to the right?
American in Italy here! I am not justifying this, just explaining it from an Italian perspective. First, the paper is not mixing up her Indian heritage here with Native American. They took the idea that she is seeking a white male VP running mate and wrote “hunting for a white man”, which conjured up a “funny” homage to native Americans in spaghetti westerns, while giving a nod and a wink to the racism inherent in making the VP pick race-based. Second, this paper is a sensationalist rag sold in grocery store checkout lanes, with no expectation for the stories to be good, or free of any number of unsavory isms.
native Americans in spaghetti westerns.
I’m not sure how it is in Italy, but a lot of the older Italians I know absolutely love old westerns (of… Varying quality)
Spaghetti westerns are called that because they originate from Italy.
Yep. They also created giant groups of people who think the saguaro cactus grows in Texas.
It…it doesn’t?
Yeah, the American West has a huge variety of very distinct biomes. For the purpose of telling a story though, one rocky desert or forested mountain vale or whatever is as good as another, leaving us, the audience, largely unaware and misled. We mostly only notice when they do that to areas we’re familiar with.
Reminds me of the movie The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson. There’s a scene where he is at his home in what is clearly the upcountry of South Carolina not too far from the Appalachians and he takes a walk down his garden path to visit his wife’s grave, which is located in the South Carolina lowcountry, by the coast, somehow skipping past over a hundred miles of pine forest that would have been between those areas. If you’re not familiar with those areas, they both just look like areas in the American Southeast, but if you are familiar, it’s very jarring.
I had a similar experience with the TV show, Broadchurch.
I lived in one of the towns where it was filmed. The church, two of the main characters’ houses, the newspaper office, the high street, and the mechanic garage in the second season were all filmed in Clevedon, near Bristol. I lived about 100m from the church while they were filming it.
Watching the show, they’d walk down a familiar road, turn a corner, and suddenly they’d be on a beach in Dorset, 70 miles away. It was always jarring.
Great show though.
For me as an Italian it was quantum of solace. He’s fleeing from police in west Liguria, then somehow he makes a turn, loses them and he’s in Siena - a bit unlikely that with a flashy and broken car like that he would have been unnoticed by police as it’s at least 5 hours of toll highway or 12 hours of local roads. (And the European police cars were doing American police sounds, ultra weird)
Completely ruined the immersion for me, that’s the only part that I remember of the movie
I watched some Gal Gadot movie recently, where she got on a motorbike in the far north of Iceland (Isafjordur airport) and rode to Reykjavik opera house in a matter of minutes. I’d consider both of these places to be somewhat landmarks as well.
But it didn’t ruin it for me because it was terrible long before that. Arguably at the script and casting stages.
AZ and CA, and Mexico are where they grow, I believe.
Huh, TIL.
Cacti are fake!
https://images.app.goo.gl/qfnYjgEpkjR7M8FH7
!A joke obviously, this is actually the cell companies hiding their infrastructure from aliens!<
Oh that’s super broken on my app. I’ll make sure to switch to the website if I want to do spoilers in the future.
Westerns are generally quite liked by the older generation. Leone’s masterpieces are definitely cult movies that most people have watched.
Second, this paper is a sensationalist rag sold in grocery store checkout lanes,
ah, that explains it.
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Yes, this about covers it (correctly).
And it is pointing at racism (it’s no secret the “had” to get a white male of certain age).
Also I think the Indian part was used just because of that additional funny coincidence. It’s not not funny, but far from good. … tho thinking about it now - using the same joke by having Adolfy depicted as Crocodile Dundee, while still not lol funny, does seem kinda funny.
To be fair the Italians have a 500+ year history of mixing up Indigenous Americans and Indians.
It’s tradition!
spice-y take!
No, literally. Columbus thought he was landing in South Asia.
Pretty sure it was just a joke about spice and Indian food
Europeans: Americans are so obsessed with race
Also Europeans:
This has almost nothing to do with race (or at least with hers), it’s just a dumb analogy to play with the title in a western movie fashion. “Hunting the white man” refers to the search for a white vice-president that would play well with “wasp” population.
