You know what, expanding on the American cliche bit. This whole episode is kind of a cliche of what America is perceived to be. For example, they chose the Utah scene, with wide open deserts, an old muscle car, and a stetson.
I didn't mind that too much -- it's obvious that, for filming locations, they wanted to show off a part of America that just doesn't exist in Great Britain, so it makes sense that they'd go out West and film in one of the desert areas. And the stetson is just the Doctor being the Doctor. Now, the part where River goes and dresses like a cowgirl and shoots the hat off his head -- that was being a bit stereotypical.
The typical American doesn't live like a cliche. Plus, America is varied in culture, we are indeed a melting pot, and those influences are seen throughout this country, which is pretty darn big and varied. Every state, every region, has its own unique feel.
True, but, there again, it's also true that every region of Great Britain has its own unique feel. I don't expect a show from another culture to be able to capture every nuance of the sub-cultures that make up America -- hell,
Doctor Who has trouble capturing the nuances of
British sub-cultures, especially with its London-centric tendencies during the RTD era. And
Doctor Who has made a good-faith effort to depict, for instance, New York culture in the past (even if the episode itself wasn't particularly great).
I think it's just one of those things, British tv will never be able to get American in the same way US telly couldn't get the UK, so both have to rely on shorthand, its annoying but somewhat unavoidable I guess.
Yep. I think about the only way for a U.S. or U.K. show to truly be able to depict the other culture in a way that's dead-on is if the show is being written and produced by someone who's spent a lot of time living in both cultures. Joss Whedon, for instance, spent a lot of time living in Britain when he was younger -- I
suspect he might do a better job depicting Britain than most American showrunners (though I'm not sure about that). RTD, by contrast, only moved to America in the past few years, so his depictions of America in
Who were always a depiction of British
perceptions of America. I expect that
Torchwood: Miracle Day will end up being a bit more accurate of a depiction of America now that he's lived here a few years.
(Of course, living in L.A. and living in
America aren't exactly the same thing, but I digress.
)
And of course the diner, which I mentioned in another post.
I thought that was very interesting what you said about the diner. It didn't even register with me but of course I've only been to diners that look like this, here in Europe, and it never really occurred to me that they could look different from their American counterparts.
The diner was a bit over-the-top, but, there again, I
have seen diners in America that looked like that. (There's one in Union Station here in D.C.) To me, it almost seemed more like a 50s nostalgia diner than a normal diner.
(Honestly, I found the bit about a future war between the U.S. and U.K. in "Voyage of the Damned" much more offensive. The idea that the U.S. would ever be the aggressor in a war with one of our closest allies made me much more angry than the "They're Americans!" gag in this one.)
Mmh, I must have missed that line but generally, I don't think it's such a far-fetched idea. If we take even just a cursory look at history, former enemies can become allies and even friends and vice versa. Assuming there wasn't much background info given, it could also be the case that it was deemed necessary to invade the UK (maybe they had become a dictatorship or something like that).
I mean, sure, no on really knows what will happen in the future, and it's possible that the U.S. or U.K. could fall into dictatorships and the other would need to go to war to liberate them or what-have-you. But in the episode, it just felt like a mean-spirited jibe, a bit of, "Oh, yeah, Americans are so aggressive and warlike they'll even go to war with the U.K. eventually." Which I think is just silly, and frankly an attitude that has more to do with resenting the then-President's foreign policy and attitudes than with being a good sense of what the United States is truly like.
I love how painfully racist the English are, all the while trying to act as if they're the most open-minded people in existence. I really do. But then, I really enjoy hypocrisy.
Aww, c'mon. It's no more fair to generalize the English as all being racist than it is to generalize Americans as all being trigger-happy. Every culture has its assholes, that's all.
-- Sci, proud English-American (and Welsh-American, and Irish-American, and Scots-American)
