America Lite

When I first came to Norway as a tiny Canadian boy, I noticed more or less all of the same things that anyone else coming from a «western» country will point out upon arrival. Yes, the cheese here can be brown. No, they don’t sell beer here on Sundays, and wow, yes, things are in fact expensive. But now that I’ve lived here for more than half my life and had more identity crises than Norwegians have cabins (around 2, which isn’t a lot but still arguably too many), my occasionally homesick self is drawn to the things that remind me of America. Because honestly, no one really cares about Canada.

You don’t have to go too far to notice the similarities. In an increasingly globalizing world, it’s not too surprising that American brands pop up here and there, and that American music and TV shows rule the popular media consciousness. And of course, there are a fair number of Americans living in Norway, probably because the two countries have a long history together, with lot of Americans tracing their ancestry back to here.

In fact, I can remember back in my high school years I lived in a smaller, kind of suburban town called Kongsberg, and every day that I’d walk to school, I’d go by this one house. The architecture had the same kinda-wealthy petite bourgeoisie vibe to it that a lot of Norwegian houses have, and it was painted this strange shade of orange which, if it wasn’t for that, it would more or less blend in with the rest of the houses on the street. Oh yeah, except for the massive American flag draped over it, and the pickup truck parked in the driveway with a smaller American flag painted on the back (in case they forgot what it looked like when they were out, I guess).

My general attitude towards it was that it was kind of tacky, but it was still nice to feel like there’s some people here to remind me of home. I lived there for 3 whole years before I realized that these guys weren’t even slightly American. They were as expensive-brown-cheese don’t-sell-beer-on-Sundays Norwegian as it gets, and they just like having American themed merch.

Later it was brought to my attention by a friend of mine that this is basically a whole subculture. Or, at the very least, it’s an aspect of certain parts of Norwegian culture, more prominent in the countryside. My most direct experience with this was perhaps when I was working at the Kongsberg Jazz festival, where for some reason they had the Norwegian country-rock group Hellbillies headlining. Since we were to dismantle the set after the show, we could stand and watch the event from backstage. The band presented itself as something resembling a biker rock band with a kind of Hells Angels vibe to them, and in the audience, a sea of people drinking beer from plastic cups, wearing cowboy boots and hats as if they were at a rodeo somewhere in the deep south. It was like watching a group of people playing dress-up, the scene littered with American symbols divorced from their cultural context.

And while this could just be passed off as wacky harmless fun, there are some aspects about this which are disconcerting. The question remains as to why people should feel such a strong sentimentalism about a country they have a tenuous connection to at best. This whole yearning attitude towards a heavily romanticized view of a deeply flawed country veers dangerously close to the kind of sentimentalism and historical whitewashing that American neo-conservatism is predicated on.

This same friend who introduced me to this whole subculture has some family in the States himself, who were going to visit his family out in the Norwegian countryside. Someone from the Norwegian side decided it would be nice to decorate the living room in an American theme, so that upon arrival, these Bernie Sanders brand social-democrat Americans were met with a big ol’ confederate flag hanging on the wall. I cannot imagine it went over very well. Or maybe there was just an awkward silence about it that no one wanted to address. Now, knowing what I know about these people, I’m convinced that whoever hung up the flag is not a racist. I’m sure that for them, the flag is just a fun American symbol divorced from its cultural context.

Unfortunately, this brand of overt romanticization has the danger of presenting a version of American culture that completely ignores its most problematic aspects. And while most of the people who use these symbols do so obliviously, the danger is that what they represent becomes normalized through repeated exposure. And I for one don’t want to keep seeing people wearing MAGA hats again here in 2024.