Anyone else hate British cuteness?

[Sandacious]

Glasgow.... is in Scotland.

Er...yes it is. What's your point? I desperately hope you don't need the distinction between Britain and England explained.

 

[SckizoBoy]

I don't know how to tell you this..... It may come as a bit of a shock, since you sound like you've been to Glasgow, but..... Glasgow.... is in Scotland.

Uh, hey genius... um, Scotland's in all of Britain, Great Britain and the British Isles... unless I'm missing something here.

And I'm surprised the disdain for 'British cuteness' continues to pour forth a plethora of eclectic posts...

 

[Abengoshis]

I'm from Britain, I don't know what you're talking about.

 

[Desert Tiger]

I'm British and what is this.

I warn you. If you start judging what England is like by means of Harry Potter, I may have to associate America to Twilight.

 

[TimeLord]

Britain? Cute? You obviously haven't been to Glasgow on a dark Saturday night.

I don't know how to tell you this..... It may come as a bit of a shock, since you sound like you've been to Glasgow, but..... Glasgow.... is in Scotland.

Yes, and Scotland is part of Britain.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

As a British member of this forum I ask you a question: What the fuck are you talking about?

 

[Owainj]

As an Englishman can I just say WHAAAAAAA?!?!

I've never heard of this making everything cute thing at all, ever.
And with the example of muggles, I always thought it sounded more derogatory than cute.

Excatly. The hell are you on about?

 

[Lexodus]

Firstly, WHATTHEACTUALFUCKAMIREADING, and secondly, muggle is a word that's been around for decades. In the hippy era, it was musician slang for drugs, usually MJ, and Dumbledore is a very old word for bumblebee (sounds no sillier, come to think about it). Thirdly, 'Jesus Fucking Christ, did he actually just make this thread?'

 

[Laser Priest]

Britain is the anti-cute. Even the British say so.

Japanese "cute" is what I have a problem with. Cat-girls are neither cute nor attractive or whatever you want to make them seem, Japan. They are horrific gene-spliced freaks.

 

[Johnny-Natrium]

Yeah... another brit here chipping in with a 'What the hell ?'.

I think the problem that you're running into is that very little of actual British culture gets taken abroad, and what does tends to be of the more family friendly variety, which yes, means it has cute stuff in it so that the kids will watch it too.

If you look at things that are more grown up you'll get a rather different image of us. Particularly look at our soap operas. They are full of ugly people living terrible lives in borderline poverty. That is pretty much the sum of our culture.

Britain is very much a knock-off of America, but with added nihilism. Your cop shows have cool sexy people doing cool sexy science and solving crimes with a witty one liner. Ours tend to be middle aged people living alone and probably with an alcohol problem. When the camera stops, you get the impression the NCIS guys continue to have their adventures. The people on The Bill stare into the middle distance and cry.

British culture is seriously weird, thats what I'm saying. There is a kind of entropy at the centre of us that knows that nothing we do will ever be important, we can never have nice things and the real core of our aspiration is to live someplace else and have much better lives.

You need to buy a remote mate, so you can switch channels and change your ideas. Your under-appreciation of the British culture is just absolutely ridiculous. Putting British below American media is just psychotic. If one was to go by your personality in explaining the British culture, you'd actually be proving your own point, though. Luckily, this isn't the case.

 

[Makon]

Mate, I've got no idea what you are talking about.

Most things that come out of Britain are tremendously dull and seedy and dark as far as art and entertainment goes. The British are one of the most cynical people in the world.

Hey, our comedy is miles better than than anything America has produced! Red Dwarf, Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, uh... Dad's army, all extremely British comedies that are all great.

OT: I am going to agree with everyone asking what the hell you are talking about, OP. Got any more examples than that one?

You forgot Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, as a couple more examples.

That said, I'm an American and even I have to ask: What in the hell is the OP talking about? J.K. Rowling didn't invent British culture.

