Grushenka
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2006
- Posts
- 516
Not really part two. I just wanted a catchy title for the thread. 
Anyway, I agree with this article and the major difference it points out between British and American humo(u)r. It's also why I prefer BritCom material to American.
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On TV, Attitude Is More Important Than the Way the Vowels Sound
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY, NY Times, 8 April 2007
ENGLISH enunciation isn’t what makes Americans weak at the knees: it’s the cruelty behind the words. The British are breathtakingly callous when it comes to comedy, as is all too obvious in this era of Ricky Gervais and Sacha Baron Cohen. Try as we might, we can never quite match their flinty talent for trafficking in boorishness and scalding embarrassment.
A case in point is “House,” the hit television series that obliges one of Britain’s best and funniest actors, Hugh Laurie, to lose his clipped Oxbridge cadence and imitate an American accent, which he does flawlessly. Yet Mr. Laurie’s chief asset is not his voice but his bravado.
His character, Dr. Gregory House, is a flippant, sarcastic misanthrope who thrives on piercing his co-workers’ delusions of good will and affection. In a recent episode House, who does not bother to hide his addiction to painkillers, makes his friends and colleagues believe he has terminal cancer in order to enroll in an experimental treatment program and get drugs.
Many American actors play curmudgeons, but even the meanest tend to lose their nerve and go soft and cuddly once the audience embraces them: James Woods plays a shyster lawyer on “Shark,” but a cuddly one. Even Larry David has a few tender moments on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The British are better at holding a sneer.
The NBC version of “The Office” is very funny, but the boss, played by Steve Carell, is not quite as gloriously slimy and repellant as Mr. Gervais, who created the show and played the original lead on British television. He has moved on to “Extras,” on HBO, where he plays Andy Millman, an even more vile and pathetic loser. A would-be actor, Andy is surrounded by the pompous, the selfish and the inane. Once again it’s not the accent that captivates viewers; it’s his audacity.
Mr. Gervais’s British co-stars gamely go along. Kate Winslet once played herself as the star of a Holocaust film, a role she said she accepted only to win a long-overdue Oscar. “’I don’t think we really need another movie about the Holocaust, do we?” she said briskly to Andy. “It’s like, how many have there been? We get it. It was grim. Move on.”
Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley were absolutely fearless when they played drunken, self-absorbed and utterly deluded middle-aged women on the BBC comedy “Absolutely Fabulous.” CBS tried to imitate its success with “Cybill,” a pleasant sitcom that starred Cybill Shepard as an aging actress and Christine Baranski as her martini-swilling best friend. Americans can’t take their martini swillers straight up however: both women were watered-down versions of the British originals. Nobody in this country likes to be disliked, and American actors seem particularly scared of not being loved.
On television at least its not how British actors say it. It’s what they are willing to say to get a laugh.
Anyway, I agree with this article and the major difference it points out between British and American humo(u)r. It's also why I prefer BritCom material to American.
==========
On TV, Attitude Is More Important Than the Way the Vowels Sound
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY, NY Times, 8 April 2007
ENGLISH enunciation isn’t what makes Americans weak at the knees: it’s the cruelty behind the words. The British are breathtakingly callous when it comes to comedy, as is all too obvious in this era of Ricky Gervais and Sacha Baron Cohen. Try as we might, we can never quite match their flinty talent for trafficking in boorishness and scalding embarrassment.
A case in point is “House,” the hit television series that obliges one of Britain’s best and funniest actors, Hugh Laurie, to lose his clipped Oxbridge cadence and imitate an American accent, which he does flawlessly. Yet Mr. Laurie’s chief asset is not his voice but his bravado.
His character, Dr. Gregory House, is a flippant, sarcastic misanthrope who thrives on piercing his co-workers’ delusions of good will and affection. In a recent episode House, who does not bother to hide his addiction to painkillers, makes his friends and colleagues believe he has terminal cancer in order to enroll in an experimental treatment program and get drugs.
Many American actors play curmudgeons, but even the meanest tend to lose their nerve and go soft and cuddly once the audience embraces them: James Woods plays a shyster lawyer on “Shark,” but a cuddly one. Even Larry David has a few tender moments on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The British are better at holding a sneer.
The NBC version of “The Office” is very funny, but the boss, played by Steve Carell, is not quite as gloriously slimy and repellant as Mr. Gervais, who created the show and played the original lead on British television. He has moved on to “Extras,” on HBO, where he plays Andy Millman, an even more vile and pathetic loser. A would-be actor, Andy is surrounded by the pompous, the selfish and the inane. Once again it’s not the accent that captivates viewers; it’s his audacity.
Mr. Gervais’s British co-stars gamely go along. Kate Winslet once played herself as the star of a Holocaust film, a role she said she accepted only to win a long-overdue Oscar. “’I don’t think we really need another movie about the Holocaust, do we?” she said briskly to Andy. “It’s like, how many have there been? We get it. It was grim. Move on.”
Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley were absolutely fearless when they played drunken, self-absorbed and utterly deluded middle-aged women on the BBC comedy “Absolutely Fabulous.” CBS tried to imitate its success with “Cybill,” a pleasant sitcom that starred Cybill Shepard as an aging actress and Christine Baranski as her martini-swilling best friend. Americans can’t take their martini swillers straight up however: both women were watered-down versions of the British originals. Nobody in this country likes to be disliked, and American actors seem particularly scared of not being loved.
On television at least its not how British actors say it. It’s what they are willing to say to get a laugh.
