Hi everyone. Haven't posted in a while, but I've been here reading a lot of your posts and debates. Its great stuff to read, but whenever I post I become involved and spend most of my day here rather than doing work, which would be great if I got paid for it

Anyway, I was about to post on the Michael Jackson thread to give my 2 pennies worth, but instead decided to bring this subject up. It was inspired by a televion documentary I watched last night about British programs in America.

As you can see, I'm not American, so I don't really know what appears on screens across the pond. So this is, on my part at least, more of a question. But there is scope for debate. My question is:

Are American TV producers filtering out cultural influences from abroad by remaking shows instead of showing the foreign originals - and is this damgaging to the American public?

Now, of course there is a massive cultural difference between America and Europe. However, in my country (Britain), we are exposed to a lot of American TV influence. There are countless US sitcoms and cartoons on our screens, almost as much as homegrown comedy. We also have access to US 24 hour news channels like CNN, and we get many other American TV programs ranging from chat shows to reality TV, police chase shows to soap operas. Its safe to say, we have our fair share of American cultural influence as far as our television screens are concerned.

On my visits to America, I have to be honest I never thought about TV much so didn't check. I had known that TV shows such as Monty Python and Red Dwarf had cult followings in the US, but didn't expect to see much else from my country. And I didn't.

The documentary I watched last night made me more aware of this situation. I had no idea that so many British TV shows had been picked up by American producers, who instead of offering the original package to the networks, make carbon copies of them with American actors and set in America. Why is this? Is British TV considered crude, inferior? Is it just not good enough to be imported? If this is the case, then switching location and actors should have no bearing on the final product.

One example of a show that is in the process of a remake is the British docu-sitcom, The Office. I'm a big fan of the Office, and I was outraged when I discovered some producer had deemed it unworthy of American audiences in its current state. Why? If the show is so good, why must American audiences be given a remake?

Now don't get me wrong, I understand that remakes are made all the time, including right here in Britain - Fear Factor springs to mind. But the sheer amount of shows that have been copied to precision instead of selling British humour abroad is unbelievable, from old shows like Are You Being Served and Steptoe and Son, to newer shows like Coupling and the aforementioned the Office. There were a lot more but I have a bad memory, Ill try and find a link after this is posted. Although I do remember that evena remake of Red Dwarf, possibly the most recent UK sitcom success in America, was considered - among the names suggested for replacements included Eddie Murphy and...Michael Jackson ?!?

Anyway, like I said its more of a quest for knowledge for me. Nobody would ever try and remake Friends, as it is a story about friends in New York. It wouldn't work any other way, thats the way it is. Would we ever make a British Simpsons? Hardly, Homer Simpson is the portrayal of what is stereotyped the average American male, a remake is futile. In my opinion, remakes of British (or any other nation, do you get Neighbours and Home and Away in America?) shows will also miss the point. And I have to go back to the Office. David Brent is a greasy, slimey, sickening and English character. Translation is futile. In my opinion

Like I said, there is a cultural difference between the US and Europe/UK. This is obviously down to a number of factors - but considering both Britain and America are TV nations, don't you think remaking instead of importing is blocking cultural influence from abroad? I'm about to stop writing, as the Simpsons is coming on in five minutes on one of our biggest networks flagship channel. I would be deeply saddened if I wasn't exposed to the brilliant American productions on offer on prime time British TV. If I had to watch Frasier set in Liverpool, with Alan Rickman instead of Kelsey Grammar, then I'd be questioning the quality of British TV broadcasting. In fact, I'd just switch off.

And yes I see the irony in this being inspired by a British TV documentary

EDIT

Ok I found a few good stories, and the main reason appears to be season length - the UK prefers 6-8 episodes a series compared to 22 + in America. But one thing I discovered... there is an American Red Dwarf! I'm bamboozled!

Ok every critic I have found online has said "cultural differences" and blamed, almost exclusively, series length. What this doesnt explain is how we Brits are able to cope with original American series. We are fond of long series like Angel, the Simpsons, Friends and so on which tend to be 22 episodes in length. If British audiences can adapt, why do American networks show such a lack of confidence in the US?

Anyway this is the best page I could find for a list of remakes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A1149383

They also dub British shows here too...which I must admit really really bothers me.

Yet you can watch many of the British shows on PBS (public broadcasting system) they play Red Dwarf on there and I have even met a few Red Dwarf American fans.

We also have BBC America now available here.

But honestly Robin don't you think Americans would NOT fully understand the humour in something like the Royale Family? or Human Remains?

