This afternoon, while waiting to be interviewed about xenoglossy on the South African talk show Believe It or Not (Talk Radio 702), I was listening to a string of three or four commercials that they ran just before my interview. All but one of them, including a deodorant commercial, were read by men speaking what sounded to my dialect-deaf ears like a standard British English accent. The exception, advertising some terrific opportunity, was read by a man speaking straight midwestern American English, and it included the following line (the first two words may not be exactly what he said, but they're close): Everybody freeze! This is a hold-up! We're here to give you CASH BACK! He was obviously supposed to sound like a bank robber; the implication was that Americans are the quintessential bank robbers. So now we know: in the South African ad biz, at least, Americans are stereotypical ordinary or garden-variety criminals. This has to be a step up from a stereotype as, say, war-mongering international pariahs.
Posted by Sally Thomason at October 1, 2006 04:58 PM