Do you think every American drives a pickup truck and owns 12 guns? You probably don't, because you're not a fool; similarly, most Americans don't think that Russians live their lives swizzling vodka in Chechen restaurants. Le Carré is a novelist, not a biographer.
You won't find many Russian authors vilifying USA habits and culture. Not among popular ones, for sure. Nor the Russian movies. That makes a difference.
When there's a Russian in the US movie, I mentally prepare myself for a cringe. Usually, it would be a unreasonably aggressive person, killer or terrorist, or just a bad person. Drinking vodka like water, beating women, etc, etc.
You'd have hard time finding anything resembling this in Russian books or movies about USA.
What's up with these emotive labels? Lots of people (myself included) enjoy klyukva - it's an awesome source of hilariously absurd content.
But you'd be surprised how often it actually leaks into supposedly serious reasoning, constantly making you question exactly how far (not even "if") the person you are talking to is detached from objective reality and what are their assumptions. There are quite a few examples of this even in this comment section.
Obviously this is not really unique - likely an extremely common view of foreign cultures people aren't really exposed to. The example with Americans isn't representative though since we are all exposed to this particular culture.
I live in Texas and let me tell you I believe I know exactly how you feel. A lot of people's entire perception of this state is based on agitprop headlines they consume. To the point where the other day, on HN, everyone is an expert on Texas energy production and policy desperate to dunk on the state based on a headline about a temporary spike in wholesale energy prices.
Actually, surely it’d be a badge. Anyway, I automatically get the badge… right, pardner?
My point isn't about being an expert or not, it's about the ability to have honest, reasoned, and researched conversations.