blamebrampton | A case in point ...

A case in point ...

So, there we were, having a chat on a friend's LJ about the differences between the US and the UK for purposes of a self-Britpicking list, with participants from both sides of the pond and beyond and frequent diversions into baiting and comedy from all sides, and apparently it has become a source of Flocked Drama.

Consider the argument very carefully: At least one American is very upset that British people prefer to be depicted in accurate ways.

And if you can't see why that's a bit dodgy, replace the word British with any other nationality.

I don't want to overstate the case, because really, it doesn't culturally oppress us the way that some other cultures have been oppressed by this sort of thing, since we don't deeply care and we had an Empire first. And while the original source of the complaint is a preference, it's certainly not a sine qua non, and we read heaps of stuff that gets us wrong, and some of it is good and some is crap, and really, at the end of the day we still pronounce and spell aluminium in ways that are scientifically logical, which in itself is enough. But, honestly ...

Interestingly, one of my points of difference was a tendency to soap-opera-like over-reactions in fiction. Clearly I drew the line too narrowly.

AND I left off the fact that it the entire United States has been the subject of mass-brainwashing to accept caffeinated flavoured beverages as coffee. Though I see Starbucks has dropped the word from their logo, truth in advertising at last!

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I will say here what I've said on my own journal today - that if you are writing in a foreign culture, making an effort to represent it accurately is a sign of respect, to that culture, and to the audience of the piece. And where effort has been made, people will generally then forgive honest mistakes (and feel more willing to politely help with them).

No writer is perfect, no reader is perfect. But respect offered should engender respect returned.

And while our similarities, and the blurring of shared media experiences, may confuse the issue, there is no question that Australia, the UK, the USofA and Canada are each foreign to the others.

Don't get me started on the requirement to 'americanise' English and Australian texts so that the American audience doesn't have to grapple with those very differences. If more English and Australian authors had the ability to refuse, maybe more people in the US would have the chance to experience those differences and gain the same widening of understanding that we have had. My childhood would have been a much duller place without the Famous Five and their endless meals of tongue sandwiches. :D

Hey! They're milk fed, that's vego, isn't it?

*looks innocent*

I'm sure their mothers were vego, anyway. >.>

*twirls*

See, this is exactly why I write basically plot-free porn. As long as I can remember that British guys are generally uncircumcised (and I, ahem, have an in-house reminder), I'm golden!

Huffy Americans are silly little buggers. Heh.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Can't discuss, too busy dying of laughter ...

It would seem logical that if American writing is overly influenced by American soap operas, than the Americans who are doing the writing are overly influenced.

I can only describe my personal experience regarding the difference in the ways Christianity influences our different cultures. I am a coastal American, east and west, and not from the areas you broadcast on the news and in documentaries where it's all about Jesus and damnation, etc. I moved from Los Angeles -- where the companies I worked for sent out "Seasons Greetings" cards, to London, where not only did the companies I worked for send out "Happy Christmas" cards, but where I was unable to make anyone see how this was offensive to me as a non-Christian. I receive cards with Mary and Jesus on them every year from my husband's relatives. I have to defend my children against my MIL's constant attempts to talk to them about Jesus. My daughter is forcefed Christianity in school as if it's a given that she's Christian despite the large number of Muslim and non-Christian people in her school. She has to say prayers and attend Church and listen to the pastor tell her that Christmas is all about Jesus.

The only time I had to deal with that sort of thing when I was living in America was when I attended a small, private school. The public institution in which I participated in the States seemed to try quite hard to be diverse and inclusive. Whenever I try to suggest that perhaps some people aren't of Christian origin to Brits over here, I'm met with outrage and accused of being narrow minded and a killjoy.

My current take is that some British people of British decent are so immersed in their Christian culture that they take it as "normal". They don't even see the influence that religion has on their thoughts and behaviour, because they don't know any different. They've never been the odd one out or the outsider, so they don't know how irritating it is when people assume you're going to have your children Christened and try to get them into St. Mary's on the Field because they have the best OFSTED reports. :/

Of course there are plenty of Americans who have the same attitude and some who express it in much more toxic ways. I'm not one of them, however, and I know as many non-religious Americans as I do Brits and many more overtly religious Brits than I do Americans. It all depends on your personal experiences. It's the generalisations that make me itchy, especially when they don't match up to what I observe in my life.

It would seem logical that if American writing is overly influenced by American soap operas, than the Americans who are doing the writing are overly influenced.

NO IT WOULD NOT! Argh! And yes, I mean to shout at that, because it is not only illogical, it is an absolute act of rudeness to me for you to make that extrapolation. And since you are not rude as a rule, I want to get this out of the way before reading any more of your comment.

