Finland in "Confessions of A Shopaholic"

"Confessions of a Shopaholic" was released in the US in 2009, was recognizably successful and recieved good ratings. The movie portrays a hopelessly shopping-addicted Rebecca Bloomwood (played by Isla Fisher). This character is exactly what I would think of as a Shopaholic; extremely girly with a love of pink and/or animal printed clothing. Eventually, however, Bloomwood winds up in excessive credit card debt and has to resort to making absurd yet humorous excuses to escape her creditors. As she portrays the classic perky and loveable (but maybe just a tad dim-witted) girly girl, her excuses and avoidance attempts are naturally seen as funny to an American audience.

And what does this have to do with Finland? ...

Throughout the film Bloomwood uses Finland repeatedly as a diversion to throw people off. When one of her friends asks why her excuses usually involve Finland, her response is: "No one ever checks up on Finland" .. which, unfortunately seems to be true for most Americans.

Another point in the movie depicts an encounter between Bloomwood and a Finnish man, who, in Finnish, tells her that it's nice to meet another Finn. Not understanding a word (though claiming to be fluent in Finnish), Bloomwood yells back in English "Men like you are the reason I left Finland!"

This is funny for Americans, I feel, because most of us have HEARD of Finland, know it exists as a country, but know little to nothing about it as a leading nation in modernization and innovation, equal rights, the environment, etc. etc. I feel that the idea that "no one ever checks up on Finland" rings true for most Americans, which is why it is funny to us: a shame that it is so overlooked, but funny still because of its irrelevance to our own culture.