Elegantly Wasted – US rules Britannia
A certain aspect of evolution has always confused me. Consider that some of the scum, congealing on top of the campus lake right now aspires (on certain genetic levels) to be human. Now consider what transpires when the number of England fans in a largish Iberian country exceeds double figures, and ask yourself, what’s in it for the algae? The tabloid editorials are quick to reassure us that only a minority of us are such ‘Ingerlaand’ supporters, leaving me to wonder, is that strictly true?
Of course we don’t all engage in habitual rioting, but is that the only way in which Britain’s particular style of unpleasant national assertiveness is manifested? Take the typical, educated, middle class prejudices surrounding the USA (you’ll find it in evidence across York without much difficulty). Portraying Americans as ostentatious, over successful salesmen, a nation of Del Boys in drag, is standard practice in the UK. With noisome self-satisfaction we deride them as crude nouveau riche in one breath, and emphasise our own cultural superiority, with the other.
We damn American pop-culture with the faintest of praise, ignoring that even fairly mediocre musical fads from across the pond are replicated badly and ad nauseum by British wannabes, as demonstrated by the surfeit of sub-standard Strokes impersonators to have emerged over the decade so far. Proper pop legends like Bob Dylan and Brian Wilson, accept the ascension of newer artists to stardom, contenting themselves with quiet new material aimed at core fans. Meanwhile British equivalents like Bowie sink bloatedly into the quagmire of self-parody. Paul McCartney has become a strange musical inversion of Gregor Samsa, waking up one day to discover he is no longer a Beatle, and gradually metamorphosing into an embarrassment to his former fans. John Lennon was heading in a similar direction, only his assassination saving him from a duet date with Bono (or perhaps Bryan Adams).
The dearth of decent British filmmakers is well documented but even our supposed best are simply homages to American alternatives. Guy Ritchie’s lovable, fast-talking, quasi Tarantino/ Scorsese (but cockney) gangsters are as blatant as Danny Boyle’s flawed flattery of the Coen Brothers’ blended art house techniques and mainstream conceits. In fact most of our own great directors made not only their money, but also their best films in Hollywood – Chapman, Welles, Hitchcock, et al…
Even in terms of so called ‘high culture’ (where we like to consider the States to be specificaly deficient) they lead us. Booker prize winning Ian McEwan, one of the UK’s most well-regarded living novelists, bemoaned, at this years Hay Festival, the absence of later 20th Century British writers comparable to “the fearsome American triptych of Bellow, Roth and Updike.” In terms of output and international reputation, he was absolutely right.
As a nation fixated on foreign stereotypes, we have more for ‘the Yanks’ than anyone else – the vapid valley girl, the foul-mouthed New Yorker and (especially), the bigoted, ‘deep sayath’ redneck. When applying them, however, it is worth wondering in what ways our soccer hooligans and culture snobs are their betters.
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