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Robot-Werewolf — 12 years ago(March 24, 2014 03:29 PM)
American films always try to make the British look inept, ineffective and stupid.
It seems to be in America's DNA to denigrate the British no matter what.
Often the case, but given that the director of this film is English, I'm not sure that it applies here. -
braidenrobert — 12 years ago(March 30, 2014 01:08 AM)
Some examples would be:
Empire of the Sun: the English are generally depicted as being fumbling, weak and racist
Saving Private Ryan: Capt Miller complains about British forces and in particular Monty. The entire D-Day landing is made out to be a wholly American venture. The British are never mentioned here.
MASH TV series: Embarrassing stereotypes of British officers. For a progressive television show its attitude to the British was appalling.
Argo: states that the British turned the Americans away when in fact they didn't.
Braveheart: the English are depicted as being cruel, lustful, violent and the Scots are shown as being virtual saints.
The Patriot: the English are the evil monsters standing in the way of American freedom.
Just a few samples I know and to be fair Spielberg (who gets two films on this list), did show how the English were the first people to ban and make slavery illegal whereas the Americans were still in the slavery business for many years to come. -
Robot-Werewolf — 12 years ago(March 31, 2014 05:24 AM)
Good examples. It is particularly annoying when British involvement in real life events is played down or just reassigned to Americans, as with Argo, or in one particularly distasteful case, U-571: (
http://onlineathens.com/stories/060900/ent_0609000037.shtml
)
I'd like to add Inglourious Basterds (Mike Myers acts like he's playing a relative of Austin Powers, and Fassbender's Englishman is of course the one who screws up, resulting in a massacre - "The British officer blew his German act"/"The Englishman gave himself away"), and Ronin, which I vividly remember Total Film complaining about back in the nineties:
"Worst of all, sabre-rattling Sean Bean is annoyingly written off as the token beep British agent (a greasy, unwashed coward whose only purpose in the script is to make De Niro look good)."
http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/ronin -
IamTheCheese2 — 12 years ago(April 03, 2014 12:54 PM)
Hmm, not sure I agree with some of your examples.
Braveheart and Patriot I agree with completely, but I blame that more on Mel Gibson hating everyone. For awhile these films did make me suspicious about a general anti-British sentiment in Hollywood but I've since revised my stance to "Mel Gibson hates the British."
SPR: Eh, they did say it was Omaha Beach. No British presence there. I don't see that film as anti-British at all, though I've been told that the Monty complaints are historically inaccurate (apparently they only started after Market Garden).
Empire of the Sun: Oh come on, that film doesn't exactly show anyone in much of a positive light.
Argo: I would call this film America-centric rather than anti-British. It also plays down the Canadian role too.
MASH TV: Haven't seen that, so I can't comment -
Wiccaman — 12 years ago(April 03, 2014 02:28 PM)
I've been told that the Monty complaints are historically inaccurate (apparently they only started after Market Garden)
Monty was pretty unpopular well before D-Day with the Allied Chiefs of Staff and rank & file soldiers generally. The general consensus was he was far more popular with the civilians back home (who only got to read about him in the somewhat patriotic press of the time) than soldiers (who got to carry out his daft orders).
He was nearly sacked quite a few times; especially after he was considered to have lied about his plans for Caen. By the time of Market Garden, there were staff members who wouldn't even be in the same room as him.
There's some nice detail on all this in Antony Beever's 'D-Day'; Steven Ambrose has a few things to say about him as well. -
colin-411 — 11 years ago(April 20, 2014 05:27 PM)
While not the greatest general of WWII, Monty did defeat the Afrika Corps, when many others had failed to do so. Yes, he took his time about it, and was not 'imaginative', but when looked at tactically, he really had no choice, he had to use a brutal, direct frontal attack, as the the Med was to the North, a large, non-passable area of desert constrained his options to the South, and no landing craft were available for attacks in the German rear.
He did deploy a considerable amount of deception to trick the Germans into thinking he would attack on the South. One of the best thing he did then was to build a fake pipeline from old 55 gallon oil drums for carrying fuel to the Southern battlefield area. This was noticed by the Germans (straight lines stand out in aerial reconnaissance) and was very effective in causing the Germans to deploy units in the wrong place.
He was also acknowledged, by almost all who knew him, as a superb trainer of soldiers, mixing toughness with cheering them on constantly, to build both skills and confidence. For the Battle of El Alemein, he visited every unit that was going into the battle.
