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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 7:51 pm Post subject: Why does New York City get picked on so much? |
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Pligganese started a strange poll to the effect that, "would you be happy if a nuke went off in the US?" While the question is rather bizarre, I couldn't help but notice something odd.
Many of the respondents assumed that if a nuclear weapon was exploded on US soil, it would happen in New York.
Why is it that New York gets picked on so much? Even before 911, all the big disaster movies - Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact, etc. - always seem to center their disasters, or focus on, New York City being destroyed.
But why? New York is not the only big US city...why does everybody want to destroy it? Strange. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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Except for Yankees baseball, I love NY. That almost hurts to say coming from Bostonian, but its true. It has everything. I mean Everything (especially if you know where to find it).
Name any other city. Then think about what it conjures up in your mind. Then compare it to NY and what ideas you have about that place. If you're honest with yourself, you will understand why it's focused on. I would submit that it is the world's most famous city (popular media, etc.).
Forget the stats and how much better here or there is. Everybody with a T.V. in the world knows NY. For what other city can you say that also holds true.? |
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Pligganease
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Location: The deep south...
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| Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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I think that it's because New York is often considered the center of the world. While this will be met with chagrin from some people here, facts are facts. NYC has the U.N., Wall Street, and Broadway. It is important to worldwide politics and business. It is a fashion and entertainment capital. It is also a worldwide symbol of America's greatness, whether you agree with U.S. politics or not.
Plus, let's face it. It's densely populated. If a group wanted to kill as many Americans as possible, destroy economies worldwide, and cripple America itself, NYC would be the place to hit. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
Why is it that New York gets picked on so much? Even before 911, all the big disaster movies - Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact, etc. - always seem to center their disasters, or focus on, New York City being destroyed.
But why? New York is not the only big US city...why does everybody want to destroy it? Strange. |
Highest-profile target. UN. World finance. Many national symbols. Et cetera.
Also -- and left out so far -- most Third-Worlders exist in centralized realities, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean. They do not understand America's decentralized, federalist system. They ethnocentrically assume that hitting New York will harm all of America -- just as, for example, hitting Bagdad might destabilize all of Iraq. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:12 pm Post subject: |
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most Third-Worlders exist in centralized realities, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean. They do not understand America's decentralized, federalist system. They ethnocentrically assume that hitting New York will harm all of America -- just as, for example, hitting Bagdad might destabilize all of Iraq.
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Interesting observation.
A few months after 9-11, the New Republic ran an article about how people outside of New York were reacting to the ongoing media coverage. They interviewed(or quoted someone else's interview) a bunch of seemingly average people down in Mississippi or somewhere, who were complaining about how every time they turned on the TV they had to see survivors and widows crying in front of the cameras. One guy, who sounded like a total redneck, did a mocking imitation of one of the widows he had seen on a news program. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:43 pm Post subject: |
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Hmmm...I can't help but wonder...is New York City really the center of the world, or do New Yorkers just assume it is the center of the world, and everybody else just assumes they are right? 
I never liked Seinfeld, for example. You could tell that these people have never gotten out of New York, and simply don't know how to relate to people who are from the outside world. I'm not saying average New Yorkers, in reality, are like that...but I would think one aspect of "worldliness" or having a "worldly" outlook would be to be able to relate to people who live in other parts of the world...
Is New York the center of the world? Maybe in the English-speaking world, but I doubt if the average Parisien, Moscovite or Rio de Janerian would agree. John Grisham has made a bundle from writing novels and thrillers - and if you were to read only his stories, you'd think that New York doesn't exist.
But in any case, there does seem to be a strange fixation on New York in thriller and disaster movies...almost as if destroying New York is equated with the End of the World. For all of us. I've even heard New Yorkers complain that there are too many disaster movies made about their city. |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 12:09 am Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| But in any case, there does seem to be a strange fixation on New York in thriller and disaster movies...almost as if destroying New York is equated with the End of the World. For all of us. I've even heard New Yorkers complain that there are too many disaster movies made about their city. |
I'd say it's because, for whatever reason, New York functions as the archetypical (Western) city - one of the most powerful symbols of the West, and by extension civilisation (at least as far as most Westerners are concerned). I remember around 9/11, in addition to the sympathy for the victims and for my American friends also feeling personally hurt as if New York was somehow 'mine', and part of my culture, despite never having even stepped foot in the US. Of course, thanks to American television I probably know more about New York than any other city apart from those that I've actually lived in.
Oh and by the way - for some reason Godzilla deemed Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, and Yokohama to be higher priority targets than New York. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 1:46 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| Interesting observation. |
Living and Latin America will do that to you. A Chilean once asked me what I thought of Santiago. I explained that I liked the city and its personality, especially downtown, near Santa Lucia, although I could not deal with the pollution in the winter.
Quick to take offense. Her retaliation...? "What about New York!?"
My response...? I am from California, the west coast of the United States. Although I have lived and travelled on several continents, in out-of-the-way areas, I have still never been to New York. New York and the rest of the east coast is a foreign country to me. (Not to mention that even if NYC features the same degree of pollution that Santiago does, this does not seem to undermine my complaint about Santiago's wintertime pollution. But I set that aside.) She simply could not accept this, however. And she might as well have asked me about Kiev. When I said this: more disbelief.
Another example: I spoke at a Fulbright and study-abroad-in-America session to a collection of Chilean graduate students. The Chilean govt's dept. of education accredits all of its educational institutions all over its country. But in the United States, regional authorities accredit universities -- all of which exist autonomously. Multiple students refused to go further until we might identify which universities the American govt accredited. When we explained that there were none, they left the meeting. Ethnocentrically-caused disbelief and frustration.
Hitting New York City, or even Washington, D.C. or the Pentagon for that matter, harms America only in the most superficial, albeit psychologically-significant, ways. Certainly impacts American military power hardly at all. So I not only doubt whether New York City represents America's center. I seriously doubt whether America even features a center in any political, military, economic, or cultural sense -- even if some cities assume a higher profile in some respects than others.
Do you know, for example, how many military command authorities and redundant authorities exist? Local governments, militia and police forces? Federal document depositories...? The list goes on and on.
Destroy all of New York City tomorrow and Americans will most probably cry. But America itself will hardly blink. Only slightly exaggerating. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 1:05 am Post subject: |
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New York is the unofficial capital of the US.
I remember as a kid thinking it was the capital and you can bet a lot of Korean kids guess it is too. |
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