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America is at the centre (not center) of the world. That’s what Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Sopranos, Dexter, Rick and Morty, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, South Park, Orange is the New Black, The Big Bang Theory, Friends, How I Met Your Mother, The Good Place, Community, Jane the Virgin, House of Cards, YOU, Weeds, Totally Spies, 13 Reasons Why, Stranger Things, Oz, Star Trek, Sex and the City, Daria, Spongebob Squarepants, and all the amer-illians of US movies I’ve watched over a twenty-three year lifespan have shown me.
Let’s also not ignore the fact that the American Hollywood Cinema is well aware of this. Case in point: American Hustle, American Psycho, American Beauty, American History X, American Gangster, American Horror Story.
Surrounded by Americans
I love American TV and movies. My only real favourite British show is The Inbetweeners. But I have grown up in a world consumed by the USA. Most of the world’s biggest websites; Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, YouTube — are owned by Americans. As I’ve gotten older, particularly in my career as an indie author, I have increased interactions with Americans. Even my therapist is American.
Most of the websites I use for author promotion and networking (StoryOrigin, Authors XP, Booksweeps, BookCave, Voracious Readers, The Fussy Librarian, BookBub, Goodreads, Fiverr) are all swamped with Americans. I even had a beta reader on Fiverr kindly suggest for a fantasy series I’m working on to include a disclaimer saying that the book is written in British English. Maybe I should have been more sensitive to these lovely reviewers for my book Around Midnight:
“not many people are acquainted with the British education system so some aspects would be hard to understand” — well that was a slap in the face. And what, everyone’s acquainted with the American education system are they? But she has a point. The British education system is pretty confusing.
“If you are not familiar with the style of the commonwealth education system, specifically England’s, I’d recommend viewing a video or reading an article to get an idea, because it’ll make reading the dilemma of the main character much easier” — this was a nice touch, although no one ever recommended I watch a video trying to understand the American school and cah-ledge system before watching Legally Blonde.
“Being from America, I had to look up certain things (like sixth form) to get an understanding of what Megan was dealing with age and grade wise” — I appreciate the honesty. Still, I guess sixth form does sound stranger than high school. Heck, in some parts of the UK, ‘college’ and ‘sixth form’ are used interchangeably. It’s confusing enough for the folks who live here.
I get it. The population of America is 330 million. The UK population is 63 million. Hollywood has monopolized on the world’s media. Even major British films like Harry Potter are produced by American studios. And I must say, a great deal of American films and shows are bloody fucking fantastic. Even Game of Thrones, a show with mainly British actors, is produced by an American studio and was authored by an American.
United States of the World
Modern America is a very young country compared to the rest of the world. It’s one of the few countries where its native populace do not comprise the majority. It was ‘discovered’ (big emphasis on the quotation marks) in the 1500s by Christopher Columbus, colonised by the British, then fought for independence and founded itself in the late 1700s. I guess that fight for independence has moulded the fiercesome, can-do, here-we-are-man attitude of the USA.
American TV and film depicts the USA as the entirety of the world. Not only that, every American state is like its own country. Americans never say ‘I’m from America’, they say ‘I’m from Boston’ or ‘I’m from Michigan’ or ‘I’m from Miami.’
Growing up, this frustrated me A LOT. I hated the narrow-minded mentality depicted in American media. The rest of the world seemed non-existent by US standards.
Africa Is One Big Country
Wow, what is it about Americans and Africa? Two key movies I can recall which summed up an American attitude to Africa are Mean Girls and Blended. In Mean Girls, Cady moved over from Africa to EVANSTON (we even get the bloody name of the city/state/whatever the fuck it is!) But we didn’t find out WHERE in Africa she was. Did she travel the whole continent? Which countries? Cities? This movie really perpetuates ludicrous stereotypes about Africa being full of jungles and monkeys and animals. Not only is this subtly racist, it’s incredibly closed-minded and pathetic. Shame on you, writers!
And again, in Blended, the family go on holiday to Africa. Where? NO ONE SAYS BECAUSE THE WHOLE OF AFRICA IS ONE COUNTRY! WA-HEYY! They couldn’t even have said South Africa, which actually is a country. Couldn’t have included one more fucking syllable. It’s. Just. Africa.
Man, I hope for the coming years, American media really improves upon its depiction of Africa. Black Panther was an excellent start. More of that, please.
And yes, I know it sounds unfair to hold America to these standards. What about Bollywood? What about UK films? They make movies, why aren’t I banging on their studio executives?
Because Americans rule the world. American media is universally pumped out everywhere. Other countries have their films and TV and stuff. But we get a lens through to the rest of the world from America. America is the master country of the world, the mass-imperalist state. You have a duty to show us all of your world’s citizens. We can see American movies about Australia (Crocodile Dundee), American movies about Britain (Harry Potter), American movies about black people (anything by Spike Lee). Until the Hollywood empire comes crumbling down, we need to see more rounded representation of the world.
