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MAN ABOUT LONDON |
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-- Latest Yank We Love to Hate |
 DAVID BLANE ...attracts Brit boo-birds |
Starving Yank illusionist
draws no Brit sympathy
By ROBERT TAYLOR
of TheColumnists.com
Illusionist and masochist David Blane has created quite a storm over here. This very week he has just finished a 44-day starvation stint in a small glass box suspended near Tower Bridge in central London.
Is this admirable? Not to the British, it seems.
I’ve spoken to loads of people about Blane, and not one has a good word to say about him. They say he’s self-serving, arrogant, weird, vain and boring in equal measure. They say they despise him.
The poor chap’s had to take all sorts of flack. Most people would think that 44 days in a see-through glass box would be pure torture, but the British clearly didn’t think he was suffering enough. They’ve pelted him with eggs and golf balls, had a helicopter dangle some hamburgers alongside him, and even had a go at the crane suspending the box, and tried to topple it into the Thames.
All this was deeply unpleasant for Blane of course, but it neatly illustrates Britain’s attitude to Americans in general. We just can’t decide whether we like you or not.
Americans that come to live in the UK are familiar with the coldness and hostility of the locals. After Sept. 11, George Bush said that America’s closest friend and ally is Great Britain. I think he’s right. We are your closest friend and ally. In fact personally speaking, some of my best friends are Americans.
But such is the attitude of British people towards America that I’m tempted to say with friends like us, who needs enemies?
Americans who come to live in the UK are familiar with the coldness and hostility of the locals. Chelsea Clinton has written about her shock at the stand-offishness of her fellow Oxford students, and says that she mixes mainly with Americans.
In fact anti-Americanism hits new arrivals remarkably quickly. A couple of years back I met two guys from New York on business in London. They were falling over each other in their eagerness to apologise for their nationality. I told them not to bother, said I liked Americans, but they were too busy apologizing to hear me.
Of course we all know that America has an image problem in some parts of the world. There’s going to be some folk for whom America will always be a paragon of evil--socialists, Arabs and the French. And my first memory of being in Canada was seeing a car sticker saying: “Thank God I’m not American”.
But the British? We’re meant to be your nearest and dearest, aren’t we? Or maybe we just think we are. Anyway, at least a vocal minority of us Brits have contempt for America. And that’s despite the regular cozying up between our political leaders.
Some of the contempt is politically-motivated. The centre of British political gravity has always been to the left of that in America. The Democrats support policies which in this country would be deemed right wing, and the Republicans advocate policies which are almost off the British scale.
But there’s much more to it than that. The reaction in Britain to September 11th was not uniformly sympathetic, as might have been reported. Yes, the majority of the population was horrified. But a minority felt that the US had it coming, and some went as far as to criticise America’s response and the displays of patriotism that took place.
This sort of knee-jerk revulsion for all things American may be as a result of jealousy, and may also be that Brits just don’t like the big, rich and powerful. But whatever the cause, we’re always finding new ways of fuelling our contempt.
George Bush is just one example. He completely turns us off. The British just can’t stomach someone who speaks “Texan,” especially since he’s apparently got quite a low IQ. And as for his motives, many people say that he risked the lives of thousands of his soldiers in Iraq purely to avenge the humiliation of his father in 1991. Indeed a recent survey found British people believe Bush to be the most dangerous man on earth, outstripping Saddam, Bin Laden and whoever’s in charge of North Korea. It’s madness, of course, to put Bush in that category, but it gives you an idea of how cool most of us are towards him.
Then there’s the stereotype of the dumb American tourist. Brits just love this one. I used to be a tour guide back in the late 80s, taking American students and their teachers around Britain. A popular story among my colleagues concerned the American who, while touring the thousand- years-old Windsor Castle, home to the monarch, asked why the Queen had built a house so near Heathrow Airport.
I’m pretty sure that this anecdote was invented, but everyone chooses to believe it nonetheless.
Some people extend the dumbness stereotype to the American population in general. There was a well-reported rumour that the makers of the film "The Madness of King George" declined to give it the more exact title of "The Madness of King George III" in case Americans thought that they’d missed out on the first two films. Surely that one’s made up as well, isn’t it?
Next up in terms of stereotypes and myths is the old chestnut of cultural imperialism. People over here despise American exports, though that doesn’t stop them consuming them. You can’t walk down a shopping street in the UK without encountering a McDonald’s and you can’t switch on the TV without an American production appearing on one of the main channels. We Brits lap up American culture, but we hate ourselves for it.
This isn’t the complete picture. There are many, many people in this country who believe that America represents freedom and democracy, and that the world is a safer place for it. They outnumber, though not necessarily out-shout, those that cheer America’s humiliations and long for its influence to be reduced.
And the weight of opinion among those that make decisions is that America is a good thing, and that British interests are best served by standing ‘shoulder-to-shoulder.’ This is where we differ from the French, whose anti-American sentiment is several shades bolder, reinforced by a government that dreams of a united Europe in competition with the U.S.
David Blane, of course, is the person to ask about all this. I hope he doesn’t go away with too much dismay at the way we’ve treated him. I’m in a very lonely minority on this one, but I’ve really grown quite fond him and all his weirdness.
And after all, it’s
not his fault he’s American.
©2003 by Robert Taylor. The illustrations are from IMSI's
Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael,
CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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