I was watching American TV the other day, and I got thinking about stereotypes, and especially the way Americans think of us Britons. The show - Friends - portrayed several Brits as ‘jolly hockey sticks’ upper class types - your stereotypical toffs, with cut glass accents.
Is this still generally how America sees us Brits? Are there people who still think we all wear bowler hats and carry umbrellas, a la Mary Poppins?
I’d be interested to hear what you all think…
Hi Strummer! I’m not a Yank, but I watch the same American television.
Stereotypes I’ve noticed include:
Pythonesque Brits: On The Critic and The Simpsons, the Queen has been voiced with a Terry Jones-ish Pepperpot voice, and Prince Charles is a Gumby
Punkrock Brits: A number of shows have used Brits or actors faking Brit accents to play rockstars a la Spinal Tap.
Villainous Brits: What is it about Received Pronunciation that Americans find so disturbing?
Plus the usual jokes about bad teeth and bad cooking.
A good point about the bad guys in movies - there must be something scary about us lol
Guitar if I were you I would be more concerned about being stereotyped as Austin Powers than I would being scary. Talk about scary!
how he media portray groups does indeed largely determine how those groups are viewed by the population at large. just look at what americans think of the french, even though most of them have never been to france or met any frenchmen/women.
otoh, american movies have been exported around the globe for many years. most non-americans think they know a lot about america, but most of it is based on those movies. while traveling i’ve been asked by children where my horse and/or guns are. we are believed to be very liberal and promiscuous, when actually we’re puritanical prudes.
the exception is brits, they are actually very jolly, have bad teeth, and horrible cooking. 
When I was there last year I ran into a lot of “cut glass accents”. It’s part of the scenery, so get used to it. We can’t all meet everybody. Some of the people at The Tower especially were putting on quite a show, for the tourists’ benefit I’m sure, but there it is.
Anybody ever notice how many nature shows, documentaries, etc, have a British narrator? One would think that all smart people are always British.
Don’t forget the Roman Empire! Apparently Hollywood thinks that Latin is somehow implied by a British accent.
Well, speaking as a Brit recently moved to Iowa I can answer your question with some experience. Most Americans don’t realise how SMALL Britain is. The reason they have a stereotyped view of the accent is because they think all of us with London (well southern) accents are bloody Australians. I have had to point out that we regard Australia as the British version of Alcatraz on more occasions than I care to remember.
They can’t believe we live in such small houses in cramped communities, pay so much for cigarettes and petrol and pay so much road tax on our cars.
The other way round, from my personal experience having known a few Americans before I moved here too, you will find the ordinary people more friendly, well mannered, kind and helpful. There really are NOT as many differences between us as we think.
This is exactly what I wonder about every summer when I visit family back in Seattle!
Hi Chas, welcome to Iowa!
I don’t know about stereotypes – I’ve watched too many movies and TV shows, and read too many books to think that you’re much different from your American cousins.
But I do love to listen to you talk. We’ve had our first Brits at work, just in the last few months, and I’m running out of reasons to engage them in conversation. I don’t know if they think I’m friendly or silly.
Does it annoy you, if people comment on your accent?
I don’t have an accent… it’s you people who have accents…
LOL well although I come from the middle of England (Coventry, Near Birmingham)I seem to have grown up with a London or Southern accent. Have no idea why this is. However it does sound a little like Australian so quite a few people have to ask which. I can do “BBC English” but it really ain’t me if you know what I mean.
No it doesn’t annoy me in the least but I think some Brits might be funny about it. (Some are just “Funny” okay?)
Actually I do have some observations on what former colleagues thought when they knew I was coming to live here and it illustrates that there are misconceptions in great abundance. Too long to go into here but thanks for the welcome. Email is chas123456789@yahoo.com
By here, do you mean Iowa, or the US in general?
God forbid anyone could have stereotypical views of Iowa. We’ve given the world Tom Arnold, American Gothic (the painting, not the TV show) and Herbert Hoover.
There’s a joke in there somewhere. I can’t find it though.
As an American who lived in the U.K. for three years (1987 - 1990), it was interesting to see both how Americans stereotyped Brits and how Brits stereotyped Americans based on which TV shows from the other country were most popular. Americans seemed to think that Brits were all decadent aristocrats, colorful eccentrics, or quaint little village types who enjoyed an occasional visit from a oddball detective investigating a murder. Brits seemed to think that Americans were all beleagued cops, scheming millionaires, or wiseguy yuppies.
Brits probably have a more complete idea of Americans than Americans do of Brits just because British TV is such a small part of the American TV schedule (pretty much confined to PBS and A&E, with an occasional Brit showing up on an otherwise American show), while Brits actually show popular American TV programs in primetime on heavily watched channels and fill up late night TV with random American shows.
I’ve thought for years that the main way in which American TV must create a false impression of the U.S. (well, aside from the fact that American TV shows us as being richer than we actually are) is that they imply that Americans have lots of free time. How could the father and mother on Cosby (a successful doctor and lawyer) possibly have that much time to interact with their five kids? Hell, how could they have time to have five kids? How could the characters on Seinfeld have so much time to just hang out doing nothing, especially given that they have jobs with completely different schedules? How could the people on Friends be constantly ready to help out each other with every tiny little personal problem? I think all of this misleads foreigners into misunderstanding how full most Americans’ schedules are. Americans on average work several hours more per week than Brits, for instance, and get a couple weeks less of vacation. I don’t think that foreigners understand that a major characteristic of American life is exhaustion.
The other thing that Brits suffer from is an illusion of comparable size as far as the countries are concerned. In a recent film I saw a family travel from Colorado to California for a vacation. The “Screen Journey” took about 5 minutes. Of course we know it’s possible to drive from state to state here but it’s hard to visualise the distance for someone whose experiance of a long journey by road is somewhat less than travelling east to west across Iowa.
This also is aggravated when some newsreader says “In AMerica Today…” To a Brit this implies a country similar to Britain, whereas the USA is more comparable to the whole of Europe. An event like a shooting “In America” could be as distant from any of us as East Germany is from Britain.
I recently had to travel back to England for a funeral and boy did it feel small. I’ve only been here since March!
american television is nowhere near reality.
i was watching a british program years ago, think it was A TOUCH OF FROST, detective show. when the thought popped into my head “the women on this show are really ugly.” then i started concentrating on the women more and noticed, they weren’t ugly, they were just normal looking women like in the real world. women don’t get on american television unless they are significantly above average by “Official American Standards.” LOL!
Dal TimgarI was horrified to learn that, back in the 80’s, the biggest shows we had exported were “Dallas”, “Dynasty” and the like.
How embarrassing, but I suppose that many Brits were apalled to be lumped together with Monty Python or Benny Hill (always a dinnertime favorite in our house).