Hugh Laurie

The clip of Hugh Laurie portraying an All-American singer is a classic that has meaning beyond the goofy outer surface of its content. Laurie sings a song in which the only lyrics seem to be "America," with all the sincerity of a big time singer on the American music scene. This commentary shows in a hyperbolic, comedic way how people in England (and to a somewhat lesser extent, the rest of the world) see many Americans and many American entertainers in particular. It pokes fun at our overblown nationalism, which is on display at every sporting event and any other large meeting of people, which starts out with the obligatory Star-Spangled Banner.
Every song about how great America is probably makes them roll their eyes, because it's more likely that the artist is just singing something that they know will be popular with Americans, rather than something that truly means something as a work of art. They probably think it's a little bit annoying, and that people like that need to take their overenthusiasm for America down a notch, because there are other countries out there that are perfectly cool, and America isn't THAT great (not to disparage our country, it's just as good as any of the other good ones, but nobody can deny that it, like anywhere else, has flaws). At the same time, this is a view that many Americans can relate to, because sometimes the overhyping of just how great America is can get old, even to people who like our country a good deal, as I imagine most Americans do.

Week One Intro Blog

Hi everyone, I'm Jackson. I plan to transfer to GMU next semester with a Liberal Arts AA from here. Once there I haven't really decided what to major in, but I'm leaning towards Statistics, or maybe Computer Science. I like a lot of subjects, so it's really hard to choose just one. After that I might study Law. I've always been interested in that subject in general, and the way that our legal system is set up.
As for what I do in my spare time, I'm really into movies, and I spend a lot of time watching them. I generally don't play a lot of video games, but recently I've gotten into Skyrim, which is extremely fun to play. On TV (by which I mean on the internet) I like to watch How I Met Your Mother, The Daily Show, and 30 Rock. When I listen to music it's often the Fugees or Fleetwood Mac or Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, or really a lot of other bands... I don't really listen to one genre or band much more than others, because I tend to get bored listening to the same type of thing too much. That being said, I'm never bored with the Beatles, but I do limit how much I listen to them to about as much as anything else, because there is so much great music out there and there's no use just listening to one band all the time.
Anyway, I hope we all have a great semester, and I look forward to seeing what everyone else has to say throughout it all!