I just saw a Snapple ad, which was for some new Earl Grey tea bastardization they've released. In it some dude goes to London to find out about Earl Grey tea. Someone says "bloody" and I think maybe there's a double-decker bus. Oh maybe there's a Buckingham Palace guard, just for good measure.
Cut to last night, me watching PBS with a friend. A former RAF pilot is being interviewed, and I made the comment that "it wouldn't matter if that man was spewing utter nonsense. The accent makes him smart."
And we all know that if a villain is English he's not only evil, but an evil genius.
So as far as we in the States know, England is a land of stuffiness, book smarts, and giant buses. Of course I know that it's not just/all that, but it's funny to know that an entire country is distilled down to like 3 things.
Part of me wants to know how Americans are distilled. I'm afraid that we're portrayed as cowboy hat-wearing, war lovin', idiots who don't know the first thing about the world around us. Is it that bad? What's the typical "American" on English television? Or on any television?
How do we look to the rest of the world? And if you're not American or English, how do you find your country or your culture reduced and packed into a neat and unrepresentative cartoon?
Edited to add that in retrospect this *might* belong in Hyde Park, but I intended it to be lighthearted. So I'm not sure.
Cut to last night, me watching PBS with a friend. A former RAF pilot is being interviewed, and I made the comment that "it wouldn't matter if that man was spewing utter nonsense. The accent makes him smart."
And we all know that if a villain is English he's not only evil, but an evil genius.
So as far as we in the States know, England is a land of stuffiness, book smarts, and giant buses. Of course I know that it's not just/all that, but it's funny to know that an entire country is distilled down to like 3 things.
Part of me wants to know how Americans are distilled. I'm afraid that we're portrayed as cowboy hat-wearing, war lovin', idiots who don't know the first thing about the world around us. Is it that bad? What's the typical "American" on English television? Or on any television?
How do we look to the rest of the world? And if you're not American or English, how do you find your country or your culture reduced and packed into a neat and unrepresentative cartoon?
Edited to add that in retrospect this *might* belong in Hyde Park, but I intended it to be lighthearted. So I'm not sure.
