“The 100% American is 99% idiot.”

– George Bernard Shaw

It’s an interesting time to be an American visiting Europe.

On September 11, 2001, thousands of Europeans came to the U.S. embassies in their countries to express solidarity with the Americans under attack. Even Le Monde, the newspaper of the French elite, proclaimed “we are all Americans.”

By now, however, the goodwill is long gone, eradicated by bad feelings over the Iraq war, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, global warming and a host of other disagreements.

But long before George W. Bush became President, Europeans had very strong (and often negative) opinions about American culture and politics.

Country music singer Michael Lonstar with Sexy Texas in Poland.

THE ANTI-AMERICANS (a hate/love relationship) examines the complicated mixture of envy, pride, admiration, and cultural misunderstanding that characterizes European views. It’s a situation that has led some commentators to say that “Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus.”

This film examines the current status of European attitudes towards America in three very different places: France, the United Kingdom and Poland. Freely mixing humor with provocative commentary, the program shows how Old World attitudes can be both nuanced and simplistic at the same time – sometimes contradictory, sometimes predictable, but always worthy of our interest.

From French puppets conducting fake-news programs to Polish country-western singers and an opera made out of the Jerry Springer Show, THE ANTI-AMERICANS presents a vibrant and memorable portrait of European culture today.