Churchill immortalised the phrase the ‘special relationship’ in his 1946 ‘Sinews of Peace’ address. He was talking about the UK and the US. And when we think of America and Britain’s relationship, we think of the wars we’ve fought together and the diplomatic camaraderie we’ve shared over the past hundred years. We think of Iraq and Afghanistan. We think of Reagan and Thatcher waxing lyrical over the phone. But there’s something else that’s special about our relationship, and that’s Britain’s fascination with American culture.
I was indoctrinated into American culture from an early age in the form of television
I’ve spent my whole life watching America. We all have. Our social media accounts are full of American news, of American celebrities immodestly accepting awards, of American problems and American ideals. Why do we care so much? What is it about the place that we can’t get enough of? I’ve never been to America, but I know more about it than any other country besides my own.
American culture is administered via media-led gavage from birth. Like many children, I was indoctrinated into American culture from an early age in the form of television. Most of the shows that helped shape my squishy little brain came from across the pond: Bear in the Big Blue House, Ben 10, Hannah Montana, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Rolie Polie Olie (Michael Cera’s best role). America does TV better. CBBC could scarcely compete with a show like The Simpsons. I learnt more about the ethics of modern life from Homer Simpson than I did from Basil Brush. I’m not alone; The Simpsons is still the fifth most popular contemporary TV show in the UK as of 2023 – it’s also the 14th most popular TV show of all time in the UK.
And American movies were even more influential. Films like The Hangover and Superbad were sleepover favourites in my childhood. British films scarcely got a look in. No one ever said, ‘Hey, guys, who wants to watch Ken Loach’s Kes tonight? I’ll get the popcorn!’
Most of what we learnt about the world around us came from the States. This isn’t just because Brits love watching American actors flash those blinding white smiles. Hollywood is the titan of global cinema. It was reported in 2022 that 86 per cent of the £6.7 billion spent on film production in the UK came from Hollywood. No wonder Tinseltown is at the forefront of British media distribution.
Is American cultural influence all that bad? I can’t say. But a YouGov poll from 2023 found that 55 per cent of Brits thought America’s cultural influence on British cinema was too much. It didn’t expand on what ‘too much’ actually entailed. I can only assume they mean it’s too much of a bad thing. And by ‘bad thing’, I mean that American media is unrelatable. The ethics imbued by American film and TV are incongruent to the ethics of daily British life: there is no ‘Honey, I’m home’-style father in the UK. We don’t have the picket-fence lifestyle of Desperate Housewives. The Partridge Family could never exist in England – who wants to watch a single mother and her five children drive up the M6 to sing at the Grosvenor Casino in Blackpool? What sort of pilot episode is that?
We’ve tried to emulate American-style television over here. Take reality shows. Americans love reality TV, and I can understand why. Their reality TV is often funny and light-hearted. Ours is shameful and dirty. If it’s not watching two small brains pretend to shag on Love Island, it’s watching Inside KFC – a show about the trials and tribulations of KFC Derby at Christmas time. This futile attempt at copying America creates sad, soggy television.
We begin to idolise American culture and society from an early age. A meagre 200,000 Americans live in the UK, but a whopping 700,000 Brits have emigrated across the Atlantic. This isn’t to say that the Brits jumping ship are making a mistake. There’s much to envy in the States. But it’s also true that many Brits fall in love with the idea of the US before ever stepping foot on American soil.
My late father was one of those Americanophiles. We could be talking about anything – something entirely unrelated – and without fail he’d say: ‘You should move to America.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s better there.’
‘How would you know?’
‘I’ve been there.’
And then he would launch into some drawn out story that always began and ended with him visiting Hershey’s Chocolate World. I wondered if he’d ever seen anything of America beyond those chocolate splattered walls in Pennsylvania. He didn’t realise that you don’t need to go to America to see it. It’s all around us.
It might be good for Brits – myself included – to visit the ‘real’ America, the one that Raymond Carver and Denis Johnson wrote about. The creases of society. The banality of the Pacific Northwest. The poverty of the South. The vapidity of Los Angeles. The stuff that TV doesn’t show you.
Perhaps if we saw more of America we’d stop borrowing so many of its traditions. From skimpy Halloween clothing to counting down on New Year’s Eve, we’ve embraced what America has to offer. Just look at our newfound tipping culture. Companies used to pay their employees a decent wage without the service charge. Now everything has 12.5 per cent on top of it just to ensure the staff can afford a loaf of Hovis at the end of the month. At least in America they’re used to tipping.
I met a guy from Chicago a few weeks back. We got talking about our respective homes. He seemed fascinated by the concept of ale, Sunday roasts, and the Welsh. I was fascinated by his description of the States. He clearly loved his country – as he should, there is much to love about America – but he’d come to the conclusion that it was a broken way of life. He was a barman and he told me that he could clear $4,500 a month. Almost all of that was on tips. That’s a little over £3,500. A barman. The most I ever made whilst working on a bar was £2,000, and that seemed like a fluke.
‘That’s a lot of money,’ I said, stunned.
‘I mean, sort of. Everything is so expensive over there that you don’t really notice it. You need to earn that to have a good time.’
I thought about telling the Wetherspoon staff in Newton Abbot the salary of a US barman. They’d probably choke on their American-inspired ‘3oz burger’; even the advertisement for it is Americanised. A rather disgusting looking burger is plated next to a Budweiser. Don’t worry, Wetherspoon reassures us that the ‘style may be American’ but the beef is 100 per cent British. If that’s not a metaphor for the Anglo-American relationship, then call me Cary Grant.
There are some Brits who couldn’t care less about American affairs. I’m not one of them. But it’s important not to get carried away. We may share the same language, but we’re not that alike. There’s a lesson here too for Americans who think all Brits are charming and well-mannered. The vast majority of us are not, no matter what Richard Curtis will have you believe.
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