What did people in the UK think of this during the 1990s?

[Femusia]

If you were a young person during the 1990s when "Cool Britannia" was all the range as Britain's cultural rejuvenation with things like the Union Jack being fashionable again and Spice Girls and Oasis being cool; or even if you weren't young but remember it, how did you and other Brits at the time feel about Australia?

I have been doing some research into Australian attitudes at the time of the 1990s and I learnt how at the time they were at the tail end of their own cultural rejuvenation which began in the 1970s as they started asserting their nationhood and culture against Britain and stopped feeling British. They were rebelling against British symbols like the very Union Jack that Geri Halliwell had so famously made fashionable again with her Union Jack dress and were trying to abolish the monarchy and acting indifferent to British culture.

A quote from a sociological journal investigating Australian attitudes to Britain in the 1990s, "But Cool Britannia was too late to matter Australians. By then, Britain was a foreign country and not the best known one. The Spice Girls did not displace Seinfeld and the Simpsons and that was in place by the 1980. The 1970s was the last decade that British culture could have such an impact."

How did you as British people, especially British youth have such self-confidence, pride and enjoyment at the time if Australians were actively behaving as such, which surely delegitimised Cool Britannia because if they didn't care why did you? Or, were you just not thinking about them to start off with and Cool Britannia was an internal thing not concerned with the world and by the 1990s, Britain didn't care what the likes of Australia thought?

I just watched a 1997 clip of Coronation Street in which an 18-year old Leanne Battersby has a Geri Halliwell poster on her bedroom wall and is listening to Spice Girl songs, symbolic of youth at the time. This would likely not have been something an Australian teenager or young adult would've done because according to that article, "As late as 1990, Kylie Minogue found that Australians were not impressed or bothered about the fact that she had departed for London or adopted a British accent".

So, what do you think of this?

Who are you writing an article for?

Or, were you just not thinking about them to start off with and Cool Britannia was an internal thing not concerned with the world

This was pretty much me tbh. I can't say I ever gave any thought to how Australia perceived us.

"cool Britania" was a load of vacuous shite, and I never gave Australia a moment's thought other than being aware of it being a nation that seemed to exist to churn out terrible daytime Soap Opera.

As above, what Australians thought of the UK wouldn't have crossed my mind - good or bad.

Never crossed my mind. What are you writing?

Loved cool Britannia!
Australia is bloody miles away why would I have cared what they thought?

Meh

I am this demographic, 18 years old in 1995. Cool Britannia seemed great. I didn't like the spice girls, too manufactured, but indie music was amazing. First Labour government in my living memory. It was amazing. Only overseas culture I was really interested in was Seattle and grunge. Australia? Apart from Neighbours, it didn't even register...

Those questions all seem a little bit misguided. Naturally we were aware of trends within Australia that sought to shake off all the leftovers of their traditional relationship with Britain, especially the monarchy. But that just seemed like the natural pride and autonomy of another nation -- why should they keep up traditional forms of relationship with the UK unless their citizens chose to.

As for 'cool Britannia' in the UK, that was just a cultural meme, not any kind of nationalist or patriotic thing. I think Blair ran with it a bit and actively promoted it, because it expressed a surge of optimism that Labour was riding. But it was really just lighthearted stuff and music. Nothing more. And certainly not anything that had any relationship whatsoever with perceptions of the UK relationship with Australia.

My thoughts too. Apart from using Neighbours as an excuse for a cup of tea and a break after work, Australia and the attitudes of their citizens didn’t, and still doesn’t, feature in my thinking.

In the 90s, I loved indie music and watched Home and Away. I didn't wonder too much about what the Aussies thought of us, although I was occasionally annoyed when Home and Away brought British guest characters into the show and made them all speak as though they were upper-class nobs from the 1940s. One said something like this to his girlfriend, "Oh dear, I've expressed myself very badly. I don't want to buy you!"

I think it’s because the UK is Australia’s mother country so the UK is like a special, mysterious country in the eyes of Australians which they have to define themselves against to prove they are independent.

But, how would people in the mother country itself feel about a former settler colony? Do British people regard themselves as a mother country in that sense?

I just think how in the 1990s before Brexit, Brits probably felt like Europe was their future and being in the EU was the sort of final solution to the post-imperial question of where their place in the world was while Australians naturally moved on from Britain to Asia. But, I don’t know how much Brits actually thought of the EU in the 1990s and 2000s.

But, now Brexit? Where does that leave Britain?

Do British people regard themselves as a mother country in that sense?

No.
It isn't of significance here. When I read of Australian republicanism I remember feeling that it seemed a natural development. I was also surprised that it occupied a more-than-minimal part of Australian politics - because I had thought of the vestigial constitutional connections with the UK as being nominal, trivial, existing on paper only.

