(Comments from students in Austria)
Again, my granny told me that they had one set of nice clothes for Sunday’s church and the rest of the week they wore the same rags all day. However, her parents insisted on doing the hair and washing. Their daily routine was directed exclusively by the father – getting up, breakfast, work, lunch, work, supper, sleeping.
In the 1920s it was a big issue that people here were talking about values and honour. They were even killing themselves because somebody else might have said something against certain family values. The truth at that time was that prostitution played a major role besides the family life.
The old image of the happy traditional American dream doesn’t hold such a strong status in the U.S. movies as it did in the old days. In this way the American movies have come closer to European movies. I was surprised to realize that there are not many ‘happy family’ movies in Europe. Most movies are about war time or depression, or subjects like that. It is a new thing that the daughter of the good guy is a drug addict. In some ways I find that the U.S. movie industry handles difficult issues better nowadays, because they
are based more on the real status of the nation.
In Austria we don’t have any school sports teams or theater groups. Besides that the school system is very different. Talking about the eating habits, we can hold on to the fact that American families only come together for dinner. In Austria this is often not the case and it goes hand and hand with the different school times. So the parents and kids enjoy at least more often their lunch together.
Despite the fact that Finland is seen as the most Americanized country in Europe, it would be hard to find the atmosphere and state of mind found in White Christmas. American films always feature great success stories and hardly every are any real and permanent set-backs seen, whereas in Finland those negative things are filmed as well. That shows how different the social aspects are [between the two countries].
Compared to the USA the Austrians were not able to compete after WWII. It took quite some time. The last soldier went in 1955 – and people had a lot of work to do to build everything up again. Today Austria profits from the EU and the new eastern member countries. Now, Austria is the gate to the east which makes it an interesting country to invest for big companies. Austria is a rich country and we more or less are able to buy everything we want. We live in nice houses, wear the latest fashion clothes, drive new cars, go on holiday and enjoy life. In my opinion the world is growing together. Technical invention (internet, fast travel etc) offers many possibilities to exchange. Many things from the USA were imported to Europe and Austria and in a way we have more and more become a similar culture.
[Regarding White Christmas] In Austria, especially the younger generation interprets such movies as kitschy. And that is also our opinion about American Christmas. Lots of us think that it is kitschy. There are so many people, bright lighting and lots of gifts. Traditionally Christmas in Austria is silent, there is just the family sitting together and having dinner. We have a Christmas tree and gifts too, but it seems to be like a smaller version of American Christmas. One other important difference is that we don’t believe in Santa Claus but in Infant Jesus.
People were happy that the war was over, but Austria especially, dealt closely with Germany and therefore suffered severely. Love and trust, family and friendship are also important to the European value system but nowadays people are more focused omn the individual and personal success.
The lifestyle in Austria was very poor until the 1950s. After the Marshall Plan went into full effect, Austria was able to better its economy. It took Austria and most of Europe until the 1970s to start having a booming economy. Governments were welcoming immigrant workers from Spain, Italy and Turkey to help rebuild and with the help of other nations, Europe is not back on its feet and experiencing success like America. Today, Austria and most of Europe are equal to American Society. The style of clothes, taste in music, television and movies are mainly based on American principles., Although an ocean still separates the countries, Europe is highly influenced by American culture.
A great difference perhaps was that several countries in Europe suffered massively in the war (in terms of physical damage and losses in human lives). Perhaps it might be that the values such as being positive and caring for each other did not appear in Europe as fast as in the US, since there was a lot of rebuilding of the infrastructure in Europe, which was obviously costly as well. European countries, or people, generally speaking did not have money, and governments beside this regulated how the ones that had money could use the money. People in Europe had a lot of worries, one of which was money. After the war, it took Europe much longer to get back on its feet than it took the US. As the Americans were able to quickly continue everyday life, Europeans had to concentrate in building the means that make everyday life possible.
In European movies and in everyday life government always plays a major role, especially in movies which were made just after the war. Post war period in Europe was cruel time and there was a lack of everything. That is why there was strong government control on everyday products. The government control still is stronger in Europe than in US which can be seen on progressive taxation in many countries and well developed welfare systems. European post war movies end happily if people are alive and all together. That might be the reason why family is so highly valued in many European cultures.
In the entire movie, the army and patriotism is something important., American society in general puts higher emphasis on fighting for one’s own country. Here lies one of the major differences to Austrian Society, where war and the army are seen very negatively. These are the consequences of two World Wars that have taken place in our own country. There is a major difference between intervening in a way in a different place of the world, fighting there and returning to one’s home country, where life goes on and living in a country, where after the war has ended, everything is destroyed and needs to be rebuilt. Therefore, European Societies do not think of their army as such honorable people and prefer peace and agreement over war and patriotism.
There’s no doubt about comdradeship in the Austrian army at world war II, but I think it’s not really comparable since the Austrians fought on the wrong side and for the evil. I guess that’s also a reason for Austrian veterans not being such heroes as their American counterparts are. I think not many are proud to have fought for Hitler nowadays and after everyone has seen what he did. Honoring Hitler’s troops after WWII has been inconceivable and illegal anyway.
That leads to the cliché that Americans work a lot and that many are workaholics. There’s no question that something like that doesn’t exist in Austria or Europe as well. But the whole system is contributing a big part to that too – for example employees in Austria get five weeks of vacation a year and the average vacation time of Americans is about two weeks a year. Also an American friend of mind said once, that he wanted to move to Europe, because life there had a slower pace and was way more relaxed compared to the USA. He also stated that the Americans lived to work and the Europeans worked to live. Maybe it’s true, maybe not. I think that it’s definitely a bit true in southern European countries, but less true in northern Europe or in the big cities.
I think it doesn’t matter if you are American or European. Everybody needs a light at the end of the tunnel when he/she has to cope with difficult situations in life. If it comes to stand out hard times in your life, every human being needs a strong belief in something.
Germany was as hard hit as the US by the depression and one effect of the economic crisis was Hitler’s coming to power in 1933. He promised the people a positive change for them with enough work and enough to eat. Communist and Nazi paramilitary forces fought for control of the streets which were controlled by Socialist and Communist parties. It was the period before the start of the 2nd world war, because the war created millions of jobs. In Austria the security and prosperity during the second half of the 20th century was the converse to the instability and poverty of the first half of the century and between 1914 and 1950, Austrians had five different forms of government and four different currencies.
The situation for the population was difficult and they struggled for survival. In 1933 the Austrian chancellor Dollfuss dismissed the parliament. The censorship at newspapers was re-installed. Due to the fighting of the leading parties and with the violence following, the civil war took place in 1934. Dollfuss was murdered and Schuschnigg took over the power. Italy under the leadership of Mussolini could not resist the power of the Deutsches Reich and could not keep up his negotiating power to protect Austria. 1936 Schuschnigg signed a contract with Germany and their parties could settle in the Austrian government. Finally, in 1938 Austria joined the Deutsches Reich. People were convinced to overcome their poorness and hoped to gain economic power again by joining the Deutsches Reich. Finally, everything that was still good was replaced by fear and murder.
Cinderella Man – An interesting aspect about the Braddock story is that at the same time in Germany there was the same thing happening. A guy called Max Schmeling came out of poor circumstances to become a – politically controversial boxer. He even should have fought James Braddock when he was heavyweight world champion, but the fight never took place. This shows that the values in America and Europe were not that different. Believing in god was and is an important value on both continents.
Physically, the infrastructure of the rural areas [in the US] looks like the ones in Austria, just the towns are arranged a little bit different. If you look at towns in Austria you’ll find the churches to be the middle point.