Foreigners Depicted Negatively
Table Of Contents
Conservative Trope Examples
Maura promotes the false stereotype that "French women don't shave their underarms."
British director Damien Cockburn makes several mistakes costing the studio a lot of money upon which studio boss Les Grossman says to him, "This is all your fault, you limey f*ck!
Staff Aside
The entire movie is a satire on the film industry, but this is not one of those moments. They are making fun of directors sometimes going over budget and getting into squabbles with studio execs. And they chose a British director as their foil as, apparently, it's funnier for a foreign director to screw things up than an American. And you can call him limey too for added laughs. It is all genuinely very funny as is the entire movie which is super hilarious. But they are still using the British as a butt of one of their jokes here.
Guru Pitka (Mike Myers) portrays a widely admired and respected figure in Indian culture by spending the entire film making fun of their accents and religious beliefs.
A Manchester United football (soccer) fan club befriend Scotty and Cooper and after a night of partying the end up on their double decker bus on their way to a match. They are depicted as over the top soccer "hooligans" who are constantly instigating fights and being overly rowdy and aggressive throughout.
Staff Aside
It's played for laughs and is quite funny but still propagates negative stereotypes.
An Italian man squeezes to sit down between two of the guys on the train interrupting their comfortable foursome seating car arrangement. He then inappropriately touches everyone in scenes played for laughs all the while apologizing by saying "scusi" every time they complain.
One of the efficiency consultant "Bobs" says, "We're going to be getting rid of these people here. First, Mr. Samir Naga, Naga, Naga, not gonna work here anymore" when talking about firing Samir Nagheenanajar.
Staff Aside
It's a funny satirical joke at the time but still stereotypical despite the consultants being depicted as idiotic foils firing their best workers while promoting the worst. To make up for it though, they also make fun of a very, very "American culture" name where Michael Bolton tells the same consultants to just call him Mike because his name is the same as the famous singer he dislikes.
Ringo (Tim Roth) tells Yolanda (Amanda Plummer) it's pointless to rob liquor stores anymore because "too many foreigners own liquor stores. Vietnamese, Koreans, they don't even speak f*cking English. You tell 'em 'empty out the register' [and] they don't know what the f*ck you're talking about." He continues "and if it's not the gooks [a derogatory slang for people of Asian descent] it's these old f*cking Jews who've owned the store for 15 f*cking generations."
Katy tries to find people to attend their large party and tells Tom all she could find were three foreign exchange students. The camera pans to people dressed inappropriately for a party including stereotypical attire for their country such as lederhosen
Long Duk Dong is depicted as an absurd caricature of an Asian foreign exchange student attending school in the United States. As if his characters name itself isn't bad enough, a gong rings every time he appears on camera and his broken English is grotesquely overplayed.
Staff Aside
The character had a real-world impact. Many Asian-American teenage boys complained that peers called them "Donkers," among other culturally insensitive and racist taunting, for years after the film was released.
9 Tropes
7 Movies
1 TV Show