| You mention, of course, all stuff that I despise and would not let my son watch. I hated Married with Children so much, I never made it through an episode (I tried to figure out how it could be a guilty pleasure, and just found it awful). Springer makes me ill. Etc. However, as a general principle, and admitting that some of it is destructive dreck, I will stand by my statement, for the reasons stated. If one looks even at British television, it is still mostly cloying, overly class conscious, and nostalgic for a period when one could live in modest comfort without soiling one's hands with commerce, tending one's garden and training one's dog. An art film like "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover" shows how leftism and snobbery mix in an unwholesome way among the British intelligentsia: the mobster is despised for being vulgar about as much as for being violent, and it is a rather stupid allegory slamming Thatcherite Britain for its Americanization. A film with broader appeal, like "Little Voice", still shows those who aspire to improve their circumstances as exploitative, and favor the idea that it is best, somehow, to be shy and defenseless. One of the few British films that has an American "atmosphere", of recent years, is "The Full Monty", where men on the dole, in a dying town, show some gumption about improving their circumstances, truly helping themselves out of torpor and despair, and achieving real camaraderie when they work together to put on a strip show. So, in sum, even our British cousins could use some more Americanization if they would like to ensure that they are beyond the sclerotic period that preceded Thatcher.......... |
