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Comment by manuel_w | Hacker News Reader

> The editors are not being puritanical. They're trying to illustrate to him that his writing (when read by an American) is adding context that he may not be trying to add.

And why is that? Because Americans are puritanical.

> but the modern interpretation of an adult smoking and drinking in front of their child in the middle of the day is going to be interpreted as them being bad parents.

For you (American?) it's the Modern interpretation while for others it might just be the American interpretation.

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I think it's just hard for people when being a product of a certain culture/society to see how said culture/society looks from the outside.

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Imagine the existence + massiveness of Hollywood and still believing Americans, as a general default, are puritanical.

> For you (American?) it's the Modern interpretation while for others it might just be the American interpretation.

Where does this come from? This clearly isn't accurate for the majority of America. Maybe back in the 50s - but that was also 70 years ago.

Compared to what's available on TV in western Europe, Hollywood is much more reserved. They may not be puritanical, but most of the religious right in America absolutely are, and they make up a large and loud majority. Janet Jacksons tassled nipple resulted in national controversy and outrage! Laws were passed because of it. BECAUSE OF A NIPPLE! People were screeching just a few weeks ago that Disney had ~24 frames of an animated married lesbian couple kiss, as if having a kid see someone give a quick peck to their partner will turn them into a flaming homosexual or want to switch genders.

We've come a long way here in usa, but we've got a ways to go.

Yeah, the nipple-phobia in Hollywood is really funny. Characters in Hollywood movies or TV shows somehow manage to have sexual intercourse without taking their underwear off.

Or not taking off their shoes...

What's with Americans wearing shoes on the bed? we're always shocked when we see that on TV.

I've always wondered about this. They just get into bed, clothes and shoes and all, despite having been outside and walked over all sorts of places. Why don't they at least take their shoes off? It drives me crazy, I've never seen anybody do this.

I think this stems from two things:

1. Americans are always on the run, living at much higher pace, ready to take off at moment's notice.

2. The US is located more to the south than Europe, so the climate is warmer and drier in most parts, so your shoes are much cleaner (no snow, no mud).

Or maybe it's just a movie convention: like they want the movie character to be able to take off without wasting time on finding their shoes. Similar thing happens with how phone calls are shown in movies: there's a very short greeting, and after the conversation is over people just hang off, no pleasantries at the end, in the interest of air time.

It is the weirdest thing how couples, having just had sex, are wearing underwear.

There must be some code I do not know about. It is ubiquitous

Well, it's still better than 50s and 60s, when it seems married couples slept in separate beds (a scene from "I love Lucy"):

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ac/e1/f9/ace1f9037208231eebf5...

Without meaning to undermine your point, I think a greater proportion of married couples did sleep in separate beds back then. My grandparents had separate beds.

The government censors porn from the internet in a country in Western Europe. Oh wait nvm that isn’t Europe anymore.

I'm from Spain. Zillions of people saw a bare nipple in the New Year's Eve late night show back in the day. That was about 35 years ago. And no one cared.

And yet you still remember it 35 years later.'

In all fairness, it was an exceptionally nice nipple.

Every time a european tells me that they don't care about nudity I always ask them to strip or have their wife/gf lift up her shirt for me. They never do.

it's exhausting listening to Europeans make such a huge deal about how they don't make a big deal about sex.

We don't care on normal contexts, such as advertisements about shampoos with nude women. We have decor too.

but you don't show women's buttholes in advertising, so you draw a line one place; we draw the line another place. .But if you don't care about it and it's no big deal, then why is it such a big deal not to see nipples, it's like you have this need to see women's nipples or there's something wrong. In actuality, I think you have a need to act like and say that you don't think it's a big deal; but the European porn and titillation industry is quite robust, so the prurient interest is there.

Imagine observing American media, from nipplegate, to nipple-censoring, to Carlin's seven words, to censored and sanitized song lyrics in the radio and in the store, to warning labels about 'explicit lyrics', to hyperclean and sanitized Hollowood movie productions, to covered and hidden magazine covers - and still thinking the Americans, as a general default, are not puritanical. Thank you for that.

Imagine painting with a broad brush an entire nation’s worth of people, one with literally several or many times more people than name a European country.

We’re a country of many peoples with many values and that’s one of the reasons we fight so much. Pretty much everything you listed is a norm which evolved from a strict—and yes, sometimes puritanical view—to accommodations for different people from the heart of the Tennessee River Valley to the beaches of California.

We’re not all still partying like we’re fresh off the boat and it’s 1620. As clean as a Hollywood production might look to you, the people that made that movie were probably all living rather diverse lifestyles, many of whom might make a Roman at their peak blush. The Puritanism is still there, but so is a lot more than that.

> one with literally several or many times more people than name a European country.

I didn't know non-puritanism scales with size! TIL!

> Pretty much everything you listed is a norm

Yes, that's exactly what I wrote. Seems you agree after all!

So, if I am just cherrypicking, where is the majority of states with uncensored radio and music? Where do you see nipples on magazines in supermarkets? Where can you say "shit", "piss", "fuck", "cunt", "cocksucker", "motherfucker", and "tits" on TV and in movies without repercussion? In which states can you bathe nude or even just topless? Or just even change on the beach? Where can I consume alcohol in public as a norm, without brown bag? Where can I simply drink in a car, as long as I am not driving, or, as a driver, not exceeding the legal alcohol limit?

