If you’d like to experience the reverse effect, look around at how the American Wild West has been depicted in Europe. It’s a fantastical, cartoonish view of a

If you’d like to experience the reverse effect, look around at how the American Wild West has been depicted in Europe. It’s a fantastical, cartoonish view of a period which is already fetishized in the US but when taken out of context it becomes (to my American eyes) bizarre. This may be fading, because it clearly originated in 1940s and 50s Westerns from Hollywood. But whenever I’ve encountered it I’ve felt like I’m looking into a funhouse mirror.