But can you blame people in other countries who do take it as real and then think negatively about all Americans?

>Well, it's freedom ya know. Our government doesn't control the content (other than ratings) of tv shows and movies. Entertainment is NOT made to represent our country. Do all the Dutch shows accurately reflect Dutch people? We consider them entertainment, nothing more. Anyone can make a movie and sell it just about anyplace. Look at Borac. Yikes. You can hardly fault Americans that what we consider entertainment and humor is taken as real in other countries.
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>>>>But what bothers me is that you don't get the picture. All I wanted was a chat about the behavior of that audience.
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>>>Unlike WYSIWYG software, most of us are not yet UWIMNWIS (Undertand what I meant not what I said) readers. You said "The Americans can be soo childish in their behavior" when you apparantly meant "The American audience was soo childish in it's behavior" or "American audiences can be soo childish in their behavior."
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>>>Most Americans would agree with that assessment. But as somebody else pointed out, the audiences are "instructed" to behave this way (yelling and screaming, etc.). In addition, it probably makes them feel a part of the show and not merely spectators.
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>>Yes, somebody else pointed that out. But my initial post was written without that knowledge. My statement is a logical one for someone who does not have all the inside information that a native citizen has.
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>>>Your comment DID, intentionally or not, generalize this behavior to all Americans. I emphasize the DID becuase I am apparantly not the only one who felt this way and because I have seen nothing from anybody else which supports a different interpretation.
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>>>When so many people uniformly interpret your remarks differently from what you intended it is time to think "I must not have expressed it properly" rather than "They didn't understand properly"
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>>I disagree. The fact that so many here did interpret it differently from what I intended, can also mean that they are all not aware that such shows negatively influence their image in large parts of the world.