Stereotyping Brits
Now, let’s move on to Americans and their one-dimensional view of the UK. By US standards, Britain is stuck in the Victorian 1800s while the rest of the world has somehow moved on. America doesn’t seem able to see past the British aristocracy. Examples:
The Simpsons: has an episode where they visit London, and it’s basically something out of Pygmalion.
Mad Men: Lane Pryce is the one British person who obviously is upper-class and had a Cambridge education.
Friends: In the episode where they visit London, it’s rife with ridiculous American notions about what the UK is like.
Community: Professor Duncan and the History Professor are upper-class British stereotypes, utterly removed from the rest of England.
Family Guy: whenever they reference England it’s just a bunch of posh people walking around in tuxedos.
Sex and the City: In a season 4 episode Carrie leaves a message on Big’s answerphone, who is in London, and she says ‘as they say over there, cheerio old chap!’
Furthermore, in American films, why are British people always villains? Dexter, James Bond, etc etc — we’re always seen as having ultra-posh Queen’s English accents and being the big scary guy.
Modern American TV shows consciously move away from stereotypes and tokenism. Shows like Jane the Virgin and Community have more rounded depictions of people from diverse ethnicities and backgrounds. Yet when it comes to the rest of the world, America can’t seem to measure up. In Community, Germans are mocked. In The Big Bang Theory, Indians are stereotyped. French and Russian men in Sex and the City are fetishized. In Weeds and Breaking Bad, Mexicans are the bad guys.
Now, I will contradict myself. Most of these shows I mention are comedies. Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love making fun of stereotypes. I enjoy take-the-piss crass humour. But the joke is supposed to be that the person they are making fun of is much more than their stereotype.
When Jokes Become Dumb
If someone makes a joke about women belonging in the kitchen, the joke should be that thinking women belong in the kitchen is so ludicrous and out-dated and hardly anyone really thinks that. Which is why it’s funny. If someone jokes about black people all being thugs, the joke should be on the people who actually believe that about black people. It’s funny to laugh at how stupid the stereotype is. That’s what makes good satire.
Unfortunately, British stereotypes are not funny because Americans really do believe that all British folk are either cockney or posh. (At least, that how countless shows depict American understanding of Britain.) A British person mocking British stereotypes by saying things like ‘more tea sire’ or ‘no sex, we’re British’ is funny because we are mocking the stereotype. But when an American does it, they’re displaying ignorance of the culture, so it becomes lame and ignorant rather than funny.
A movie that I adored as a teenager which felt like a big middle finger to US stereotypes of the British was Wildchild. It was nice to see a movie about a spoilt Californian girl coming to an English boarding school. Finally, we got to see the Brits making fun of the Americans. And in the end they’re all friends so the movie tells us that this Californian brat is actually a kind, intelligent, quick-witted young lady.
Different Shades of the UK
Culturally, the UK is filled with rich nuances and variations in accent and attitude. I grew up in urban inner-city London. There was a lot I didn’t relate to within British TV and literature. Certain slang words like ‘I can’t stick that’ and ‘don’t be a boffin’ and ‘chavs’ sounded odd to me. The cultural fabric of London is itself insanely diverse.
London itself is very small-minded. In fact, Londoners are as dim-witted about the rest of the UK (and the world) as Americans are. The only reason I’m aware that the rest of the country isn’t just grass and sheep is because of going to university outside of London. Going up north to York and then down to Surrey opened my eyes culturally to the rest of England.
Anyway, here are some things I would like Americans to know about the UK:
➤Our accents are not sexy, they are shit and flat, and only southern Brits have the typical ‘British plummy-sounding’ accent you people love. Northerners have utterly different accents. In fact, Northern England (basically Birmingham onwards) is like a different planet to those in London and the South-East.
➤We are not stuck in 18th century Victorian England. Please get that out of your minds. The 6% of upper-class Brits you think we all are make up a tiny minority of this dull, rainy country. The UK exists in the 21st century, with all the cursing, video games, and lads (boys) spitting on streets.
➤No one cares about the royal family, apart from a few elderly housewives in Surrey. In fact, many of us want to get rid of the monarchy. I’m personally indifferent, but I wish they’d pay their bloody taxes.
➤Harry Potter is not like our real life schools. For more honest depictions, see Kidulthood or Waterloo Road.
➤Scotland, Ireland, and Wales are culturally very different to the UK — sorry, I meant England. Some recommended viewing: Trainspotting, Animals, and I’m sure many others.
Closing Sarcasm
I’m aware that Americans don’t always understand British sarcasm. Many of blog posts are written in a very dry, ironic, piss-taking tone. In my head I’m clearly not being uber-serious. But it doesn’t always come out that way. I realised that when messaging an American saying ‘wow, you feel really strongly about this’ and them taking me literally, or thanking an American beta reader for their harsh feedback and them apologising, not realising I wasn’t being literal.
One thing British people have in common across the country is that we’re all a dry, sarcastic, moody lot. We’re all pretty self-deprecating and moany. We drag our arses out of bed — no, for gods’ sake, I’m not being literal. Americans really shouldn’t take the British too seriously, above all. We don’t take ourselves that seriously.