At that time lots of young Australians were coming to work in UK - really common to be served by Australian bar tender for example - plus lots of young brits going to Australia on short term visas.

i don’t remember anyone worrying about Australia’s political perception of the Uk

but it was a better time to be young no problem getting a part time job etc and rents much more affordable……

I am interested on where you are getting your views from

I wasn't thinking of Australia in any political way, but loved the TV shows and films from there.
Not just 'Home and Away' and 'Neighbours' but stuff like 'Round the Twist' and 'Heartbreak High'. I remember watching loads of interesting Indie Australian films with actors like Nicole Kidman and Kylie in. I loved the series 'Golden Pennies' with Carol Drinkwater as a kid, and of course the popular cult favourites like the 'Mad Max' franchise and more obscure ones like 'Dogs in Space'.
In the 90's when me and my older brother were teens we used to regularly stay up till the small hours watching reruns of 'Prisoner Cell block H' while we smoked and drank tea 😁
Sorry probably not really what you're after... 😂

Well, I was teens and 20s in the 90s (best decade) and I loved Cool Britannia and pretty much lived and breathed it, but after having done lots of USA trips I did go to Australia in mid 90s as that seemed a very exciting place too plus I had relatives there . I had been obsessed with Neighbours and Home &Away in the 80s

The Spice Girls did not displace Seinfeld and the Simpsons and that was in place by the 1980. The 1970s was the last decade that British culture could have such an impact.

Apologies but I don't quite understand that . . . it's quite a reach to compare the Spice Girls to Seinfeld and the Simpsons (it's quite a stretch to compare the latter two to be honest). What point are you making - that the Spice Girls weren't as popular in Australia as a TV show aimed at a completely different audience?

That aside, and despite watching Neighbours religiously throughout my teenage years (and well into university) I can't say I ever really thought about how Australians thought about us (except for Kylie, 7 year old me cared very much what she thought about us all).

But I never really thought about the concept of 'Cool Britannia'. Yes, the 1990s had some excellent music, but for a small island, the UK has a history of producing brilliant artists who become popular worldwide. I'm not sure politics has anything to do with it - we're quite a force when it comes to music (and sport) and I don't think the term 'mother country' has been used for decades. Isn't it more that we're an exciting option for Australian nationals because we're so far away??

Round the Twist!! Yes - loved that

A lot of people in Britain grow up poor. In late 90s Europe was exciting. French fashion. America was new. American makeup brands. Ben and Jerry. But a lot was dictated by low disposable incomes. Credit was not as explosive yet as it became in the 00s.

I bloody loved Round The Twist. It was the absolute coolest TV programme.

Brexit...we're fucked but it is what people voted for. The real decider will be the next elections. If Reform win by a landslide it will feel like (me) wanting to go into hiding. In an ideal world we would have proportionate representation not first past the post. Then people would feel more heard.

Australian here, old enough to have lived experience in the time you’re talking about. Firstly, the Spice Girls were huge here. I assume you’re suggesting that the US had greater influence on Australia than the UK at the time. Not sure where you’re getting your information from but it was a pretty even split and neither interest excluded the other. I like the Spice Girls and Seinfeld for example. The push to become a republic was multi layered. It was because we have grown up and are governing independent of the UK so why did we need a royal family as a figurehead in our political system. The sacking of zGough Whitlam definitely was foreign interference in our democracy for a start. Secondly, it felt disrespectful to our First Nations citizens to keep the ties with the entity that tried to annihilate them over the past 200 years. I would love to know where you’re sourcing your information.

There was no (significant) internet in the 90s so we didn’t all know what everyone thought about everything all the fucking time, and we were better off for it. It never occurred to me what Australians thought about ‘cool Britannia’ and also I think most people in this country thought the concept of ‘cool Britannia’ was desperately cringe anyway.

Never gave Australia a thought back then, and rarely do now.
”Cool Brittania” managed to miss me completely, I’ve just had to look it up…not sure it was relevant at all in our mainly rural county!! I was the “youth” of the time.

Britain has never wondered what the rest of the world thinks of her/ it. There's a blithe lack of curiosity about other countries, born of a basic assumption that the rest of the world loves Britain, in particular an assumption that the US loves Britain and needs Beitain. The theory that everyone loves Britain is shaken annually by the Eurovision Song Contest, but the disquiet is usually dismissed by the sentiment that what Europe thinks doesn't matter at all.

I was buzzing on life, opportunity, peace in NI and the music.

I didn't give Australia any thought at all.🤷‍♀️