A) I have a job
B) I don't have to move to do it, so it is perfect.
Tutor.com finally hired me, but, unfortunately, they give me very very few hours since I am still provisional or whatever. Hopefully I'll be able to move my way up pretty quickly. We'll see though.
Anyway, back to the core of my discussion.
Why are Americans obsessed with British shit? Their movies, their culture, their awful accent.
Granted, they have made some enormous cultural contributions including The Beatles, Monty Python, Ricky Gervais, and various important literary figures.
But this is just picking and choosing, not a holistic argument for British cultural superiority. Either way though, the Beatles stole their music from black people, the Pythons work without John Cleese in the later seasons and in contemporary times has been mediocre, and Ricky Gervais... well, he's been in some pretty crappy movies.
So in appreciating British culture, we should recognize all aspects of it.
Here, I will present some aspects of England that suck.
First: Mr. Bean
Granted, Rowan Atkinson has done some genuinely funny stuff, but his most persistently popular character internationally remains a slapsticky, silent, stupid, and genuinely unoriginal character that makes a MadTV skit look like Citizen Kane. Awful.
Benny Hill:
As ironically funny as this guy can be, I feel I can genuinely say that global culture is not any better for his stupid, contrived and derivative brand of comedy. Terrible. Why are British people considered smarter and more sophisticated than us again?
Their accent.
This is probably a controversial statement, but British accents are more amusing to me than attractive or whatever the hell they're supposed to be. Why should someone be complimented for their accent? They didn't work for it, it came naturally. It's stupid. People say that their version of English is more "proper" but it's just different just like any other version of English. This is perhaps the most prevalent form of illogical Anglophilia, and, to me, one of the most annoying. For the sake of equality, I usually go out of my way to make British people feel stupid for their funny way of talking.
Imperialism.
These assholes set many, many countries up for a historic path of instability, violence and dependence. Although British wasn't the only country to do so, they were one of the worst perpetrators of it. What a bunch of jackasses. Who are the savages again?
Also, their food is terrible.
And finally, there's this.
Oh, God. Why?
That said, I'll be arriving in London on August 27th. I'm sure I will begrudgingly enjoy it. Even though it is stupid and expensive.
5 comments:
I've got some news for you, Daniel. We never really liked Benny Hill either. We were always puzzled, here in the UK, as to how he became so popular in the States. We could never figure that one out.
Agree with you that Mr Bean sucks. He's not universally popular and gravely misrepresentative of Atkinson's brilliant earlier work.
Oh, and the Beatles weren't the first to steal from black blues musicians. Think you'll find that a certain Mr E Presley was well ahead of the game on that one.
The accents thing. Hopefully you'll find, when you take the trouble to visit us, that there actually hundreds of different accents over here. And we can't do anything about it. We don't do it deliberately to make you feel bad, much as you might think we do. However, it seems that you're visiting London, which I have to say, appears to equate to "all of England" for most American tourists. That's a bit like me going to Manhattan and telling people I have an intimate knowledge of the entire US!
Don't worry, if I meet any Americans in the future I'll be sure to "go out of my way to make them feel stupid for their funny way of talking". Actually, I won't, as I have a life, but you get the general idea.
And an American having a go about past British imperialism? That's priceless, really. Please don't believe everything you've been told - the British Empire was not wholly a force for good, and that's been accepted by most. But I think calling a nation of 60 million "assholes" and "jackasses" for something their great-grandparents did reflects more on you than on anyone else.
Pity really. I quite like the American people I've met to date.
I've got to say that I'm thrilled that a random British person has commented on this post, but you should know that this piece is not really in my genuine opinion, but more of a practice in writing an entertaining blog on topics that are interesting to me. I don't want you to get the wrong impression that Americans are ignorant assholes. That's the type of people (the pseudo-intellectual who thinks the rest of the world is just Western Europe) that this post is making fun of.
I know my opinions are exaggerated and generalized. That's kind of the point. I've never even been to England. I think I've known two people that have lived there in my entire life.
Also, I noticed that you didn't try to defend your food. That would have been a tough one.
I thought you gave up on your blog already.
And lucky you getting a coherent argument in your replies. The only comments I've ever received on my blog were anonymous homophobic insults and a woman defending her breast implants. So, this comment alone is better than all the comments I've ever received.
I've never been called random before, so that's a first. Thanks for not flying off into 'rant mode' just because someone disagreed with your posting.
I'd find it difficult to blog something that wasn't my personal opinion, to be honest. I haven't been blogging for long, and my current blog is pretty specific, but I wouldn't write any old thing just to get a rise out of people. Well, not unless I meant it, anyway.
It's rather ironic to me that in your attempt to stereotype Europeans, you've made a grade A job of reinforcing the widely-held (and false) view of the average American as an arrogant, insular ignoramus. Of course, Americans aren't like that, just as British people aren't all lightweight aesthetes with a mother fixation and poor teeth.
But confirming that you've never travelled to England and that your personal knowledge of its inhabitants is limited does nothing to help. I'm sure that wasn't your intention.
British food? Nope, can't defend it. It's that Northern European 'food as fuel' culture, I'm afraid.
Hope your trip to England goes well and you don't meet too many pseudo-intellectuals.
Wow Dan! Looks like this thing is a success!
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