The original British Invasion took place in 1964 with the arrival of the Beatles and the Mersey Beat groups that followed in their wake.* But that invasion wasn’t just singing groups, as rock bands were called back then, but also the second biggest craze of the mid Sixties, secret agents. James Bond lead this wave with The Avengers, The Saint, Noel Harrison from The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. and Secret Agent man, Patrick McGoohan.
The second wave of the British Invasion took place in the 1980s with Duran Duran, Def Leppard, Flock Of Seagulls and a whole host of English Newwave bands.
Now, in the second decade of the 21st Century the British Invasion has finally infiltrated American Pop culture like never before. Just a quick survey of popular television shows, American television shows, illustrates just how prevalent the English occupation of American airwaves has become. Besides the remakes of British television shows like The Office, which has been going on since the 70s with shows like All In The Family and Sanford And Son, there are now celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay of Kitchen Nightmares and Robert Levine of Restaurant: Impossible, beauty salon makeover queen Tabatha Coffey of Tabatha’s Salon Takeover, Piers Morgan (replacing American Larry King), Sharon Osborn of America’s Got Talent and the entire cast of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.
This use of the British as the supreme arbiters of taste probably started with Simon Cowell of American Idol, that’s right, AMERICAN Idol. Now, whenever an obnoxious, pretentious, demanding character is called for, it is inevitably an Englishman. But that’s not the most insidious aspect of this English takeover.
Some of the most popular television series currently on television have as their stars English actors pretending to be American. Hugh Laurie of House, Jason Issacs of Awake and Charlie Hunnam of Sons Of Anarchy are English actors who are portraying decidedly American characters. And Irishman Coin Farrell and Australian Sam Worthington star as Americans, or at least characters with American accents, so often that it’s rather shocking to hear them on a talk show using their real voices. Oh, yes, Hugh Jackman as well.
What is wrong? Are there really not enough American actors to play these roles? Do the English actors work that far below scale that hiring them saves that much money? Runaway production and outsourcing to foreign countries is bad enough but now we’re importing workers to to take our jobs in this country?
My folks were right. Those damn Beatles will be the ruin of this country. It just took fifty years.
* The real original British Invasion took place during the war of 1812.
The second wave of the British Invasion took place in the 1980s with Duran Duran, Def Leppard, Flock Of Seagulls and a whole host of English Newwave bands.
Now, in the second decade of the 21st Century the British Invasion has finally infiltrated American Pop culture like never before. Just a quick survey of popular television shows, American television shows, illustrates just how prevalent the English occupation of American airwaves has become. Besides the remakes of British television shows like The Office, which has been going on since the 70s with shows like All In The Family and Sanford And Son, there are now celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay of Kitchen Nightmares and Robert Levine of Restaurant: Impossible, beauty salon makeover queen Tabatha Coffey of Tabatha’s Salon Takeover, Piers Morgan (replacing American Larry King), Sharon Osborn of America’s Got Talent and the entire cast of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.
This use of the British as the supreme arbiters of taste probably started with Simon Cowell of American Idol, that’s right, AMERICAN Idol. Now, whenever an obnoxious, pretentious, demanding character is called for, it is inevitably an Englishman. But that’s not the most insidious aspect of this English takeover.
Some of the most popular television series currently on television have as their stars English actors pretending to be American. Hugh Laurie of House, Jason Issacs of Awake and Charlie Hunnam of Sons Of Anarchy are English actors who are portraying decidedly American characters. And Irishman Coin Farrell and Australian Sam Worthington star as Americans, or at least characters with American accents, so often that it’s rather shocking to hear them on a talk show using their real voices. Oh, yes, Hugh Jackman as well.
What is wrong? Are there really not enough American actors to play these roles? Do the English actors work that far below scale that hiring them saves that much money? Runaway production and outsourcing to foreign countries is bad enough but now we’re importing workers to to take our jobs in this country?
My folks were right. Those damn Beatles will be the ruin of this country. It just took fifty years.
* The real original British Invasion took place during the war of 1812.
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