In terms of whether you will watch or enjoy a story, in whatever media, how important is it to you that it features an American character? Do you find it difficult to relate if it doesn’t?
I once came across a rather well written multi-part story online that was set in Britain during a ‘Cold War goes Hot’ scenario in the 1980’s. The author was English and he was posting it chapter by chapter, it was well received but a handful of very vocal American posters started suggesting and then demanding that he describe what was happening in America. It was obvious that the author wanted to concentrate on the UK but they kicked up such a fuss that he wrote a few chapters in America as well (which I have to say were rather well done), after they were complete the American posters then vanished from the scene having apparently lost interest once the American part of the story was complete. It was rather obnoxious.
In addition I recall one American member of this board stating that it was unfair that the Harry Potter series did not have an American main character and as it was Americans that were mostly buying the books (questionable) they were entitled to one. It was actually a bit more crude than that but I can’t recall the exact wording.
I ask because this is a mostly American board and I was just wondering. No deeper reason or ulterior motive than that.
Not important for me. I’m pretty much an Anglophile, and find the insertion of American characters into British settings jarring unless it’s something like an adaptation of Henry James novel.
Don’t care. If anything, I might such a character an intrusion if I was reading to get an alternate perspective (Cold War through non-US/USSR eyes) but I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d get mad that there’s no American characters or scenes.
In something like a Cold War era world war scenario, it would be odd if the actions of the biggest power in NATO wasn’t at least covered on the periphery. Macksey’s “First Clash: Combat Close-Up in World War III” was pretty awesome when I read it long ago and it followed a a Canadian Mech Brigade.
Mostly I don’t care unless it feels like an artificial exclusion for some reason.
ETA - Ralph Peter’s Red Army, told from the Soviet perspective was pretty awesome too. Maybe I should just say I don’t care.
I don’t care. Probably most Americans don’t care. I’ve never heard any complaints about Harry Potter or James Bond, British authors seem to do all right, etc. You’d have a hard time getting an American TV network to produce or re-make a British show with a British cast, but British-made shows do pretty well on American cable without much call for Americans.
Maybe it’s the Cold War theme that drew in a particular subset of American fans. I’m not a follower of the spy genre, but I can imagine some of that audience might not be comfortable breaking out of the CIA vs. KGB rut.
Many of the works I like are set in other countries with casts appropriate to those countries (such as Harry Potter), and many others are set in contexts where there is no “America” (Tolkien’s works, Discworld, science fiction set far from Earth). It doesn’t bother me at all, and why should it? Heck, I’ve read fiction without even any human characters, and while that’s tough to pull off well, when it is, I don’t object to that, either.
I don’t care where the characters are from. Just make them interesting. Worse than shoehorning American character into an otherwise English story is when film adaptations take English characters and make them American. That’s what they’re doing with “Girl on a Train.” As if that’s not ridiculous enough, they cast Emily Blunt, an English actress, to play the American.
That’s what I suspected, but I thought it may also be because most mainstream movies etc are produced in America so Americans are used to seeing Americans in the main roles.
Would The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen be the towering cinematic achievement that it is if they hadn’t crammed Tom Sawyer, an American character, into the narrative? Of course not! He was clearly the key piece of the puzzle.
Umm what? I actively seek out things that don’t have American characters, because I get enough of America. It’s not like I’m not patriotic (cripes, I was in the military, and didn’t try to get out of jury duty), or think I’m lucky, on the whole, to live here, but I know what America is like. When I read or watch movies, I seek novelty. If I watch an American film, it’ll usually be a vintage film, or a sci-fi/fantasy/horror film. When I see films about ordinary people, I like films about people from other places. I love UK films, French films, German films, Japanese films, and Australian films. I also really love British books, and I say British rather than UK, because as much as I did love How Green was My Valley, and Dubliners, mostly I seek out books by English authors.
When I do read American books, I love reading stuff that stretches me, like books from the Harlem renaissance, and I’ll go on record as saying that cramming some Americans into a Harry Potter book is as ridiculous as cramming some white people into Zora Neale Hurston’s work.
And BTW, I took the trouble of tracking down authentic British Harry Potter books to read, with single quotes, and the correct title of the first one.
It’s not just whining American jerks who are to blame. There is a continuing belief in Australian film and tv production that we need to have an American angle or connection to increase the likelihood of American sales. PerhAps a bit easier now that there are many Australians witH substantial international careers who probably have equal pull.
Yeah, I can really remember all of the American characters in the Mad Max series of films. They’re the ones who drew me in.
:rolleyes:
I agree with everyone else: Very, very few Americans care about how many American characters there are in films. Disney, one of the most American of American movie-making companies, has made its name with large numbers of animated films most of which don’t have a single American character. Others have given similar examples, but few film studios are as quintessentially American as Disney, and Disney’s signature films are usually not set in America and usually don’t have American characters.
In the OP’s scenario, I’d be inclined to believe those shit-stirrers were simply trolls looking to start a fight.
I think there is enough fiction out there that depicts Americans that it’s not really something I notice. I mean, sure, while reading or watching something, I’ll know that the characters aren’t American. But I never really noticed how often it happens.
Zero importance. I will happily read things, either fiction or nonfiction, that contain no Americans whatsoever.
Not usually, but sometimes getting into the head of someone very, very different from myself is part of the enjoyment.
That sort of person is called “an obnoxious jerk” and are found in many places although, lamentably, the American version tends to be loud and outspoken.
To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever considered this issue before. But having thought about it, I’ve read plenty of books and watched plenty of movies which didn’t feature any American characters and it never bothered me.
One of the many cool things about the Internet is the ability to have easy, direct exposure to media from other countries. I’ve watched (subtitled) T.V. shows from Germany, Norway, Finland, Portugal and Brazil, as well as shows from many English-speaking countries. I find that once I’ve watched an episode or two, it’s just a show, and the nationality of the characters doesn’t even enter into at all, except for the interesting cultural quirks (if the characters regularly go for saunas, you’re probably watching a show from Finland). I think it’s a lot more fun than just seeing the American perspective all the time.
