United States of arrogance and anti-British Hollywood

1--Wrong.

Britain and Germany would have been in a stalemate, as neither could have cleanly defeated the other. Germany would have been unable to invade Britain (it had failed at Britain's weakest ebb in 1940) and Churchill in 1940 had commissioned plans for an independent British nuclear testing programme in Canada, which was dropped in 1941.And Britain would have unable to launch alone a European landing capable of defeating Germany.

Inability to win does not mean defeat.

2--Britain WAS a superpower in ww2, although she had really ceased to be by the post war period in 1946-1950's.

To suggest we were not a superpower in ww2 in nonsense. Britain maintained huge economic, industrial and military power through the war, although the war eventually bankrupted the nation.

In June 1944, three quarters of the ships landing our American 'saviours' and over half of the aircraft supporting them as they landed in Normandy were British. And it was the British 'Red Ball Express' that supplied American troops in Holland and Northern Germany with their petrol supplies throughout the Western campaigns....

Secondly, any arms we received from America pre-Pearl Harbour were bought and paid for, not given,kick-starting the American economy ironically. And those items were transported by the Royal Navy across the Atlantic, I might add.The much vaunted Lend Lease did not take shape until March 1941, with supplies transported later. In other worRAB, America 'saved' us LONG after we had in fact saved ourselves....

Finally, most people seem astonishingly ignorant of the 'reverse lend-lease agreement', where Britain GAVE America over
 
Maybe we havent had a holocaust but over the centuries our history is if not plain shameful,then very incompetent.
What about the slave trade,ok we helped end it but our particaption was disgusting.
The fact the British probably invented concentration camps.
The Opium Wars in which we more or less became a international drug dealer launching two wars in the name of money.
The way we handled the The Battle Of Somme and fallouts such as Singapore and India after and during WW2 was very ruthless.
The horrid mistreatment of the Irish.
What about the the tyrannical monarchy or the number of supposed witches we executed.
 
I'd love to see how the survey was worded to gain such results. I cannot beleive for a moment that 25% of Britons, or even 25% of UKTV Gold viewers, would think Churchill was fictional. To be fair you could put an argument together that the legenRAB of Arthur & Robin Hood are perhaps based on real people or events, although it would be pretty weak, but I can see how people would be fooled.

Anway, I'm not sure how such a survey does anything to counter the argument that was the original purpose of this thread. All it says is that we British are as stupid as our American cousins. But we don't make a habit of making films that re-write US hitory in our favour, do we?
 
I'm sure there are numerous films, featuring British characters or situations shown in a positive light, that, if not made by "Hollywood" were certainly partially financed by Hollywood. Just seeing the opening credits of films these days, you have to sit through a laundry list of production companies and studios of many stripes from all over the world. They are conglomerates or connected to them.

As for specific examples, look at all the costume dramas which tend to be focused on the U.K. rather than the U.S. What about all the Jane Austen incarnations, Shakespeare in Love, movies about Queen Elizabeth -- both of them. And, then there's the chick lit movies, like Bridget Jones or slice of life stories, like About a Boy.

Complaining about films set during WWII made by Hollywood is like complaining about classic, American Westerns. In those, the real history of native americans was treated deplorably, to say the least. So, there's nothing new there and, in fact, it's getting better.

To be honest, I disliked Love Actually, not just because of the portrayal of the American president, which seemed to be a mixture of Bush the II and Clinton -- which was so, so easy -- but more because of the other storyline which had these doltish, bimbo midwestern girls falling all over a couple of pretty shallow British guys for no good reason. I realize it was a throwaway "storyline" -- if that -- but it was a stupid stereotype.

Oh. And I've noticed a mini trend of portraying modern American women in British comedies as hardhearted, ball breakers. They are often the other women as in Bridget Jones and Sliding Doors. But, hey, I'm not complaining as I recognize that the main characters are British and so tend to be set up as "the other," as someone diametrically opposed, and therefore less admirable or insufficient in some way.

It happens in movies and, unfortunately, it happens in real life.



You'll have to forgive us on this count. After all, "you" were our enemy in the American Revolution, as I recall. We did get that right!
 
