Pity – a new response in our reactions to the US
Kiwi attitudes to America and Americans run a bumpy, complicated course. Shuffling somewhere between revulsion and admiration, these attitudes are as hard to follow as a tennis match with an oval ball. We never really know which direction our feelings towards the United States are going to go.
At times revered as the greatest economic and military force in the world, and the generator of cutting-edge ideas that gave us Disney, social media and Moon landings, the US simultaneously jars with some of our most cherished Kiwi values.
Instead of humility, Americans offer over-thetop patriotism and unashamed self-promotion. Instead of egalitarianism, we see alarming extremes of extravagant wealth and debilitating poverty inside the US.
Our New Zealand sense of conservation is juxtaposed by the wasteful consumerism that has powered the largest economy for 150 years. And nowadays, flouting international laws trumps multinational co-operation, which really gets up our small-nation nose.
But Kiwis who have travelled to the US often return with reports of, in addition to supersized meals and citizens, the outward friendliness and generosity of Americans. Kiwis love the wide-open spaces, its biggest, edgiest cities, and the authenticity and diversity of its music and regions. The vastness and complexity are worth a long look.
So, we waver between fascination and disgust. The oldest of New Zealanders remember the friendly arrival of thousands of American soldiers during WWII, which nzhistory.govt.nz describes as ‘‘a Hollywood romance come briefly to life’’.
My own generation of Kiwis is marked by strong anti-nuclear and anti-racism sentiments as they came of age during the Rainbow Warrior bombing and Springbok tour, shaping views in sharp contrast to American politics of the 80s.
It took decades for diplomatic relations to finally warm, but all the while New Zealand consumed a heavy diet of US popular culture. My partner remembers coming home from school in Auckland to watch Happy Days and Gilligan’s
Island. The Six Million Dollar Man, to his great disappointment, aired past his bedtime, but that didn’t stop him emulating in the playground what he now sees as a character symbolising American strength through technological achievements.
The books we read, the movies we enjoy, and the music we listen to increasingly come not from our British motherland, but from the powerhouse that is American pop culture. We were so proud when Peter Jackson, Flight of the Conchords, and Taika Waititi gained access to the cherished studios of Hollywood because we understand the extraordinary power they exert.
America’s impact on New Zealand’s youth culture was brought into focus recently when my teenage daughter, who along with her siblings was born here, announced that my accent – as flat as the Midwestern plains I hail from – was considered cool by her friends. She said, ‘‘they think it sounds like the people we follow on YouTube’’.
As vogue as my accent sounds to some Kiwi youth right now, many New Zealanders take the opposite view. Phenomena like Trump and Tiger
King reinforce everything that is crass and weird about my birth country, and perpetuate the view that Americans who sound like me are all loud, self-possessed, and aggressive.
And with American reality TV show stars exhibiting to the world every detail of their lives, it makes us more private Kiwis wonder how so many Yanks can be so gullible and appear so stupid.
As New Zealanders’ attitudes to Americans flip and flop, the Covid-19 dramas unfold with astonishing pace. A new layer of emotions is starting to emerge. The Irish Times columnist Finlay O’Toole recently argued that, despite the wildly varied feelings that the world has for America, ‘‘there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity’’.
It is hard, O’Toole writes, not to feel sorry for Americans. ‘‘Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.’’
As I watch the States’ Covid-19 figures spiral, and listen to my American family members complain of the disorder and leadership vacuums that breathe fear into their loosely locked-down lives, I know it’s true. I feel pity. And you should too.
Warmongers, gregarious, larger-than-life, picturesque, obnoxious . . . now, thanks to Covid19, there’s yet another attribute to add to New Zealand’s mix of emotions towards the country that we were told was the greatest on Earth.
Phenomena like Trump and Tiger King reinforce everything that is crass and weird about my birth country . . .