Young Adult writing is currently overly influenced by vampires. This does not make Young Adults vampires. Australian writing is over-influenced by criminal dramas, this does not make all Australians criminals (shut up Shiv, if you read this, I know exactly what you are about to say). French writing at the moment is overly influenced by philosophy, this does make all French philosophers.

If you would like me to substantiate my case that American writing is currently over influenced by soap opera I am more than happy to at great length, but first I have to go away for a few minutes and jump up and down a bit.

Language confusion all around.

No, of course not to all your examples. But extrapolating that to the original point would lead to: "Americans writers are overly influenced by soap operas, which does not make American writers soap opera characters." That's not what I was accusing you of saying. Because... duh. (To use a blatant Americanism. ;))

I was saying that claiming that American writers are overly influenced by soap operas indicates to me the belief that the minds behind American writing have absorbed the story patterns common in soap operas. And American minds = Americans.

I did watch Eastenders for quite a while when I was at university here. Maybe that's why the storytelling in Merlin went so wrong in the end? The writers watched too much Eastenders and Corrie?(joke)

fyi, on another note -- My best darkfic pals are all Brits and Europeans. Only a few are Americans.

Three words for you. Arthur/Eames, baby.

One Brit, one American, globetrotting master criminals whose vernacular could come from anywhere. The one fandom you can argue your way out of almost any -picking debate.

To the debate on cultural imperialism (which is the invisible background to this argument, isn't it?), I add a whole lot of eye rolling, and also this. Ben & Jerry's has finally opened its first store here. I am going to protest against the smothering effect of US chain stores by attempting to eat it out of existence.

It doesn't mean anything about minds beyond you needing to have one to care about what is seen to be popular in narrative fashions. What we see as being a proper or good story is not something that remains constant over time even within the one place, but is instead subject to change depending on the dominant tropes of a time. Shakespeare was considered partially 'unfit' for centuries in England, after all (so productions cut out the gruesome bits and gave King Lear a happy ending).

For the last decade or so, a large amount of American writing has been overly dependent on the bigger, more disastrous, more unexpected or more shocking twist that the soap opera relies on. It's a fashion, much like Justin Beiber. To my mind it's a problematic one, because the tropes of the soap opera do not lead to good story telling, which is why I wish it was not so pervasive in its influence at the moment.

That said, there are many readers who love that fashion, as the success of books I consider unreadable testifies. For my taste, the fashion of ironic class-based comedy that dominated American writing in the first half of the 20th century, and for massive themes disguised as family dramas in the 19th century are far more enjoyable and lead to stronger story telling. I firmly believe that in 100 years, Little Women will still be a classic and Twilight will have disappeared.

As to religion, there will always be a great range of personal choice, but it is publicly foregrounded in American culture in a way that it just isn't in the rest of the English-speaking world. It's not just that 55% of Americans believe in Creationism, it is the level of religious power in political decision making, from abortion and stem-cell research to the anti-NY 'mosque' movement.

Funnily enough, in fanfic this does not show up as deep discussions on personal faith, instead it usually shows up as American commenters critically zeroing in on any mention of anything religious in a fic even when at a level that is fully supported by the original text.

When I get round to discussing it I'm going to use proper statistics because there is available data to show that overall American culture is more religious than British.

I'd argue that's your misreading of English culture. I'm an atheist and an atheist of Jewish extraction and I don't see either Easter or Christmas as being Christian. They were once but aren't now.

And you asking people to think of that as being Christian practice and therefore disrespectful of you is almost doomed to failure because it requires them to change their understanding of a non religious cultural practice to being religiously significant and to accept that you have beliefs that are important to you which is again profoundly unEnglish unless it's about football. Belief is private and should not be discussed.

I'd respect your wishes because it's polite to do so but ... I still wouldn't see a Christmas card as implying any religious belief.

otoh I have the very devil of a time getting some American flistees whether Christian or pagan to accept that I'd be awfully grateful if they wouldn't hold me in their prayers and in particular not offer me their blessings because not only am I an atheist, that assumes a hierarchical relationship with the nonexistent deity with them higher than me.

I find church schools a worry. A good education shouldn't depend on belief.

Which no one said.

I'm preparing a meta piece on cultural differences for a com. I wanted to make sure I dealt with issues that puzzled the American flist and didn't assume my cultural experience is taken as being representative. I don't intend really deal with class because that's a book in itself and you'd be bored.

Where in any of that does it say Britpicking is mandatory? People read fic all the time that they enjoy with the occasional wince about thanksgiving in hogwarts.