However, by the time of Overlord, he was probably out of his depth, as generals have to become more managers and less generals as units get bigger and bigger, and Monty was more a trainer and general than a manager. -
Wiccaman — 11 years ago(April 20, 2014 06:17 PM)
That's a great little overview.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if we'd shunted Monty off to be Governor of wherever it was; as was considered. He'd probably still be seen solely as the architect of the victory at El Alemein today.
In fact we'd probably be speculating along the lines of "How much shorter would the war have been if Monty had been involved in Overlord?" etc. -
Mad Dog McLagan — 11 years ago(March 14, 2015 04:19 AM)
Um, did I miss something major because I thought Operation Overlord went really well? Casualties for the landing were half of what had been predicted and as strong as the resistance was around Caen and Cherbourg the forces in the area had been greatly reduced by Montgomery strongly endorsing the same diversionary tactics he had applied in North Africa.
I suspect the problem is that you have too many paperclips up your nose -
CGSailor — 9 years ago(October 01, 2016 10:18 PM)
Hmm, not sure I agree with some of your examples.
Braveheart and Patriot I agree with completely
So while you disagree with some of his examples. You completely agree with the one film that should absolutely be DISAGREED with. The Patriot.
Oh I am sorry Are we Americans only allowed to have filns about the American Revolutuon where the British WERE the bad guys only if we show them as the good guys?
How about a WW2 film with Hitler and Tojo as the good guys.
Assuming you're British.. would you be upset about a film set during one of the many British/French wars, where a British film was panned because it showed the French as bad guys.
The other guy is a complete dumbass for using The Patriot as an axample of Hollywood anti-British attitude because it is during the American Revolution and IS SUPPOSED TO BE ANTI-BRITISH!
And you are a dumbass for agreeing totally with it.
You might as well blast all WW2 films for being "Anti-Nazi".
I joined the Navy to see the world, only to discover the world is 2/3 water! -
kmd11 — 11 years ago(April 20, 2014 08:36 AM)
Well if you want to go back and look at history let usEngland subjugated many people in many areas of the world and were not exactly nice when they did it. So those depictions, while you may find them distressing, are not far off base are they?
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the_traveller76 — 11 years ago(April 28, 2014 09:58 PM)
I agree with all those, especially the Patriot. Absolutely disgraceful the way the British were portrayed in this film, like some evil, moustache twirling villain against the apostles of virtue that are the americans. I'm Australian, so I like seeing potshots taken at the British, but within reason.
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the_timeshift — 11 years ago(May 03, 2014 03:57 PM)
regarding the MASH series and the British stereotype from that series :
- Most of the problems were between Captain Pierce vs a British commander : example : when the Brit commander came to visit his fellow soldiers who were wounded and were resting in Post-OP , the Brit commander was like " hey , you are going back on the front next week ; oh , you got hit in the leg and tie - that's a flesh wound etc etc (this was paraphrasing, not actual quotation) . Pierce was against this practice because as a medic he understood how bad the stress of the front can be on wounded patients and how it doesn't help the recovery . he also didn't like the tone of voice of the British commander .
- When Pierce went outside the Post-OP , he had a chat with the British commander . Pierce said " when you have soldiers with abdominal wounds , DON'T GIVE THEM TEA , or they'll end up with peritonitis " , to which the British commander said " well , i suppose we can take that into consideration " .
- Pierce and Hunnicut performed some operations on a British Officer that had an ingrown toenail and couldn't take care of it in his unit , cause it would have spoil his file and a future promotion - this thing is actually true .
do i have to tell you more ?
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tom_grainger88 — 11 years ago(August 20, 2014 10:35 PM)
didn't it turn out the british officer explained he was treating his wounded men the way he did rather than speak softly and act as if they were on deaths door to comfort them? that if he came in telling them to buck up it was familiar and as if they were not wounded, because who would yell at you if you were going to die. I seem to remember hawkeye and the officer ending on good terms once it became clear he cared for his men and just didn't want them to despair, just a different way of doing things.
the tea joke I don't remember at all to be honest but then in 11 seasons of mocking every authority figure and starched shirt in sight maybe it isn't so bad to make one stupid stereotype aimed at someone else.
the movie examples are more true I think, like in the hurt locker the british special forces/pmc's being wiped out, the survivors just sitting around not helping while the American bomb techs turn out to be top snipers, who one minute cant hit a guy standing still then hit him on the move, oh and the enemy sniper went and took a break mid fire fight to give the Americans time to clean and repair their gun and shoot all the other guys, then the sniper comes back to get shot. that scene really is where the hurt locker starts falling apart into stupidity that shows maybe its worth having someone who has even met a real soldier work on a movie. and yeh u571, a movie about a real event where guys gave their lives, but it becomes an American crew even though the us was not in world war 2 yet.