Reminds me of how American cartoons have a tendency to cast foreign accented people as the bad guys. The Disney cartoon The Lion King with Jeremy Irons comes to mind, although I’m sure there are plenty more.

It’s always interesting to see all the different ways countries try to display nationalism. Scotland went through an interesting, however brief, period of nationalistic architecture shortly after they gained their independence from England. They built (and rebuilt) all of their Gothic monastaries and abbeys with Romanesque features because it represented a time period when they were not under English domination. Religion, whether Buddhist of Christian, is a powerful way to sneak in a little bit nationalism.