I’m British. We don’t have the accent American’s think we do. We’re far more scummy and swear far more. Proudly working class, and proudly unpretentious.
Look, America has it’s damn problems— we sure as hell do. But I need to talk about Britain for a sec. I’m not trying to bash you guys; but I have a hot take that’s been boiling in the back of my head for years, and I’ve had very few opportunities to talk about it.
That “proudly unpretentious” bit is absolutely true— to a literal fault. I find that British people have such an obsession with “not being pretentious” that it goes full circle and does become pretentious. The opposite of hopes, dreams, effort, and passion is… cynicism. And man, is British culture obsessed with cynicism.
Like, I know you Brits had a super shitty history that made you all iconically cynical and all… but that cynicism is more bad than good. Your culture has an obsession with misery, death, and the destruction of aforementioned hopes and dreams. It’s all over your media, including your comedy. Everything from asylums, to plagues, to the personification of death, to a strange comedic form of the glorification of “common sense” over education. For that last part and other reasons, cynicism also seems to be a huge source of British anti-intellectualism, too. A lot of your jokes are about how clever you are that you subscribe to “common sense” instead of some idealistic thought— and usually said idealistic thought is harmless or even good.
In Britain’s “anti-pretentious” culture, sometimes they go too far in other ways, too. It’s for example why British cartoons are so happily-sloppy and nonsensical. They just don’t want to take cartoons (or much of anything) seriously, and don’t want to use them to display hope and strength and intelligence and beauty. In much of the rest of the developed world, cartooning is a medium that is sometimes (or often) used for “fine art”— your Avatar: TLA’s, your Batman: TAS’s, and your Steven Universe’s. But British people don’t see cartoons as a medium for inspiration— to them, it’s just all silly, cheap, over-stylized, brainless play stuff.
I’m reminded of Superman vs. The Elite, where— ironically— Superman had to deal with an anti-hero British guy named Manchester Black, who was a very powerful telekinetic. Manchester was a cynic who said the world was full of cancer that needed to be forcefully cut out— damn the rights or safety of anyone else. Manchester told Superman, “You’re living in a dream world!” And Superman said, “Yes. Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and transform us into something better.” And that sort of philosophy is why I don’t subscribe to cynicism, and never have.
With that said, I’m not trying to bash British people or anything. It’s just that I’m the opposite of cynical, so British cynicism has always kinda rubbed me the wrong way, is all.