I don't think that many Europeans..because all of Europe has an appetite for American media.... gets much of the humour or cultural going ons in our TV/Movies and music. I know this is true as I am also an American and I made jokes and such with European friends of mine and I would end up having to explain how and why it is funny. It is a cultural difference.

As much as Americans are watched and entertaining the world over the world recieves it on one level while here in America Americans receive it at another.

I personally love British humor, but to get real British shows here I have to watch PBS.

My favorite is, of course, Red Dwarf. I had no idea they had an American version of it -- that would make it totally lame IMO.

I think it mostly comes down to making money. It just may be that those marketing television shows think they'll have a larger audience if the show has broader appeal. There are probably a lot of people who live here who feel more comfortable if these show have a familiar feel to them. Their loss, I guess.

The trend in films coming out over the past several years seems to bear this out. The movies from Hollywood are getting so dumb and formulaic that I hardly ever see new films as they come out anymore.

I think that's why there's been such a huge shift to independent films and theatres here. There's still a large audience for films of substance that don't get met by the Hollywood crop.

I do think that the US will always have a percentage of Brit TV fans, but we may not be as visible.

Possibly yeah. Hell, I hardly know anyone that 'gets' the Royale Family in my own country

What I find strange is that I am friends with a lot of Americans on other forums and in games who have the exact same sense of humor as me. I know one guy who is born and raised in Scotland, yet despises all British comedy and adores American broadcasting. Can't it be that branding an entire nation as having a particular sense of humor is blocking other forms of comedy/drama to those who do get it?

Monty Python is the obvious example for British humor, and yet people despise that here too. I know people who don't like Fawlty Towers or Black Adder, which is as British as British humor can get. Everybodys different.

I enjoy most humor, and I think I 'get' American humor in that I find American shows funny. However, I don't 'get' shows like Will and Grace or Two Guys and a Girl. To me they just seem unoriginal and cliched humor that anyone could have written, yet my girlfriend likes it.

I think my point is, if this type of humor doesnt go down well in the US, why copy it? Wouldnt it be better to just try the show out on an American audience and see how it fairs? If I was born near Carnegie Hall, New York and not Carnegie Hall, Fife - would I not 'get' British humor?

As for why it's copied, I think that's due to laziness, lack of ideas. Also, it gives American production companies more control over content and the ability to do certain things, like product placement and other marketing techniques.

But I agree with you that it would be better to "try the show out" as it is and see how it does. I think it would be good for us here in the U.S. to be exposed to different types of cultures instead of weak Americanized copies.

Well Robin I love that Scottish show Bits and Bobs I am a bit of a fan of the Scottish accent and it always gets my kids to say ...well if I don't know and yeew don't know...do yeeeew know?

I honestly believe that many Americans would say..huh what.. what did he/she/ they say? They dub shows like that here...or often if someone is speaking with a non-American accent they will also offer subtitles for the non-American English speaking impaired.

Bob the Builder is dubbed so is the Tellytubbies..how hard is it and exactly what huge dialog is going on in these shows that they need to be worrying if the message is getting to the viewer clearly? I haven't a clue. So shows like these for the kiddies are easy to dub ..but adults shows are not..so my guess is they choose to remake them.

I will agree with jenreiautter's points about marketing and product placement etc. But I don't think that is the main reason I think it is cultural.

My sister moved back to London 4 yrs ago..she had lived here in the US since age 12 so she had never lived in the UK as an adult before. One of the most major and difficult differences my sister had in adjusting to her new life in the UK was adjusting to the British sense of humor. Especially true in the workplace.

And I have taken witness to this clash firsthand with visiting relatives intermingling with other parts of he family who are solely American and have no connection to anything British...what britons find funny is often considered rude, inconsiderate and insensitive to an American.
In fact this is a clash my dh and I have regularly. I think calling someone stupid is acceptable..and he does not..in UK stupid means what silly does here in the US and it is really a benign term. Yet to Americans stupid is not at all a nice word and most people here will not let their children use it.

That works both ways. I remember as a child and teenager seeing several US cartoon shows (1970s & 80s badly-animated TV shows, rather than classic Warner or MGM cartoons) where the word "bugger" was used casually. I remember being vaguely shocked by this, as "bugger", while not one of the Anglo-Saxon holies, is quite a rude word here, although my understanding is that it means the same thing as it does there.

But on the TV show front, I think that the only really successful direct transfers of British TV comedy to the USA have been things like The Benny Hill Show or Mr Bean where the humour is mostly either visual or childlike. More sophisticated stuff has been remade for US TV almost since TV was invented - certainly since British TV made sitcoms that were any good.