 

[Pinkamena]

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Perhaps it's just USA that tries to take everything too serious.

 

[Amphoteric]

As an Englishman can I just say WHAAAAAAA?!?!

That was exactly my reaction.

 

[Quellist]

Soo, Harry Potter is the litmus paper for British Culture? I guess by those rules we should judge America by The Wizards of Waverly place?

 

[gillebro]

Mate, I've got no idea what you are talking about.

Most things that come out of Britain are tremendously dull and seedy and dark as far as art and entertainment goes. The British are one of the most cynical people in the world.

Yeah, I'm with this 100%. As an Australian (ie. a citizen of a country that I believe is probably considered one of the happiest in the world) who's lived in the UK for some time, this 'British cuteness' thing has me stumped. The British don't really do cute. If we want to talk about humour, theirs is cynical, dark, often quite clever, and brilliant. I've lived in both England and Japan, and I would be hard-pressed to find a country as cutesy or as obsessed with cuteness as Japan, and Britain is certainly not going to take the coveted cuteness trophy from Japan or any other country any time soon.

Also, as a humongous Harry Potter fan... there are some seriously un-cute things that happen, certainly in the later books. I will say that the way she names things is, compared to the Celtic and Asian names for mystical creatures, cutesy, but I wouldn't say that Americans (or any other English-speaking nations) are above naming stuff similarly. Cuteness is obviously subjective, and any relative cuteness we may see in these names is probably to do with the naming drawing inspiration from English, the language we are all familiar with, while not many of us are familiar with Celtic and Asian languages so those names sound mystical. Some of those Celtic names might literally mean "Bubbles and gummi bears", for all we know. Believe me, after learning a foreign language, names in that language stop sounding terribly exotic.

And cutesy though the naming in Harry Potter is, it's also clever, and full of relevant references.

Soo, Harry Potter is the litmus paper for British Culture? I guess by those rules we should judge America by The Wizards of Waverly place?

Or by Twilight. And I think even people who don't like Harry Potter would say that Britain would win, there.

 

[Lexodus]

As an Englishman can I just say WHAAAAAAA?!?!

I've never heard of this making everything cute thing at all, ever.
And with the example of muggles, I always thought it sounded more derogatory than cute.

Second this! (Muggles is used in a derogatory sense in the books) If anything the Americans are far worse!

'CRISS-CROSS APPLESAUCE'. Nuff said, 'Murrika.

 

[LarenzoAOG]

As an American, I do like British culture, especially comedy, but I can't get over their obsession with making everything cute.

I'm not even sure if cute is the right word, it's just the best word I can muster. They don't just apply cute names to things like the Japanese do, but apply cuteness and expect everyone to take it seriously. I can't get into Harry Potter, though I'm sure it's brilliantly written, just because non-magic users are referred to as Muggles. To compare, the Final Fantasy series has creatures called Moogles, but FF doesn't force us to take them seriously.

Again, it might just be the fact that I'm American. I'm used to mystical things sounding sort of Asian or Middle Eastern and putting apostrophes in random places. An ancient secret society should be called Kal'sur and the mystical weapon should be Dor'salim. So if non-magic using people in the HP universe were called Cara'sin instead of Muggles, maybe I wouldn't be posting this on the net, but as it is, Muggles is a word that forces me to accept the fact that I'm reading a book written for an 8 year old even though the later novels grow with the audience.

As it is, I hate British naming of Fantasy things. Posters should feel free to add their own grievances.

So you're mad that the British, who have a completley different language and culture then the Japanese, don't name things the same ways the Japanese do?

No offense but this is pretty fucking stupid, also the thread title seems to have nothing to do with the actual thread. Also you have a terribly stupid grievance, you denounced an entire book series because of the use of one word?

 

[Duncan Trice]

I too am an english, I don't see how we are trying to make things 'cute'. I do believe that we are trying to be unoffensive so that don't been seen as hypocrites that we actually are.