Basic Americans don’t understand nuance or that other places have different ideas. To an American everything is done through America lens which frequently looks idiotic or poorly educated from outside.
I think any country would come asking questions if their political leaders were pictured with culturally sensitive stuff like this. Imagine if a mid tier US paper put modi in half Hindu half Muslim traditional clothing. To us it’s a quick way to talk about the two biggest religions in that country. Modi would be pissed though.
Using a muslim and hindus here is funny, those guys can get riled over nothing burger fake shit spread on via social media… these clowns are not serious people but they do cause serious violence.
That was the point yes.
So rest of the world should be accommodating degeneracy?
Oh twisted takes! This is a fun game! Let me try!
Did you just suggest Hindus and Muslims are degenerate people?
OK, but there is a context that can be analyzed 10 seconds before jumping to conclusions. To be clear, this newspaper is still shit, but the reason people are getting upset are superficial and based on a wrong interpretation.
So the process for me is: oh this image looks racist/culturally insensitive -> let me understand how is it possible that such thing has been used -> the image is supposed to have something to do with westerns, which are a cultural feature of the people who used the image -> my cultural interpretation that made it racist or cultural insensitive does not specifically apply.
So questions are definitely welcome, and I think people are right to question, but people (for example in this thread) didn’t look for questions, arrived already with conclusions, assuming that their cultural lens was the only appropriate one to look at this fact, without even understanding the context (not even the cultural one, just what is written on the page).
This argument holds no water.
The idea that it’s exempt from accusations of racism because it’s unaware that it’s being racist just doesn’t track.
I would say that racism is not something that exists in a vacuum and instead has intent, has an ideology behind and in many cases has also a goal. So yeah, I disagree with you fundamentally.
Racism doesn’t have to have intent. Racism can’t exist in a vacuum- that’s true- but the only context it needs is the concept of race.
A fantastic example would be rolling up all the Native American tribe into one group. Or attributing anything, even conceptually, to that group.
You don’t have to be aware that this is incorrect for it to qualify as racism, and you don’t have to have an intent about making that attribution to be wrong in doing so.
That’s because there’s a large part of the US that’s done coddling racism. Whether it’s intentional, ignorance, or systemic. It’s 2024, the Internet is available. There’s no longer an excuse for this.
I think I am stopping one step before you. Which is understanding whether something is racist or not. Using purely your cultural understanding to define it is going to lead to misunderstandings. In this case, understanding the context and the real intent of the picture makes it pretty clear that race has nothing to do with it. If you choose not to understand the context and just mark as racist anything that if done in another context would be racist, be my guest, I will just disagree.
Race has everything to do with it.
What’s ironic is you’re displaying exactly what you’re critiquing. This joke is a bit funny, but it’s on par with something like “Prince Charles asks NRA to fix his car”. There’s just baggage. And lord knows Italy has plenty of its own.
And lord knows Italy has plenty of its own.
Not when it comes to Native Americans though.
Considering that this is a national newspaper meant for locals, I don’t think other culture’s baggage should necessarily be taken in consideration.
You do you, it’s just in poor taste. It’s not the end of the world or anything, it’s just funny to me that it’s the same thing “boorish Americans” get flack for.
Personally, if I think about reversed roles (I.e. some US newspaper putting an Italian gangster hat - a-la The Godfather to some politician with some offer-related pun) I wouldn’t think of it as racist, I would understand it’s not a statement about Italians in general. This also considering that being a gangster of course has plenty of negative connotations.
The whole thing feels to me like the attitude that is made fun on in Parks and Recreation and the Wamapoke. But anyway, the newspaper is shit and to be honest I find the substance of the article way worse than the image.
I mean you’re spot on, it’s really not the end of the world, and you’re correct on the parks and rec.