I think that a big part of this, which nobody has so far mentioned, is that most of the sit-coms that have been remade in the US have been BBC productions (certainly all of the recent ones, like Coupling, The Office, etc.), which don't have the kind of beats to the dialogue and action that are required to make sense on commercial TV. (Robin - Try watching them on one of the cable channels like UK Gold to see what I mean. They feel far more disjointed around the breaks than stuff made for ITV or Channel 4, even if you didn't see a particular episode in it's original BBC form. And commercial TV in America has about double the number of breaks - which is why something like Friends has brief jingle and exterior establishing shot about once every five minutes - it's where there would have just been a break on US TV, and they're shorthand for "you're watching Freinds". In fact, all US network TV shows do this. The only ones that are immune are the HBO programmes that are, in my opinion, the best things on TV anywhere anyway at the moment.)

Series length is a bit of a false argument, particularly with The Office. There's no reason why US networks couldn't show series 1 and 2 back to back as a standard 13 week season. Certainly there's nothing in the plot to stop this from working.

But there's some Britcom that just wouldn't work, I think. I can't imagine Phoenix Nights (IMO, superior to the Office anyway - certainly more consistently laugh-out-loud funny, and it bears repeated watching as comedy rather than tragedy. Though that's possibly because I was made redundant the same week that David Brent was. ) working in any form on US TV, because the whole cultural context is uniquely Northern, let alone British.

Lastly, I do find it funny that Coupling was adopted by US TV, since I always thought of it as a kind of British update of Friends anyway.

I saw the US pilot of Red Dward.




It wasn't good.

I think this Americanisation problem is most prevalent in films. If an asian film breaksthrough, like the Ring they redo it, usually worse, but make 10 times the money from it. There has been a successful film over in South Korea recently "A Tale of Two Sisters," it is a big box office hit and now it has been announced there will be a western remake. I personally love watching Asian films and I believe if producers see a concept they like the should promote the original film over here. Now I appreciate many people have problems with subtitles etc but it would do wanders for a greater cultural understanding and awareness. A celebration of multi-culturalism if you like. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was hugely succesful, though I only watch it with subs as I hate the dubbing, but is showed that they can be a success.

Surely they dont dub every British thing do they? Basil faulty, Mr Manwering??? No wonder people say they dont get our humour, i dont think I would understand Basil Faulty unless i realised he was an typical english lunatic.

Of course it is a two way thing, I don't know if anyone ever saw the UK remake of 'Married with Children' starrying Russ Abbott as Al Bundy.

Well, the original was okay - poking fun at the 'average' American family and , unusually for a US show, ditched the 'moral' aspect so prevalent in many comedies (where at the end we are told that Roseanne's family love each other, that firm bonds of trust hold Joey, Chandler Monica and co together and all things are forgiven at Thanksgiving)

The UK remake starred Russ Abbott and was terrible.

Anyway, one thing I do notice is the 'moral / feelgood' message I mentioned earlier. US sit-coms often seem to end on a happy note, with everyone being friends etc. UK sit-coms don't - we are left in no doubt that Blackadder despises Baldrick, Basil can't stand Sybil and Rimmer is a smeghead. Brits would find a happy ending to these comedies cloying and sentimental, wheras Americans would probably wonder why British comedies were so bitter and nasty!

Robin_Scotland, nice idea for a thread!
[QUOTE]Are American TV producers filtering out cultural influences from abroad by remaking shows instead of showing the foreign originals - and is this damgaging to the American public?

I am always happy to catch British sit-coms on our PBS station. With the likes of
"Keeping Up Appearances" "As Time Goes By" "Benny Hill" "Are You Being Served?" "One Foot in The Grave" And "Whose Line Is It, Anway?" as well as sci-fi "Dr. Who" and "Space 1999" I also love watching the appraisal show which ours is called Antique Roadshow.

On HBO there is a documentary show that offers fragments of shows and commercials from Britian and around the world. That show- which I can't remember the name of- gives great insight as to how conservative American televsion is. Fondly, I must say British tv has some wonderful riskay game shows!

As to the question you posed, I don't think that we are being denied from seeing foreign originals purposely. Perhaps it is more cost effective to produce shows from stolen ideas and produce them in the homeland.

I would also like to say here that we are not only being denied great tv show from abroad but also news about other countries. Even our closest neighbors; Canada and Mexico. We don't hear one iota of news unless it involves the US. We hear the controversial things like gay marriage and prescription drugs cheaper across the border and immigration but nothing else. Sometimes if disater strikes and hundreds of people are hurt or killed.

I think that by not being able to see great foreign shows does keep the American people from seeing a wealth of diversity the world has to offer to everyone. Which in turn, IMO may only foster cultural prejudices and xenophobias. And in the current times who needs that?! Peace to everyone!