hybrid culture

So, yeah, Julie & Julia is lovely. Meryl Streep is fantastic as Julia Child, and Stanley Tucci is great as her husband Paul Child.

Paul Child was a foreign-service officer, stationed in Paris, where Julia took up cooking. Later they leave Paris for a post in Marseille, and some time after that they move on to Oslo.

The scenes from Oslo jumped out at me. In case you're wondering, 'Oslo' in an American movie is white painted wood panels in a kitchen, a light wood coffee table, and a wooden bowl. And it was funny to me that even though it's supposed to be Norway, the first thing I see is something Swedish (a print on the wall that I recognize from my grandparent's kitchen).

It doesn't matter, unless we decide that details do matter. (The Norwegian traditional painting style rosemaling is different from the Swedish kurbits.)

But, to speak semiotics, it's not Norway. It's signs for Norway.

Or, as Dan pointed out, it looked like IKEA.