Monday, April 13, 2009

Portrayal of Exchange Students in Movies and on TV in the U.S.


This past Saturday I caught the “Gilly – Science Fair” skit on Saturday Night Live with Zach Efron (host of the show) acting as an exchange student from Germany. You can access the skit here.

As I watched the skit I immediately began thinking of past movies and how exchange students were portrayed in film and television in the United States. The first to come to mind for me was Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles fame. Long Duk Dong’s most memorable scenes/lines are arguably “What’s Happening Hot Stuff” and “Dong, Where is my Automobile?” (click on scene titles to view videos).

Others that come to mind include:
- Monique, the French exchange student in Better Off Dead
- Üter Zörker from The Simpsons
- Fez from That '70s Show

Most disturbing is that a simple Google search for “exchange students in movies” brought up the “Sex Crazed Exchange Students” DVD for sale on Amazon at #9.

I’m interested in knowing what IHEC Blog readers think about the portrayal of exchange students in film and if they know of other examples (both positive and negative) that they would like to share.

19 comments:

  1. I think Shannon Elizabeth's character in American Pie is supposed to be an exchange student.

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  2. David,
    One that pops into my head is a nameless (or at least not prominently named) high school exchange student in the movie Can't Hardly Wait who attends a party wearing an "I Love USA" t-shirt and is goaded by American party-goers into saying things like "I am a sex machine" in his imperfect English. Not a flattering portrayal.

    I also recently came across the portrayal of exchange students in advertising--a bus stop ad seen in DC and Baltimore for Nestea that proclaims their new red tea to be "tasty and exotic--like we bottled an exchange student." (More on my blog here: https://digitalcommons.georgetown.edu/blogs/workingworld/2009/04/06/foreign-exchange-students-tasty/). While the ad seems to me to be harmless enough (not racist or objectifying, as others have contended), I suppose taken with unflattering portrayals of exchange students in the movies and media, it's not a trend we want to encourage.

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  3. At AFS we were interested to see what the television producers did with "Aliens in America" which featured a US family hosting a Pakistani exchange student. I even sent them a copy of The Exchange Student Survival Kit, hoping for a product placement. Since I don't watch a lot of television, I'm not sure what happened to the show.

    I'd love to see the SNL skit, but the link didn't work for me.

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  4. @srah, @Mark and @Betsy ~ Thank you all for your comments. Very much appreciated.

    @Betsy ~ I think I fixed the link to the SNL skit. Sorry about that.

    Sincerely,

    David

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  5. Not sure that this has to be limited to exchange students in the US. I think you are missing the Klapisch film, L'Auberge Espagnole. It's called Potluck here in Canada or the Spanish Apartment in the US.

    He made a follow-up called Les poupées russes (Russian Dolls) which I think shows some interesting elements of reverse culture shock.

    Both movies can be watched in their entirety on youtube.

    Cheers,

    Jeff

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  6. @Jeff ~ Thanks for your comments. I guess I focused on U.S. film and TV because we here in the U.S. tend to protray the international education/exchange experience in inappropriate ways while others do not (just a theory)

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  7. David - thanks for doing this -- really good. I recall a scene from the 1950s "American in Paris" -- might be one of the oldest screen images of exchange students. Gene Kelly is selling his paintings on the street. A young, obviously American, woman approaches and starts to over-analyze his work in a rather sophomoric manner. One of the other characters ask "Who's she?" Kelly responds, "She's just a third year here is Paris, she doesn't know anything." -- Best, Dimitri

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  8. Although I haven't seen it, there's a 1979 film called French Postcards (US students in France). Another terrific film about culture shock (US/Spain and Spain/US) is 'La linea del cielo (Skyline, 1984) about a Spaniard who wants to make it big as a photographer in the US. He meets a Spanish graduate student in NYC, so there is some reference to school, but it's really relevant here mostly in terms of cultural exchange. Happy viewing!

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  9. @Dimitri and @Carolyn ~ Thanks to you both for taking the time to comment. In addition to the comments on this post I've received some interesting comments via e-mail as well.

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  10. The American in Paris quote is, "Yeah, you know, American college kids. They come over here to take their third year and lap up a little culture... They're officious and dull - always making profound observations they've overheard."

    L'Auberge Espagnole is definitely a good one.

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  11. Unfortunately I can only think of documentaries, such as God Grew Tired of Us, a film about Sudanese refugees, that even begin to treat exchange students to the United States as anything other than a stereotype.

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  12. Follow-up IHEC Blog post entitled “Portrayal of Exchange Students in Movies and on TV in the U.S. – Part Deux” at http://ihec-djc.blogspot.com/2009/04/portrayal-of-exchange-students-in_17.html

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  13. David, thanks for the links - this is very interesting. Stereotypes, both positive and negative, exist everywhere it seems. People at non-US universities (say in Europe) have stereotypes of exchange students (from the US and Asia for instance) and of life on US campuses (the party school stereotype for instance) and vice versa. I would think that these stereotypes are partly based own the perceptions they form from US movies, music, etc but also on their own experiences/encounters with exchange students and faculty. I've taught in the US for several years and I have been teaching in Europe for the last few years and I've experienced firsthand these perceptions and stereotypes - some I think are based in part on reality but some are exaggerated caricatures formed by images portrayed in movies, etc. And then there are the big cultural and language differences between anglo-american (the west) culture and the asian (the east) culture. It seems to me that, for the most part, film producers and advertisers are not necessarily interested in portraying a balanced view (they don't see that as their role) but rather are more driven by creating sensation and gross exaggeration to increase viewership and boost sales...Patrick

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  14. [Glee Spoiler Alert] - An exchange student joins the Glee Club in the 2nd season (http://bit.ly/bOmPGj)

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  15. From the 1985 movie "Better Off Dead" when the American mother prepares a meal for the French exchange student [young girl in the scene] who moved in next door: http://youtu.be/KpLMnk2qi8o (thanks to my good friend Katie for reminding me about this scene in the movie)

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  16. Rajesh Koothrapali is an exchange research student on the Big Bang Theory, and is one of the more positive and respectful portrayals of a foreign exchange student I have seen on a TV sit com. Having said that, the character himself is fairly culturally risque in that he is from India and takes great pleasure in being able to eat beef in America, and has an entirely too close relationship with his best friend Howard, which is played to rather humorous effect. Nevertheless, the character is treated with more respect than most I have seen on American TV, and they do throw in occasional cultural reference, such as Kite Fighting, that is interesting.

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  17. @Anonymous ~ Thanks for the post about Rajesh Koothrapali on the Big Bang Theory. I've never seen the show but have heard that it is a must see. Thanks again!

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  18. The Color of Friendship (2000 film)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_of_Friendship_(2000_film)

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  19. Lab Rats: Season 2, Episode 21
    Storyline
    Overhearing Leo and Chase complain about Mission Creek High being technologically far behind the times, Donald jumps in to help. The boys fear him keeping his ego in check - and, indeed, he does go too far by providing Principal Perry a robot duplicate of herself to help patrol the students. With the school board coming to approve of Robo-Perrys for every school, Chase decides to reprogram the robot, but doing so causes it to reset to its original militaristic programming - that of a rampaging annihilator. Meanwhile, Adam convinces Bree that Irish foreign exchange student Alistair could be an android like Marcus (or at least a leprechaun), so the pair tests the hypothesis multiple times, giving Alistair a very discomforting introduction to America.

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