In Robo-Hunter, the entire population of the UK is repeatedly depicted as lazy, indolent, entitled jerks who only care about whatever the robot-controlled media tells them to care about. They sing when Robo-Thatcher tells them to, they support robot footballers just because it's World Cup time. The whole country happily sits around collecting welfare checks and obsessing over mindless soap operas starring babies.
My take is that when writers are willing to savage their own cultural stereotypes that way, then they've earned the right to be playful with other cultures. If the Brits in Robo-Hunter's world were incredibly noble and perfect, then the "minestrone" and "Pentax" gags would be troublesome, but that's not what's happening here.
The other side of the coin would be '60s strips like Kelly's Eye, where you have a blond, square-jawed, intellectual superman occasionally coming up against booga-booga stereotypes, or this tribe of "Seminoles" in the Florida Everglades that looked like castoffs from a '40s film serial. Titan reprinted that story a few years ago, and that really was shocking, seeing that level of dimwit cultural insensitivity.
It's all in the presentation. If you're willing to lampoon everybody and are especially harsh on your own culture, then the sky's the limit, I say. I know it's a slippery slope, but comedy's a tough business.
(We're all agreed that nobody wants France winning the Cup again, right?)
