A suggestion for discussion

[fpb]

In the last decade or two, the United Kingdom has produced two tremendous cultural phenomena that have gone around the world: the Harry Potter series and the Wallace and Gromit animated movies. SUBJECT FOR DISCUSSION: Do they have anything in common, and do they have anything in common with other British successes such as the Dr.Who franchise or Alan Moore's comics?

Comments

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

Well, there's at least one tremendous cultural phenomenon that I've missed, because I know nothing about Wallace and Gromit. As for the other things, I'd go for the simple theory and say people love good stories that don't assume everyone's an idiot (which is what often makes USA-products in these genres so unpalatable.)

Off the top of my head. Oh, and in case I don't get a chance later and/or forget to post about it: Happy New Year, with lots of the good stuff and none of the crappy.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you missed W&G, but just go and look them up - there are likely to be postings in places like YouTube. Their animator, Nick Parks, has had a virtual stranglehold on the animations short Oscar prize; every time he produced a Wallace and Gromit short (30 minutes each), he walked off with it. We are talking about genius here, and genius of a quality that is difficult to exactly quantify, which is why I would like to see it discussed.

[thefish30.livejournal.com]

Two observations on British cultural phenomena in general.

1. One of the things that's so appealing about British humor is that whereas American humor from Ralph Kramden to Jerry Lewis down to Adam Sandler is mostly about one person acting stupidly in the everyday world, British humor in my experience is mostly about the one sane person in a world gone mad. Hence where American comedy is a repetitive parade of one (male) idiot after another, with British humor, from Monty Python to Douglas Adams you have an infinity of Bizzaro worlds to draw on, where we find ourselves in sympathy with the protagonist, instead of superior to him. With Gromit we delightedly find that the dog is our everyman, shaking his head equally at human obliviousness and ovine nonsense.

I'm not so sure that the humor in Harry Potter (not its main point, anyway) draws on this source, but it is certainly congenial to it.

Eek, must run. Point two will have to come later.

Bri

[fpb.livejournal.com]

A very interesting point. It may have something to do with the fact that two out of four of the great acts of the golden age of black and white movie comedy - Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy; in which Stan Laurel was the leader - are in fact British; and they are about sane people in a bizarro world. One remembers Ollie's frustrated glower and tapping fingers, as goo drips down on his face, even more than the gags themselves, however great. And I think you have put the finger on what is that bothers me about a lot of American comedy (and, though you may not know this, about some Italian comedy as well): the emphasis on individual absurdity or idiocy. In some cases, such as Disney's Goofy, you are positively being encouraged to find mental deficiency funny.

Another point that occurs to me is that the dog being the one sane person actually is something that happened in one of the greatest pieces of home-made American humour, Peanuts. Charles M. Schulz explained that the origin of the character of Snoopy was in the impression he sometimes had, that the neighbourhood dogs had more sense than the children who played with them. Snoopy started out as this stoical and thoughtful canine. I guess there is something highly American, though, about the way he developped into the oddest of the odd.

And another is that, while the humour is not primary in Harry Potter, it is essential; even the wisdom and power of Dumbledore, or the courage and loyalty of the trio, would not be evident or even develop properly without a constant coating of jokes or comically embarrassing moments. And conversely, while drama is not primary in W&G, it is absolutely essential to it. The murderous robot dog in A Close Shave and the equally homicidal chicken penguin in The Wrong Trousers, are villains in earnest, and the build-up to the successive climaxes is as powerful as any Humphrey Bogart adventure. And I would say that the way these two things, danger and humour, fit together so seamlessly in both masterpieces is that both fit the idea of a slightly crazed, unpredictable world.

[3secondfish.livejournal.com]

while the humour is not primary in Harry Potter, it is essential
It seemed moreso in the first couple of books, when Rowling seemed to be writing for a younger audience. She was trying harder to be silly, then.

But this kind of funny different from what Americans think of humor, though. I would call it whimsy, an altogether more subtle beast. It floats through, tweaks your nose, and zips away again, and then when it looks back and winks at you, you're so surprised you can't help but laugh. American humor flings a pie in your face, and then conks you with the can of whipped cream if you don't laugh quickly enough. :P

And I would say that the way these two things, danger and humour, fit together so seamlessly in both masterpieces is that both fit the idea of a slightly crazed, unpredictable world.
That's the cleverness of Rowling's world. It has a lovely rosy gloss to it, and we delight along with Harry at each discovery, such as the mysterious silvery instruments in Dumbledore's office. Nothing need be difficult because magic is means anything is possible. However, the flip side of it is that magic is deadly dangerous, judging from Harry's injuries alone; and that those capable but not competent, such as Dumbledore's sister, are dangerous to everyone. Can you imagine how the Hogwarts teachers would feel if they stopped to think about being under the same roof as over 200 hormone-crazed teenagers feeling bulletproof and capable of who-knows-what? Makes one want to take an antacid in sympathy. Anyway, my point was that a lot of stuff seems cool and fun in Rowling's world until you find yourself with unexpected tentacles from looking at it the wrong way. Yay tension!

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

There's a temptation in the U.S., of course, to think that everything British is better. You're probably aware that to the American ear, any British accent (regardless of region or class -- which most Yanks can't distinguish anyway) automatically brings to mind tea with the Queen. We're proud of our revolution, but we still can't get over our colonial roots. So that's one reason why Americans love British shows so much.

