Barcelona

Ted (Taylor Nichols) Spanish girls tend to be really promiscuous. Fred (Christopher Eigeman) You're such a prig. Ted No, I wasn't using "promiscuous" pejoratively. It's just a fact. They have completely different attitudes toward sex. Fred Well, I wasn't using "prig" pejoratively.

Ted Here in Barcelona, everything was swept aside. The world was turned upside down and stayed there. Fred Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the world was upside down before, and now it's right side up?

Ted You're very perceptive. Montserrat (Tushka Bergan) What? Ted You're very perceptive. Montserrat What? Ted You are very perceptive. Montserrat Oh. Thank you.

Fred You are far weirder than someone merely into S&M. At least they have a tradition. We have some idea what S&M is about. There's movies and books about it. But so far as I know, there is nothing to explain the way you are.

Marta (Mira Sorvino) I don't go to bed with just anyone anymore. I have to be attracted to them sexually.

Woman (Diana Sassen) You can't say Americans are not more violent than other people. Fred No. Woman All those people killed in shootings in America? Fred Oh, shootings, yes. But that doesn't mean Americans are more violent than other people. We're just better shots.

Fred My jazz rule is: If you can't dance to it, you don't want to know about it.

Fred "Yankee" and "gringo" are obviously pejorative, but it's the standard dictionary term that's the most insulting of all: estadunidense. Dense. D-E-N-S-E. It's the same spelling. Dense: thick, stupid. Every time you hear it. Estadunidense-dense-dense. It's like a direct slap in the face. It's incredible.

Fred I think it's well-known that anti-Americanism has its roots in sexual impotence, at least in Europe.

Ted Maybe you'd like an analogy. Well, take... take these ants. In the U.S. view, a small group, or cadre, of fierce red ants have taken power and are oppressing the black ant majority. Now the stated U.S. policy is to aid those black ants opposing the red ants in hopes of restoring democracy, and to impede the red ants from assisting their red ant comrades in neighboring ant colonies. Ramon (Pep Munne) That is clearly the most disgusting description of U.S. policy I have ever heard. The Third World is just a lot of ants to you. Jurgen (Fred Degen) Those are people dying, not ants. Ted No, I... I don't think you understand. I was reducing everything to ant scale, the... the U.S. included. An ant White House, an ant CIA, an ant Congress, an ant Pentagon... Ramon Secret ant landing strips, illegally established on foreign soil. Fred Where are the red ants? Ted points to an anthill. There. Fred crushes the ants.

Marta Ramon is very persuasive, and he painted a terrible picture of what it would be like for her to live the rest of her life in America, with all of its crime, consumerism, and vulgarity. All those loud, badly dressed, fat people watching their eighty channels of television and visiting shopping malls. The plastic throw-everything-away society with its notorious violence and racism. And finally, the total lack of culture.

Fred Maybe you can clarify something for me. Since I've been, you know, waiting for the fleet to show up, I've read a lot, and-- Ted Really? Fred And one of the things that keeps popping up is this about "subtext." Plays, novels, songs: they all have a "subtext," which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So subtext we know. But what do you call the message or meaning that's right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what's above the subtext? Ted The text. Fred OK, that's right, but they never talk about that.

Marta I think there is something fascist about a boy who immediately talks of marrying a woman he likes. Fred I don't think Ted is a fascist of the marrying kind.

Fred You think wedding vows are going to change everything? God, your naivete is astounding! Didn't you see "The Graduate"? Ted You can remember "The Graduate"? Fred Yeah, I can remember a few things. Apparently you don't. The end? Katharine Ross has just married this really cool guy--tall, blond, incredibly popular, the make-out king of his fraternity in Berkeley--when this obnoxious Dustin Hoffman character shows up at the back of the church, acting like a total asshole. "Elaine! Elaine!" Does Katharine Ross tell Dustin Hoffman, "Get lost, creep. I'm a married woman"? No. She runs off with him--on a bus. That is the reality.

Ted You see, that's one of the great things about getting involved with someone from another country. You can't take it personally. What's really terrific is that when we act in ways which might objectively seem asshole-ish or, or, incredibly annoying, they don't get upset at all. They don't take it personally. They just assume it's some national characteristic.