So i think one defining thing about culture really is how it constructs childhood. And one of the funniest parts about continental europeans (from my cultural pov) is that they dont have an infantilising culture.
On one hand, USA is all about feeding adults kids food and hollywood endings so that they never have to grow up, while australia and england are all about teenage culture so men can have boys clubs (hang with the lads, gentlemans clubs, go out in groups) so they can avoid the the anxiety of male-female sexuality. On the other hand, Continental 5th graders are already expected to have formed their own opinion on Wagner and/or Hegel, personal interests (collecting spoons from 1789, 1848 and 1917), ...
I think when you once said that Tennenbaums is about Americans imagining Europeaness, it is particularly in relation to this issue of childhood. In all of Wes films he breaks down this distinction between childish adults and adultish children, as an embodiment of the crisis in the patriarchal order, breakdown of the 1950s nuclear family. I wonder if somehow this can be mapped onto a Trans-Atlantic cultural relation?
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