I think Harry Potter's British setting was part of the magic that captured an American audience. I don't know that Wallace and Gromit is in the same league, though. They weren't nearly as popular here, and certainly can't be compared to HP in terms of impact. However, to W&G fans in the U.S., it's certainly true that what attracted people was how different its humor is from most American animation.

I think thefish30 is right in that British humor is based more on wry observations of the world from the point of view of a straight man, whereas American humor tends to be an endless series of pratfalls and fart jokes. That's a broad generalization, and of course there are exceptions, but I'm not sure American humor in general ever progressed much beyond vaudeville in its essential character.

When PBS (the Public Broadcasting System, nonprofit TV that is viewer-supported) has to run its annual pledge drives to beg for money from the audience, they always threaten that they might lose Faulty Towers or Keeping Up Appearances. Some of PBS's most popular shows are twenty or thirty year-old British comedies. And of course, even a lot of our current popular sitcoms (like The Office) are just copies of British shows.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I am Italian. When I say that something swept the world, I do not mean America alone. I have read of the trials of trying to translate HP in Ukrainian, Vietnamese and Japanese. Not that I don't want the American point of view, just let us make sure we understand it is American.

W&G has been a hit across many countries, and is a regular on Italian TV. As for the US, it has to mean something that Nick Parks never presented a W&G short without walking away with an Academy Award.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Well, my somewhat American-centric viewpoint is a reflection of your somewhat British-centric one, and for the same reason that Harry Potter has swept the world: American and British media does pretty much dominate the world. Where Hollywood and CNN don't reign supreme, it's the BBC and other British media filling the gaps more often than not.

So I think one problem is parsing out how much of the success of an American or British franchise is the result of it being popular in America or Britain, and how much is some additional quality that makes it universal.

I.e., I know at least part of the reason why Harry Potter caught on in the US. And being huge in both the UK and the US guaranteed that it would at least gain some popularity everywhere else. So was it just part of a pop culture phenomenon, or did it have some universal appeal?

It's easy to see the universal appeal of W&G. Ukrainian and Vietnamese children can appreciate the animation and the story as easily as British and American children. Harry Potter is much more culture-specific, though.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Please read more carefully. I was speaking of translating HP in Vietnamese, Ukrainian and Japanese. What is more, I know for a fact that it has been a massive hit in Italy before the movies. (And in spite of an unspeakable translation.) I can also tell you that some American and British ideas don't travel, especially in the field of humour. Anglo-American cultural dominance is not an acquired fact, and is less forceful now than it was forty years ago. In Italy, for instance, there is a strong Japanese influx, a huge (and, to many, incomprehensible) market for Brazilian telenovelas, and last but not least an increasing interest for local product, shown both in the rediscovery of formerly-despised local productions and in the vast success of recent items such as La Piovra, featuring heroic Carabinieri officers fighting the Mafia in Sicily. That Harry Potter should find its own place among all these was by no means a certainty, and in my view it did so quite simply because it is a superb piece of work.

[chthonya]

Off the top of my head, I can think of two things they have in common:

1) the humour: JKR does some delicious parody of British society - pretty much everything in the Ministry of Magic, for example (which presumably translates reasonably well for anyone who has to deal with bureaucracies), and a sly wink at 'facts we all know' such as the reinterpretation of witch burnings. And many of her names are rather corny puns (eg her textbook authors) in a very similar vein to Gromit listening to 'Poochini' and so much else of W&G's visual humour. I'm not sure how well those things translate, though? For example, I remember flicking through an Italian copy of 'Chamber of Secrets' a few years ago and noting that 'Fudge' had been rendered as 'Caramel' (or similar - I can't remember the spelling). I don't think that carries the second meaning of 'Fudge'?

2) both draw on an idealised archetype of British life - Southern/Middle Clasee/defanged boarding school for Harry Potter, and Yorkshire-without-the-rain/Northern/Working Class for W&G. Both steeped in the British perception that we love eccentricity - Arthur and Wallace in particular have much in common.


Whether either of those are particularly exportable traits, I don't know. But both root the material firmly in their originating culture and create worlds that exude a sense of coziness (on first view, at least, with HP), which probably makes any unfamiliar cultural elements more accessible.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You got me thinking on a few points.

Well, the fact that they have been exported many times over - even the Beatles had something of what you call idealized local identity - does suggest that they are exportable. How they are interpreted in other countries might make an interesting study. But I don't know that I would call their versions of British environments "idealized". Standardized, perhaps; but in spite of the amusing technical wizardry, I see little that is properly speaking ideal about Wallace and Gromit's dowdy and even vaguely dusty home. I would rather call it quirky, even arbitrary, but arbitrary with a purpose. To call a box of matches "Duck" rather than "Swan", when the box is otherwise recognizable to every Briton, does not amount to idealization; what it does, in my view, is to bring attention to the arbitrary, even silly nature of many of the objects and symbols that surround us, since there is indeed no reason why matches should not be called "Duck" instead of "Swan".

And DON'T get me going on the *&()^^R@!!!! CENSORED CENSORED CENSORED Italian "translation" of HP. Every single thing they could have got wrong, every point at which they were able to prove culturally insensitive, they did. I washed my hands with soap after touching that abomination. Don't take it as evidence of anything but its own frightful incompetence. (I gather that a similarly wretched job ruined the British perceptions of Jules Verne, whom the French rightly consider a classic; and I have myself seen a French "translation" of Agatha Christie whose author should have been had up for fraud. Why do translators treat popular literature with such contempt?)