to hate how British people are portrayed in American TV programmes?

[500DaysofAutumn]

I've just finished watching an episode of Desperate Housewives, and it the one where Ian who is English has his English parents come and visit him and Susan.

They have a barbeque and Ian's father says -

"So one puts one meat on top of the burning coal? How wonderfully primal"

.... erm ... we may not have hot weather all year round but I'm sure most of us in the UK know what a barbeque is.

Also Ian won a poker games with a hand of "sevens and knaves" to which Carlos replies "we call them JACKS!"

• I've never known Jacks as Knaves.

Don't even get me started on Emily from Friends.

(I know it's just fiction but still )

starshaker Wed 16-Jan-13 09:58:30
I think you mean English rather than British. Scottish and Irish get stereotyped differently.

And welsh forgotten.... Even by British posters (I assume?)

Missed my there! :)

This has been going on for ages. Remember Joan Collins in Dynasty ? All the bitches were British in those days.
I get even angrier when they change history.

Also, im on another forum that is mainly american and canadian. They where gobsmacked when i said i could not tell the differance between an american accent and a canadian accent.

Seriously, is there a differance?

It can't be any worse than how English people are portrayed on English shows.

i.e. Eastenders. Do people like that really exist and what about the horrendously decorated homes.

Anyone from the US watching these type of shows would think they were on a different planet.

Okay, maybe I can tell the difference between Scottish and English.

But regional across England? No. And not really across NI, although I'm getting better at that one.

Do you know which movie makes me stabby because of its portrayal of London/British people/English people/whatever? Fucking Match Point by Woody Allen. one of the WORST films ever. Just two hours of american stereotypes of "brits" and Scarlett Johansen pouting

I have a west midlands accent and everytime I have been to america I have been asked if I am australian

But you just try turning the conversation around to camping when you're in a noisy pub...

Actually, I think that's it. I know, intellectually, what Kiwi/Australian accents sound like and if I am listening to someone speaking solely for the purpose of consciously working out where they're from I would get it very quickly. But I have trouble paying enough attention to the vowel sounds at the same time as paying attention to the content of what they are saying. With regional UK accents, though, the whole process is unconscious and doesn't interfere with processing the content.

Vigo, yes! As above, the ou sound is distinctive in Canadian English, sounds like oa in oat. Stereotypically they end all sentences with 'eh?' Which is ay not e. A few actually do!

Crudely, Canadian is like across between American and an English / Scottish blend but really, there's so much American tv that younger Canadians can sound like Americans.

I used to be able to narrow down Southern US accents based on the varied pronunciations of "y'all", but that talent has withered from long years of disuse.

Oops sorry, Vito, not Vigo.

Sometimes the ou sound is more like oo -- I assume the oa/oo variation is linked to Canadian province, but not sure.

"Penny was supposed to be English, or at least......she must have grown up in England. Her accent wasn't good though (since she is American)."

Penny was played by Sonya Walger who is English.

She did a reasonably good American accent in Flash Forward though. Where she was married to Joseph Fiennes' character who also speaks with an American accent.

It's amazing, really, how many British actors have leading roles in American TV programmes. Apparently not many Americans realised at first that Damien Lewis in Homeland was British (and David Harewood), or Stephen Moyer in True Blood, or Andrew Lincoln in the Walking Dead, or Dominic West and Idris Elba in The Wire.

Canadians must feel at least as aggrieved at how they are presented on US tv. South Park anyone?

I can most definitely tell the difference between different American accents. eg. Mid-west vs Boston is very obvious to me. But then we have been much more exposed to US culture than they have been to ours so it's not surprising.

At one point I probably would not have been able to tell the difference between Kiwi and Australian accents but I feel fairly confident now that I could after watching a lot of Flight of the Conchords!

I saw something by an american the other day complaining about Hugh Laurie "putting on a british accent"

I hadn't realised south park was a documentary

Everything on TV is real Owl, did you not know that?

no so my dh really has been moonlighting as homer on the simpsons then? my whole life is a lie

I'm afraid so. To help with the shock? Or maybe ?

I give you Jessie on Disney XD. They manage to stereotype the English nanny and the little Indian lad on there to an extreme which would get Disney pasted anywhere else!
Malcom Reed on Star Trek Enterprise (geek? Me?)
Even Ferb on Phineas and Ferb is a buttoned up Brit with a posh accent.. Although to be fair Thomas Sangster does have a rather public school accent.

he has a whole other family and an american accent to boot. I think i need to start a thread in relationships

What makes viewing American films and TV programmes easy is that the person with the English accent is usually the baddie, or will be dead before too long.