> many of whom might make a Roman at their peak blush.

Man, that made me laugh out loud.

To add onto this point, many states are larger than countries in Europe. Each state is in itself a country in all but name, given the difference in values, traditions and culture. You can travel all across the US and it's exactly like travelling across Europe given the diversity.

Uh, I'm an American who's been all over the country and my biggest complaint about travel in the US is that damn near the only diversity is the physical landscape and which regional fast food chains you see. We're extremely homogenous, with maybe a half-dozen somewhat-different (but not that different) regions. The rural/urban divide is by far our biggest one, not state-by-state or regional. Those differences are so tiny that rural/urban overwhelms them everywhere.

You can drive 500 miles in this country and feel like you haven't moved an inch.

I come from a small, conservative town, so about as American as you can get, and I just flat out don't believe you. Homogeneity in the US is a myth - simply crossing a state border can find you in a whole new world of laws, customs and traditions. I talk to friends who have travelled all over the world, and when they mention to me their experiences with new cultures, I simply shake my head and say "But I can get that same experience here."

While the states have much more diversity than many Europeans I've met assume (especially things like regional cuisine, or local laws) nevertheless Europe does have more diversity. American as just more similar on average than Europeans from different countries.

> You can travel all across the US and it's exactly like travelling across Europe given the diversity.

Yeah, no further questions. Have you ever left the US?

You cannot put graphic sex in, but you can put in graphic violence.

Priorities

The things that get me are blurred bums, logos, and paintings on the wall.

America is extremely polarised. On the one hand it's blurring bottoms and censoring words of drugs in songs and the other it produces the most hard core porn and gun violence...

One might be because of the other.

I once read an article that wrote about different cultures typical curse words. It explained that the principle of cursing is to break a taboo. If you know how a culture curses, you know what's holy to them.

* In North America, cursing often revolves around sexuality. * In slavic countries, cursing involves the mother. * In middle eastern countries, it involves the father. (Not sure if I remember that one correctly, though.)

Hollywood might not be downright puritanical, but compared to European TV they make a much bigger deal out of upper body nudity and swearing, among other topics. There are a couple of exceptions (HBO comes to mind), but as a general rule Hollywood definitely isn't running wild (except when it comes to violence).

Right? We see the British with their porn filters as being puritanical.

Even though those filters are fake news.

And why is that? Because Americans are puritanical.

I don't think "puritanical" is the right word in this case. Unless you are implying that smoking being considered unhealthy is something based on Puritan or other religious values.

>> And why is that? Because Americans are puritanical.

> I don't think "puritanical" is the right word in this case. Unless you are implying that smoking being considered unhealthy is something based on Puritan or other religious values.

We Americans are puritanical, and that's in the sense of being able to imagine that our values are universal because they are good and correct, having been arrived at only after a great deal of thought and even spilled blood; and that anyone who disagrees is at best thoughtless or ignorant, but quite possibly crazy or evil.

It's not that hard to see, it is the right word.

Just because the taboo changed does not mean that the Puritan-inside(tm) hardware most Americans have is not there (self-evident on conservatives and very rabid omg-living-in-denial in liberals)

The main point is, in Puritanism, thinking the wrong thing is a sin, so even writing it down is seen as bad. Other cultures can discuss without dirtying their souls/minds/egos.

The main point is, in Puritanism, thinking the wrong thing is a sin, so even writing it down is seen as bad. Other cultures can discuss without dirtying their souls/minds/egos.

The issue isn't that "writing it down is bad" its that certain descriptions of a character are going to cause readers to judge that character differently depending on the culture the reader is used to. People who think smoking around children is a bad thing, are going to judge a parent doing that around their children. So, an editor might believe that removing that reference will avoid people focusing on an unimportant detail in a way that negatively affects the story being told.

If the criterion is health, it might be better to remove references to Americans eating in front of their children?

In America we tend to assume that it's ok for children to eat food but not ok to smoke

>> If the criterion is health, it might be better to remove references to Americans eating in front of their children?

> In America we tend to assume that it's ok for children to eat food but not ok to smoke

"Americans eating in front of their children". Does not mention food.

That is the point

I tend to assume eating implies eating food. I think you've missed the intended dumb argument about overeating being an american health concern.

Surely you know how ridiculous that comparison is. Second hand smoke kills, second hand food does not. You need to eat to be healthy, you do not need to smoke to be healthy. Not eating in front of children is more likely to give them dietary issues than not.

Yes, of course, it was a joke about American eating habits. I should avoid making oblique jokes but sometimes I can't resist.

I had a roommate who moved to America from a third world country.

He had heard that Americans don’t let children drink alcohol. That sounded puritanical.

When he arrived in the US, and saw people drinking more alcohol in one night than they drank in a year back home (this was hyperbole).

I’d drink with him. One shot of rum a night - no more, no less.

Americans aren’t one shot drinkers. We drink too much. And so do many Europeans.

In the Japanese translation of Inside Out, the animation was changed to replace broccoli with green peppers. This is obviously not a literal translation. However, the change serves the point of the scene. The point of the scene is to introduce the character Disgust. In Japan, the cultural norm is that kids hate green peppers, so changing the vegetable makes it clearer that the newly introduced character is Disgust.

If the point of the passage was that this character is "a good parent", then getting that point across to American audiences would depend on cultural context. If the point is to describe without judgement, then a more literal translation makes more sense.

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