Winners and Losers

One thing I never got used to in the US was the way winner and loser are thrown around in conversation to describe character. I already knew about it before living in the country, but it never stopped leaving me mildly surprised and frustrated.

One day at lunch break with colleagues, the conversation turned to the date one of them, Annie, had had the previous night. “Ugh, he was such a loser” she said. I asked: what does that even mean? Neither Annie nor any of the American colleagues wanted to elaborate.
And really, I understood why. Loser is a non-specific put-down that doesn’t convey anything about the person pronouncing it. If Annie had said “he was ugly”, or “he had rounded shoulders”, she’d have risked appearing superficial. If she had said “he had a low status job”, she’d have risked sounding elitist. And something like “I gave him an opening, and he didn’t take it” would have been risqué.

I understand the appeal of generic put-downs that have no apparent recoil—though I think they convey laziness. It’s just that the American choice of loser (and winner for praise) is so odd. Probably unique. I hope unique.

I was thinking about this after watching the 1988 movie Crossing Delancey. It left me pleasantly surprised: American movies completely unconcerned with winner-loser are sadly uncommon.

The characters in Crossing Delancey are very much in the mainstream. Gainfully employed, intelligent, non-quirky, moderately content with their lives. Not enough American films are based on characters like that. I mean, if it wasn’t so recognizably shot in New York, one might have assumed it was a French film.