Remember the expression ‘As American as apple pie?’ Well, I’m wondering if it–like the electoral voting system–deserves a revamp. I mean, who really consumes that much apple pie in this great nation? And how much Trans fat does it contain? On this Thanksgiving eve, I’m going to suggest that we all attempt to fill in the blank. As American as…greed, corruption, a Meth lab, a wealthy trailer trash diva, special treatment for celebrities, a big fat lard butt, endless trials, retrials, lawyers and Libel? What does it mean to be American anyway?

For decades the rest of the world has referred to us as the teenagers of the world. And like some idiot tyrant boy king we’ve proven the old adage that ‘Boys will be boys.’ Teenaged boys like getting laid, rabblerousing, playing with guns, and getting attention. And so we–America as a nation–have. But in the past decade, we have begun to lose our gawkiness. We have–dare I say–become young adults. With that young adulthood came drastic progressive changes in our society…single motherhood, some women in high professional positions, shows like “Will and Grace” signaling an acceptance of alternative lifestyles, and so on.

But the changes happened perhaps a bit too quickly for some of us young adults to process. There were those of us who didn’t want to go off to college, so to speak. Instead, we opted to loaf around in our home town and smoke pot in our parents’ basement and put off university indefinitely. Those of us who feared growth clung to the past. In this analogy that would be the glory days of high school. In reality it would take the shape of an extremist form of Christian Evangelicalism, a return to the good ol’ days (the 1950’s) when a woman’s place was barefoot and pregnant in the home and a man worked hard for his nuclear family.

A pop cultural propensity towards Westerns even returned full force, because those were the days when America’s pioneering spirit was uniformly recognized as honorable or at least kick-ass rebellious in a way that didn’t offend anyone’s sense of masculinity.

If there’s one thing the recent mid-term elections showed us (if but in fraction form), it was that after having taken that semester off college–which for us meant five years–many of us are ready to grow up and go to college. We had to take ten steps back to allay our fears of progressivism and change seeping into our lives. We’ve seen what ten steps back does to a nation. It paves the path for intolerance, prejudice, single-minded autocracy and exclusionism.

And now we Americans have the chance to look at ourselves in the mirror and correct our flaws as a country. In this vein, some of us decided that we are no longer a nation of bloodthirsty voyeurs, when we said ‘no’ to the O.J. book. We decided that there is no room for racial or religious prejudice like that of Mel Gibson and Michael Richards.

There are so many other issues to address in the pop cultural landscape (as well as the political landscape) as we graduate and head off to college. Let’s not forget–beyond the analogy–what it was actually like to finish high school and head to university as a newbie adult. We thought we would suddenly be called upon to take responsibility for ourselves, to grow up and don the garb of adults. But really it was another rite of passage and more growth amidst one hell of a four-year party!

Posted by Shana Ting Lipton