I think people get prickly because of what you mentioned about the substance of the article probably being way worse, everyone’s just primed these days lol. We’re kind of sorting some shit out over here…
Anyway thanks for the conversation, it’s always fun to see your own culture through someone else’s eyes.
You do you, it’s just in poor taste.
This is the issue @sunzu@kbin.run is getting at. You saying it’s “in poor taste” is through the lens of what is considered “good taste” for Americans.
For instance, in my country, Finland, there’d be a lot of things Americans would generally find “in poor taste”. The most obvious example being that we don’t consider the naked human body to be inherently sexual, whereas Americans are really prudish about that sort of thing. So a lot of things related to sauna and mökki culture would be considered “in poor taste” for Americans, but they would not be so here. We also never tip (because we actually pay our workers.)
It’s ironic how you’re incapable of imagining another viewpoint in a debate where someone is trying to point out how bad Americans are at imagining other viewpoints.
“You do you.” Yeah. We do do we, that’s why the cultural values and what is “in poor taste” is different…?
I guess what it comes down to is there a plenty of things, big and small, that I don’t have an issue with as an American but I know matter to the other person. Usually it’s small stuff (how people comport themselves in relation to work, the line between direct and rude, etc) , but when it comes to things where people died, I think it’s best to defer to the people involved.
Maybe that’s a trap of my upbringing as well but I don’t see that as American lens, I see that as recognizing there are a lot of lenses.
And again, the original joke is decent, its a role reversal and punches up not down, but I wouldn’t want an American paper making jokes about Finnish biathalon Olympians spanking the Russians.
Any joke with cultural baggage carries the risk you miss context. Again, I don’t think that’s just true for Americans.
This isn’t coming from a naive, “regular Joe” Italian. News papers should be a bit better about international sensitives.
You literally missed the point I am making here lol
They did on purpose and you are still getting bent out of shape to fit his into American world view.
Why would you think a news paper in italy would give two fucks about “international sensitivities” around a foreign state’s leader? Where does this idea come from?
Further down the threat, a local revealed it was from a grocery store rag, not a legit news paper. So the imagery makes more sense.
As far as way a legit, local news paper would want to care about “international sensitivities”, Professionalism would be one. As an American, if an American news paper used Chinese stereotypes or Yellow Face in an article about Japanese politicians, I would expect both Americans and Japanese People to be outraged.
a local revealed it was from a grocery store rag, not a legit news paper
Not really, it is a legit newspaper. A shitty one, but still a newspaper.
if an American news paper used Chinese stereotypes or Yellow Face in an article about Japanese politicians
This is more like making an image of some politician who “joins the fight” with Bruce Lee pose, or suit, or something.
This is more like making an image of some politician who “joins the fight” with Bruce Lee pose, or suit, or something.
Bruce Lee is a specific person, not a racial stereotype.
would expect both Americans and Japanese People to be outraged
Still missing the point lol
I mean, they’re right. The European version of racism is much more inattention and inexperience-fueled. This is arguably an example.
That is not my experience in Italy.
Just ask a European about gypsies or African migrants. It will get very racist very quickly.
Yeah, my experience has been that a lot of countries whose residents tell me racism is an American problem and we should stop trying to project it onto other societies happen to live in countries with huge problems with it that just aren’t explicitly spoken about in the same terms.
I had a Brazilian friend tell me race is not all that important in Brazil and that he’s tired of Americans assuming it is. I periodically have to ask him, “Do you read Brazilian news, bro?” and send some links that make it blatantly obvious that racism is alive and well down there.
You also just get people who have bought into very pervasive attitudes in countries that justify/explain away racism when it’s encountered.
Brazilian acts like they don’t have the same slaver history as US… They must really assume Americans are this fucking stupid not to k ow basics of how Brazil functions
TBF most Americans are pretty ignorant about the rest of the world (and it’s not really their fault, the other self-contained superpower is the same or worse). Not all though.
I had a Brazilian friend tell me race is not all that important in Brazil and that he’s tired of Americans assuming it is.
