Guns 'n Grease

Since I have been teaching here France this year, I have confronted two major stereotypes of the USA. Fat people and Guns.  I have had to discuss junk food and fast food and gun laws and gun problems. I was even consulted as if I were a gun expertise in one class. Thanks to Super Size Me and Michael Moore, Americans are seen as Trigger Happy, McDonald's eatin' chubbsters. So this blog is dedicated to GUNS 'n GREASE.

On the first day of class, a teacher told me that I was bound to be asked if I had a gun, and he advised to just roll with it for fun and further perpetuate the stereotypes. So, of course, I was asked if I owned a gun, and I said yes. SHOCK AND SURPRISE AND BIG EYES were the responses of the class. "Why do you have a gun?" And as awkwardly as George Michael Bluth talked about smoking weed that he never smoked ("It was for me. I was going to smoke the marijuana like a cigarette"), I responded, "Because I love guns." 

 

 

I received the same SHOCK, GASP, and SURPRISE from the class when I said that I had probably at one time ordered a supersize meal sometime in my life. On further reflection, I don't even know if I have.

They can't comprehend the BIG GULP either:

 

 This stereotype is most hilariously demonstrated in Arrested Development in Wee Britain. They go to the American-styled restaurant called "Fat Ammy's" where they entrees are donuts.

And here are there to go bags:

 

But, ya know, I just brush it off, and try take all these stereotypes in stride, because, for one, they can be true to a certain extent, and for another...