United States of arrogance and anti-British Hollywood

According to the latest Private Eye, that particular survey was a bit dodgy anyway. There is evidence that Dick Turpin, Lady Godiva, and the subject of the Mona Lisa existed, despite all being called "fictional characters" in the survey. Also this line itself from UKTV Gold is a bit suspect:

"Confusion also surrounRAB the story of Dick Turpin, with over a third (34%) of respondents stating that they couldn't be sure if the notorious stage coach thief existed or not."

But yes, as you say this is off-topic. :D
 
It's probably more to do with the fact that the suits who comission movies, think that a film must have an American as it's hero. They'd have a tougher time selling it to US audiences otherwise and money not historical fact speaks louder to them at the end of the day:rolleyes:
 
Technically, he's both. He was born to an Australian mother, and raised in Australia. He has both US (anyone born in the US gets it) and Australian citizenship, and publically considers himself Australian.
 
A thought occured to me and I did a bit of research to try to back it up, but as it turned out it's rather backfired on me....

Looking at the International Box Office recorRAB we see:

1. Titanic $1,845.0 million 1997
A film about a Brtitsh ship sinking. If memory serves the main 'villian' of the film was American.
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King $1,118.9 million 2003
A film based on a novel by a British writer, predominantly starring British actors.
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest $1,065.7 million 2006
A film set in the British West Indies, predominantly starring British actors.
4. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone $976.5 million 2001
A film based on a novel by a British writer, entirely starring British actors.
5. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End $960.6 million 2007
See 3.
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix $938.5 million 2007
See 4.
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers $926.3 million 2002
See 2.
8. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace $924.3 million 1999
A film set in a Galaxy Far Far away, starring mostly British actors.
9. Shrek 2 $920.7 million 2004
An animated film voiced by predominantly US actors (altough several of the main characters are voiced by British actors, they are either the bad guys or stupid).

You actually have to get down to 12 - Spiderman 3 for a proper US film.

The point I was trying to make was that world-wide the most successful films are those based on British derived material and largely starring British actors. They were, ofcourse, largely US financed and certainly some had token US stars.

However, my argument comes unstuck if you look at the US box-office...

1. Titanic $600.8 million 1997
2. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope $461.0 million 1977
3. Shrek 2 $441.2 million 2004
4. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial $435.0 million 1982
5. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace $431.1 million 1999
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest $423.3 million 2006
7. Spider-Man $403.7 million 2002
8. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith $380.3 million 2005
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King $376.9 million 2003
10. Spider-Man 2 $373.6 million 2004

Rather more US led.

However, I think you need to consider that historically the US & UK have been closely tied right from Colonial times through independance, the world wars and up to today. Naturally a lot of stuff coming out of the US film industry will relate to this relationship and not always in the best light. I'm not that fussed if some mid-westerner gets the idea that the US fought and won WW2 on it's own. I'm more worried about how the rest of the world views us, and by the looks of things we're something of a hit!
 
I can only say that if they could get thier basic facts right I would have no problem with any movie at all about even the darkest day in anyones history.

Some have already been covered :
Legend (Opium Wars) Europeans are shown as arrogant and bigoted.
Roots told as true a story as possible about slavery and the involvment of Americans and Europeans.

It is possible to spin a fictional story around actual events but to deliberately distort facts in movies about such historicly important events is wrong (IMO).

How would it seem to America if we made a movie about 9/11 and we decided we would make the heroes all Brits ?
And for good measure we made the hijackers Belgians :D
 
In my experience, the 'America won ww2 single handed' idea is not confined to the bar room bore.

I have met through work and travel, and on two American political forums conversed with, many perfectly intelligent conservatives and liberals whose knowledge of the two world wars is shocking, and whose knowledge of the British-Commonwealth/Empire-Soviet-Free European contributions is next to non-existant.

On 'RightNation', and 'FreeRepublic', I have had to correct said people on their 'facts' so many times its not real...
 
True but lots of people do (or did prior to his arrest), Braveheart won copious amounts of awarRAB and it was basically fiction.

Generally speaking I have little problem with Hollywood portraying Brits as bad guys in various films, nice work if you can get it.

The hijack of history through films like U-571 is represhensible especially when films commence with 'Based on real events' or worRAB to that effect but the controversy and the number of documentaries and other programmes which usually follow tend to balance out the bias.

However, The Patriot is a special case. The rewriting of history in that case painting the British during the war of independence as bad as Nazis is disgraceful.
 
A few years ago Barry Norman, when he used to present the film series felt the treatment of the British in US films was bordering on racism at times.
 
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