Gibsons views always annoy me.
he likes to present himself as some kind of ALL-AMERICAN hero, the truth is, he FLED to Australia to avoid the vietnam draft. (hence, the wonky accent)
then returned to Uncle Sam when the coast was clear and the fighting had stopped.
SOME hero!
And he has the cheek to make crap like "The Patriot".
He's not made a decent flick since the first"lethal weapon"n in 1987.
 
thread back from the dead?

anyways...
how full of sh*t can you be. but thats how it is, the folks who like to claim americans are ignorant or this or that tend to be guilty themselves. there are disproportionate amount of uk actors working in hollywood. sometimes using american accents, sometimes not. whether its love interests or any regular role, there are uk folks in there. but i guess you only fixate when the actors playing a baddie. was professor X or captain picard a bad character? gandalf? never mind hugh grant and co who spend their time being the british love interest wooing american women. look at uk tv and film, how many americans work in those? its not even comparable, you could easily make the argument that the uk industry is far more small minded ...which perhaps might reflect on the home audience as well if you want to make it like that. in fact on things like mi-5 i detect a far greater anti american tinge than in any american show about the brits.

folks whining about the submarine movie which was neither good or culturally significant or a film anyone actually took to be historical shows how far u are stretching. you might as well worry that people think red october is real:P let me remind you your own portrayal of code breaking in film did the same disservice to the polish. so any accusation is tainted with hypocrisy.
 
in fact the claim of negative portrayal is mostly people fixating on only what they want to see. i guess all the south african terrorist baddies in die hard and such films are supposed to be brits:P and you hear this from arabs as well, when they claim they are always the baddies in american films, which ignore the claims of germans/south african whites/and of course u guys. everyone bitches when they get their turn as the baddie and doesn't notice that everyone gets a turn:P its like noticing that dr evil has a bad british accent but totally ignoring the "hero" is austin powers. thats pretty much how it seems to work with complaints like this.



the number of employed uk actors in us film/tv is vast. the number of americans in uk based media is miniscule. americans don't care, many top tv series are headed by brits. the same would probably yield a sh*t storm of griping in the uk. who is really more insular.
 
I think the main reason Brits are always villains is that our actors are so darn good at playing them. And whats more, the villain is always the best part. ;)
 
"anti-British agenda"??? What's going on here? The movie that blogger based almost half her argument on was never even made. I'm an American, and I will allow that stereotypes of British culture are abused for entertainment purposes all the time here. Just like you lot regularly skewer us for a good laugh...it's called friendly rivalry. If you honestly think Hollywood is out "to get" Mother England, you're just plain nuts (definitely paranoid and possibly delusional). You ought to thank us, as for some God forsaken reason, we seem to have inherited your Ricky Gervais and now (more disturbingly) Russel Brand.
But lo, how quickly we forget! How about the last few years of Academy AwarRAB? Forgot about them? I think a few Brits might have won some shiny statues normally reserved for us imperialistic Americans. Bottom line is, with a few unpleasant exceptions like U571, you guys are doing pretty well in Hollywood these days. Thanks to Harry Potter, even the most insular Americans can now recognize the true staples of English entertainment...now capitalize on that, "get off your butts" like Mark said, and send us something really good please:).
 
Mlle:

I think the 'criticism' can be put into two camps:

a--the antiamerican element who just dont like you per se.
b--legitimate criticism about historical distortion (ie U571, SPR)
 
You are painting with a slightly broad brush here methink but I take your point about Hollywood being indifferent to all things British.

What we need is obvious: quotas on British film investment by foreign companies, a national film studio and a law making it manditory for so many screens in a cinema to be dedicated to British fair.

If you make it easy for outside forces to crap all over you, guess what....thats exactly what they'll do!
 
I agree and to the first group. Get off your butt and help the British movie industry if you don't like it. I watch Spooks every week and they make the Americans out to be the bad guys. I don't cry into my coffee over it though. Would you prefer US movies weren't released in the UK?

To the second group, I totally understand your perspective and opinion and i appreciate how annoying it must be to see events distorted in such a manner.
 
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