As seen in several British or British-themed movies (paraphrased, obviously):
“Oh, woe is me, for I am English! I can’t express myself, father taught me to keep a stiff upper lip, if I could only get out of this smothering cravat, I’m really not like this deep down inside! Imagine me, showing fee-lings of an almost human nature–this will not do, for I am English!”
Like soliloquies and allusions are made in A Fish Called Wanda, Mary Poppins, I think every Hugh Grant movie ever made, and many other films.
Is this in fact a common preoccupation of English men? That the show of feeling or emotion is improper “for the English”? That it differentiates them from others? From whom?
No, it’s a cheap cliché designed for the US market. Based, presumably, on some upper-middle-class stereotype that constitutes about 1% of our actual population.
(Also, that’s “English”, not “British”, which includes the very expressive Welsh and Scots, and Northern Irish if that’s your bag.)
The whole repression thing is a very outdated notion these days, a bit of emotional honesty doesn’t hurt. Although I tend to agree with Colophon that when it degenerates into a media-fuelled collective pity party it is not an edifying spectacle.
On the other hand, I think the “stiff upper lip in the face of adversity” is still extant, and not just in the upper English classes. Look at the immediate reaction to the Tube bombings. Londoners of all stripes were magnificent that day.
I read a lot of “women’s fiction,” which includes a lot of modern British authors, and I think the “British archetype” you refer to is about as valid as the very common observation in current Brit fiction that Americans neither use nor understand sarcasm. I realize that it’s a handy and perhaps humorous generalization, but the fact remains that it simply isn’t true.
IOW, anybody with half a brain will realize that there IS no common British male affliction entitled a “stiff upper lip.” It’s a handy and, again perhaps humorous, generalization that has nothing to do with reality.
Indeed. The reaction by the people of the city was something to see. No major panic, no major fucking around. Just an attitude of, fuck them, let’s just get on with it.
I remember seeing an old man on TV with a bandage around his head and lots of blood on his shirt. He was asked what his opinion was. "I’ve lived through the Blitz and the IRA campaign. We’ve been bombed by better bastards than these bastards. "
The English don’t usually wear their heart on their sleeve but they are a passionate lot when they want to be and often a very impressive passionate lot.
My californian cousins were aghast at the antics of the Brits on hols in Cyprus last summer… quaffing vino, dancing in the village square to cheesy music, and general debauchery etc
Anyone who’s seen a gang of northen women out on a hen night will tell you that Brits are NOT shy and retiring!
