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THE BEST way for Americans to cure themselves of the almost universal belief that the English are ‘witty and clever, imperturbable and sophisticated’, says professional anglophile Joe Queenan, is to marry a Briton.
“This is particularly true if the spouse has relatives in Liverpool.” Failing that, one might try watching US television which this summer is stiff with perfectly hideous Brits.
While America seems fixated on Mexican immigration, nobody seems to have noticed that the British have mounted a cultural coup.
Alan Bennett’s The History Boys wows the crowds on Broadway. The east coast is abuzz with the rumour that David Beckham is on his way to the New York Red Bulls. The punk-fashion Anglomania exhibition packs them in at the Metropolitan Museum; and dodgy knock-off England trackie tops are the de-rigueur pose-wear among the American hipsters who sip Bass pale ale and flock to sold-out shows by the Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys and Belle and Sebastian.
Meanwhile, prime-time TV has been effortlessly annexed by an army of snide sods with British accents. Ian McShane is still knocking the critics for six with his portrayal of a sweary, mass-murderer in the third series of Deadwood; celebrity chef and professional rudester Gordon Ramsay stars in Hell’s Kitchen on Fox; journalist and broadcaster Piers Morgan performs Simon Cowell-style verbal drop-kicks on nose-flautists, stripping grannies and cow-suited breakdancers on NBC’s America’s Got Talent; and Sutton Coldfield’s Cat Deeley presents the equally successful So You Think You Can Dance (another Cowell produced Idol spin-off).
Cultural commentator Tom Cowell reckons that the rise of US reality TV’s English mafia has a more primal cause than simple anglo-philia. “It’s beyond Freudian, it’s the American founding myth — the rebellious child who needs to be punished. Deep down most Americans have a profound need to be spanked by someone with a British accent.”
· Steven Wells
