My bad, I thought the dude with the 'fro was paired up with the blonde chick. I don’t watch this stuff.
Some things are far less controversial over here, one incident in particular springs to mind. When some American friends came to visit, my parents thought the sitcom Father Ted would be a suitable bit of light entertainment. To the visitors it was baffling and offensive (they are Catholic), but apologies were offered and an international incident avoided. It simply didn’t occur to my parents that a comedy about three priests banished to a remote island for various indiscretions would upset anyone.
The almost total absence of the religious right changes the landscape over here quite a bit. Sex education is another area where attitudes are far more liberal over here. For example, one programme on the subject showed nude female models being presented (via a projector screen) to an assembly room full of school children. I imagine that would cause a furore in the states.
However, a quick flick through our tabloid press shows we can hardly claim to be particularly enlightened as a country.
As others have pointed out, that really isn’t representative, it’s just a silly bylaw that hasn’t yet been repealed. I’ll try and find a suitable Spitting Image clip later (1980s satirical TV show, with puppets of politicians and celebrities).
This is utter nonsense. Why do you think black people don’t go to university in the UK? I knew several. Gandhi studied law at University College London, in 1888.
You should also add One Foot in the Grave to that list, which was one of the most popular sitcoms in the UK for several years. Technically, Richard Wilson was only 55 when it started, but he looked much older, and portrayed a pensioner. Mind you, I think all of those programmes were commissioned by the BBC.
You are greatly exaggerating, a typical night out in the UK does not include violence, I’ve never seen an actual fight. However, it very much depends on the area. I rarely go into city centres in the evening, towns are generally quieter. There is no question that the UK has a problem with alcohol related anti-social behaviour, binge drinking is fairly common.
Burglaries are more common in the UK than the US, but I still know few people it has actually happened to.
The only bar fight I have ever witnessed in Britain was in London (in an Irish pub 
).
The first interracial couple I can remember as regulars on network TV was Tom and Helen Willis who were regulars on “The Jeffersons” from 1975 to 85.
There is an interracial couple (black husband, white wife) in the main cast of the new-ish sitcom Happy Endings. There was also Joy and Crabman on My Name is Earl, although that’s been off the air for a couple of years.
I think interracial combinations other than black/white are more common on American television. I rarely if ever watched Lost, Heroes, and ER when they were on the air, but I think they all had interracial romances of one kind or another. Of current shows, it’s my impression that the Sandra Oh character on Grey’s Anatomy has dated non-Asian guys although that’s another show I don’t watch. Glee had several interracial couples in the first season, although none lasted into the second season unless Hispanic counts as a non-white race (Santana dated several non-Hispanic characters). If it does, there’s also the married couple of Gloria (Colombian) and Jay (Anglo-American) on Modern Family.
Not beind defensive in the slightest. I don’t live in Britain, I just think that part of British culture is overstated a lot of the time. I also think that bar fights do happen a lot in bars in the US too but for some reason it’s not seen as a cultural sterotype. I’ve been in the US numerous times, and have seen stuff kicking off in pubs. Anywhere young men get inebriated there’s going to be some of that carry-on.
Based on the little time I’ve spent in the UK and recollections from other friends, the three things I think most Brits would be genuinely surprised by if they came to the US:
- Public drunkenness really is pretty damn uncommon, and people that are try to hide it.
- We have a stunning, stunning array of sweet, flavored beverages for sale everywhere.
- Many of us ignore celebrity gossip almost entirely.
Ever tried the same time of the day in rural/small town Finland, Sweden or Norway? Public drunkenness up to and including puking and fistfights are a way of life for some people up here.
I do see a lot more “regular” looking people on the BBC than I do on American television.
Depends on where you are. There are parts of San Francisco where drunks passed out in puddles of vomit are a regular sight, and little bitty Montana towns where they have to hose down the sidewalk in front of some of the bars in the morning during rodeo season because of the blood from the previous night’s drunken brawling.
That was also a significant plot point. As someone above mentioned it was one of those “making a statement” character choices, rather than just a random “Hey, these two actors have great chemistry together.”
I’ve been enjoying The Writers’s Tale: Final Chapter by Russell Davies & Benjamin Cook, based on their e-mail correspondence. Davies, of course, was the show-runner who revived Doctor Who; the book starts as they begin working on the year with Donna Noble as companion & will end as David Tennant leaves the show. Davies was also working on Torchwood & The Sarah Jane Adventures, trying to have a life & reminiscing about the past. Very busy, but very fascinating.
Davies mentioned an earlier BBC show noted for its forward-thinking racial diversity. I believe it was an SF’er with most of the cast in uniform. He said they hired diverse actors to avoid everybody looking alike. You know, a group of good-looking white guys with dark hair need more than a blond or a ginger guy to differentiate the characters. How about some non-whites & even some women to liven things up?
They have no interest in spending time or money lobbying the F.C.C. or Congress on this issue. It’s not like HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax are independent operators protecting their own “soft core” territory from broadcast networks and basic cable – they’re all owned by the same people. HBO and Cinemax are owned by Warner Bros., which also owns CNN, TBS, TNT, the Cartoon Network, truTV, and Turner Classic Movies. Showtime is owned by CBS.
I don’t think the BBC commissioned Star Trek.
The OP is comparing apples and oranges to support a hypothesis. If you only watched the Soprano’s, The Wire, etc., you might come to the opposite conclusion.
Who would?
Although I’m wondering why they show* The Next Generation* on BBCamerica…
The show you cited sounds just like the original series of Star Trek. The creator wanted to show a future where different nations and races had overcome their differences. I can’t think of a UK Sci-Fi show that meets your description, so I wondered if you were getting mixed up there.
Are riots relevant?
Feel free to say “ugly”.
And black people are still much less likely to go to university, and then to move in university educated circles thereafter. The true “nonsense” is the position put about above, that poor people are a bunch of racist chavs.
This was the nonsense.
Big difference between saying that and saying the black population is under-represented at university level.
Not saying that everything in the garden is rosy, but “much less likely to go to university” seems to be untrue.