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.

[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

[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.

[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.