Are you sure this person is Brazilian? This is the country that abolished chattel slavery in 1888, a couple decades after America. They still have whiteness as a standard of attractiveness there, too.
Or Albanians, Romanians and other people with a history of migration (at least in Italy).
That said, the racist dynamics in Italy are still different from those of a country with a much different history, linked to slavery and colonialism (thankfully Italian empire was a ridiculously failed attempt), with a different racial distribution in population. African migrants are for example a relatively new phenomenon. We are now at the 2nd generation give or take, and I have the feeling things will normalize ad they did for balcan people, as long as right-wing governments will not sabotage immigration on purpose to maintain it as a problem and gather votes…
Gypsies may be a counterexample, that’s true. African migrants are an example: America’s very fabric is (traditionally) about black vs. white, even moreso than the things it’s conventionally associated with. Europe, on the other hand, just thought of Africa as the colonies for a long time, and Africans arriving in great numbers is a new thing.
It’s not less racist, but it’s racist in a very different way.
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Isn’t it on that red planet near Solo?
This joke might not be good but I’m proud of it’s layers
Europeans mistaking Americans for Indians for centuries.
Specifically Italians, at that.
Classic Italian mistake.
Italian here, they probably did it on purpose so that people would repost it and they succeeded.
It’s even worse if you consider that it’s still offensive to Photoshop that on her even if she was Native American.
Perhaps they could remove some clothing and make her very muscular
But the body is old white dude - gotta keep the racist theme going.
American history be like:
Fucking Italians man…
I prefer Italian women, but you know … when on a road leading to Rome (but walking in the opposite direction for obvious reasons), one has to keep an open mind.
Well, at least it’s casual racism, not professional racism.
Oh, it’s a newspaper, so a bit professional I guess, but like they didn’t use their “best” racists./s
Also who are the white folk they are referring to?
The other dude in the race is clearly orange (of some rapey citrus heritage). And the “catching” part, well, statistically speaking as DA she prob didn’t do that much of that color either.Everything around this is multilevel horribly resist, and yet the reality is several parallel universes ahead.
The “hunt” for the white man refers to her search for a white guy as a vice-president that can appeal to the “wasp” population. It’s a reference to western movies. The article is fully on her search for a vice-president and the “real” motivations for her choice.
Yes, thx, I know, along with other inaccuracies it’s for the art of shit & giggles.
As a European I will admit I have no idea what’s “wrong” with the picture. Other than it just looking like a mouthpiece for people instead of actually reporting things
Someone, somewhere has evidently misinterpreted the fact that US presidential candidate Kamala Harris (pictured center) is of Indian ancestry - as in her family is from the country in south Asia - and instead photoshopped her into the stereotypical Native American “Indian” aesthetic. Why they have chosen to do this eludes me.
Ohh! As a European I do know the difference between those two types. It just didn’t click that they got it wrong, I thought they had the feathers wrong (like part of the wrong native American tribe or something)
because they don’t actually know WHAT Indian she is, didn’t bother to look into it, and assumed it to be the American one
because they don’t actually know WHAT Indian she is, didn’t bother to look into it
Do you really believe this lol
jfc
No it’s not that. Another comment explains it above, and it has to do with Western movies. Il tempo is usually just recommended to clean windows, but it’s not what you (or OP) suggests.
Everything about this image is completely messed up
She’s not Native American. Adding random head pieces to Native Americans is reductive and historically used to discount their opinion.
WTF?
You don’t even need to guess it based on whatever USA they posted at the centre. Just look at Giorgia Merdoni at the left.
Giorgia Merdoni
Nice one
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English can be confusing
Is that Elizabeth Warren?
Man you know saying that shit is inflammatory but I still don’t get why people get butthurt over somebody mentioning it than Liz doing it.
Telling about US political climate.
You’re offended that a foreign xenophobic tabloid did not accurately depict her indian heritage in a goddamn caricature? Come on man, live and let live.
her indian heritage
You’re right at the cusp of understanding.
No, they aren’t.