I tried it but it was too sugary, alas. Obviously this is part of my ongoing pattern of persecution.

You know, I am tempted ... but I have to beta this other thingy first ...

This is possibly the most quietly hilarious thing I have ever read in your journal, and I read you *because* you're dryly hilarious.

I had so many sensible things I was about to say, but, unfortunately, there are tears of laughter falling down my face at your icon.

Obviously, I am a banana for reacting to the original thing.

*anthro hat* as precursor to discussing the difference in the unreflecting continuity of christian religious tradition in British English culture v.a.v the emphasis of current practice of *a* religion in the US, I think all and sundry could do worse than read the relevant bits from Kate Fox's "Watching The English" for perspective on the first point.

Also, the book should be required reading for anyone who gives more than a marginal toss about accurate cultural description of britishers. Of course, it's all moot because essentialising is evil ;) *end anthro hat*

I love that icon! I rediscovered it in my folder and though "self, why did you ever stop using that? it covers all bases!"

I meant to read that, but then the Guardian review put me off. I'll add it to my list, but after Prosperity Without Growth -- I saw the author speaking recently and am v keen on his idea of measuring economic success through indicators other than unsustainable growth.

Good instruction to self!

tee hee... well your interjection gave me a smile, because (to generalise ) I very much doubt there is a single English, Australian or New Zealander who would ever describe what they put in their tea as "cream". This particular term is of great curiosity to me... if Americans call what we call milk, cream... what do Americans call what we call cream? Americans must get a real shock when they visit our neck of the woods and ask for cream in their coffee and not only get actual coffee, but actual cream in it!

I want to know, too! I can never order anything dairy in the US because I am so hopelessly confused. The girl at the Starbucks in LAX told me that she thought half-and-half was the closest thing to normal milk, but another American friend recently told me that she thought it was closer to single cream.

America does bear the tarnish of Stephanie Meyer, but we can also claim Jonathan Franzen, Donna Tartt, Annie Proulx, Dave Eggers, etc. And while the UK has Martin Amis and Ian McEwan, you've also got Freya North and her like. There are high brow and low brow writers in all cultures. There are not more low brow writers proportionally speaking in the USA than there are in the UK.

And the movies mindless disaster movies that tend to do well in the US tend to do well over here too. *cries over the death of the wonderful British film industry that was so alive and thriving when I arrived here, but is now not much more than dead*

The dumbing down of culture is a universal problem. It's not specific to Americans.

Crap writers abound, they are not my point. My point is that the tropes of soap opera are more common in American writing than in non-American writing at the moment, and that they do not have a positive influence.

If you want to debate this point, I am more than happy to.

I think you can make a few generalisations about the way a country works as a whole, but they can only be general. Too much religion in America, too much sport in Australia, too much rain in the UK ... You can point to some things as being disproportionately influential in a country, which I would say those three all are.

I think it is also valid to complain about specific things in a specific way. I complained that American writing at the moment is overly influenced by soap opera (I should confess that I was actually thinking of film and television writing there rather than fandom, in actual fact, hp fandom at least is better than the average). This doesn't mean that every piece of American writing is, but that I see it as being a trope that is too powerful, to the detriment of the whole, at this time. It's exactly as I see the fact of bad sportsmanship on the part of many leading Australian cricketers as damaging cricket here, it doesn't make all Australians bad sports.

All I ask is accurate reading. I am more than happy to have to defend things I have actually said.

As to the underpants -- opinion is divided! Does wearing undies to bed mark you out as unlikely to be British? Or of a certain class/place/age? Or at a certain time in the month? Or with a cold and breezy bedroom or nastily seamed pyjama bottoms? Like the toast on one side debate, further investigation is required!

I think we've covered all the bases at this point and I don't have the time or energy to do the research. I'm confident that there is melodramatic, unbelievable storytelling rampant in both American and British writing these days. There are American fic writers who write strong prose and beautiful stories and plenty who don't. Same goes for Brits.

Going back to the beginning, it's my opinion that whenever a person lists negative generalisations about a culture to which they don't belong they are bound to insult and/or irritate members of the maligned culture.

I've heard that argument a lot. I don't buy it. I still see Jesus everywhere in the media during Easter and Christmas. People may remove Jesus from them in their everyday celebrations, but they are still of Christian origin, unless you are going back centuries. The Muslim Brits I know still do not celebrate Christmas.

And I've had plenty of interesting spiritual and theological discussions with British people. I'd imagine that there are certain social segments in which discussing belief is tacky, but like American culture, British culture is diverse and so is etiquette.

State funded church schools piss me off something rotten.

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