Apparently Braveheart is Anglophobic?

[mrdeclandeadly]

The only problem is that it's years later and Scottish and Irish people still talk about us English like we're the devil, there comes a point where you've got to let things go.

I'm pretty sure that Grudge Keeping is a national sport in both lands.

You just made an enemy for life.

 

[Dwarfman]

The only problem is that it's years later and Scottish and Irish people still talk about us English like we're the devil, there comes a point where you've got to let things go.

I'm pretty sure that Grudge Keeping is a national sport in both lands.

I want to be angry but you've got a point there. Like how we keep reminding Germany about WW1 and WW2.

Don't be too angry. You gotta guy who calls himself Dwarfman talking about others and their grudges. I'd be a hypocrite if I said I never made any, especially when my Avatar associates with a mythical race notorious for them!

And by no means was my comment meant as an insult towards Scots and Irish. It is simply an observation I have made from my associations with several for the past 18 years or so.

 

[FalloutJack]

William Wallace skinned somebody to make leather for his swordgrip, and raped and slaughtered his way through Northern England. He does seem like kind of a bad type of person.

I didn't say he was a kind and generous fellow. I said he had good reason to hate the English, as opposed to an irrational fear or hatred of Anglo-saxons. By some measure, he was still a vicious man, overall.

 

[funnydude6556]

William Wallace skinned somebody to make leather for his swordgrip, and raped and slaughtered his way through Northern England. He does seem like kind of a bad type of person.

I didn't say he was a kind and generous fellow. I said he had good reason to hate the English, as opposed to an irrational fear or hatred of Anglo-saxons. By some measure, he was still a vicious man, overall.

What? Nah I'm fine and actually I'm English and as countries go we do a good job of holding grudges that and waiting in lines while complaining how Non-English people don't know how lines work. Seriously, we tired to have Tony Blair made the president of the EU and we still go on about how it was the German prime minister who won and how it was fixed and how it means the rest of Europe hates us whilst missing the irony that it's this attitude that turns most of Europe against England.

 

[Vlado]

That's a ridiculous claim. There's nothing "phobic" in showing a people's struggle for independence against an invading nation. Yes, the film is not historically accurate. But what some English dislike is not the historical inaccuracy, it's the film's very existence because it shows the English in a negative light (surprisingly, when you try to conquer another nation, the neutral observer will usually feel that way).

 

[rorychief]

It's an American film that simplifies european history. I wouldn't call it exactly anti-english in that england is as clear cut an antagonist for the vast majority of other nations it has interacted with, and so when it comes to movies like this they don't care to show nuance or try and contextualize the english's attitude or motivation, they paint everyone with broad strokes for simplicity's sake. Reduction like this is more a case of contempt for the audience's intelligence than the people portrayed.

That being said, you'd never get away with that for lots of other nations. England is made an especial target. Other countries and empires conducted themselves atrociously when dealing with the peoples they'd colonized. The british empire wasn't the first and only empire seen as evil by the people it oppressed. I figure its more acceptable to shit on england in the english speaking world because, ding ding ding, most of the english speaking world didn't want to speak english and if you force your language on people, unlucky, you have to understand them then when they clumsily represent your shared history in broad strokes.

But yeah, america seems to enjoy milking the underdog narrative a bit too gleefully. Like because they've since become the big swinging dick smashing and absorbing everyone's stuff it seems like desperate insecurity to repeatedly point to a bid swinging dick from the past and go, oh! They're using their power irresponsibly and for self interest! Imagine if we hadn't come along and saved you all from these guys. Hurrah for the end of feudalism, that's what it was about.

Also tangent. As an irish guy, hate hate hate when american films simplify our history, like michael collins for instance. Ok.
That being said. I do raise an eyebrow when English critics dismiss films like the wind that shakes the barley for being antibritish. Its an irish film made by irish people about irish people, after decades of foreign film industries going to town on what happened here and using it as a vehicle for their own agendas and ideals, including yes, revisionist british films that strive to rebuild british self esteem or whatever, this is our take. And you know what it's not of particular interest to us to do what every english film about ireland has done and delve into the burden placed on the guys in power, the poor englishmen who has unfairly inherited centuries worth of his ancestors crimes and is dumped in an unsolvable situation surrounded by natives who unreasonably hate him. We don't want to tell that story, it's been told. Sadly our side feels nauseatingly familiar because americans have been doing hack jobs of it to the point where it now seems cliche. Actual irish films on the subject are in reality far and few between, yet there's this idea that irish media is all some elaborate smear campaign against england due to America's long held but unrelated tradition of cheerleading and romanticizing ireland.

 

[K12]

A very large part of the history of the last few centuries involve the English acting like complete twats, though to be fair this is just because we had more power than everyone else. If you want to look for someone to blame for everything then it's always going to be whichever group has the most influence.

The main issue that people have with Braveheart is that it's so horrendously inaccurate to the point that it seems to have a real contempt for its own subject matter. It makes every English character stupidly evil out of lazy writing not Anglophobia.

I will just add that it's a running joke in England that if you have a middle-class English accent and you want to work in Hollywood then you have to evil (or Hugh Grant). To be honest I just think it's because we naturally sound intelligent and authoritative. At least it isn't as bad as it is for people with German or Russian accents.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

SNIP

As several have already noted, Mel Gibson has been accused of deliberately depicting Brits terribly in his movies (Braveheart, Gallipolli, The Patriot) on a few occasions. Stereotypically, Australians aren't big fans of the English, so some people have said that might be where it's coming from, but realistically who the hell knows.

But yeah, the way the Brits were depicted in the movie really killed a lot of my love for the film. Not only were they depicted as being so evil they may as well have had horns and spit venom, they were also depicted as weak and inept fighters, which had the side effect of causing me to actually root for them (the same thing happened to me in the latter 2 seasons of "Spartacus"). It's hard to look at the Scots as being the "underdogs" when it seems like every Scot can kill about 50 English Soldiers blindfolded.

But I don't know what Mel's even talking about, everyone knows who truly ruined Scotland

 

[Frankster]

Kinda I guess?

But Patriot was so much worst, not least because I still encounter Americans who treat that film as nothing short of a historical documentary.

 

[Breakdown]

For me, it's not so much that the English are all evil in films like Braveheart, I'd more irritated that all the English characters are stupid and useless at fighting. Like the scene in the Patriot where Mel Gibson attacks the English patrol, and the English officer pretty much goes "look lads, he's hiding behind a tree, everybody fire your one shot weapons at the same time at the tree! Oh no we missed, attack him with your bayonets. One at a time though!"

 

[Lightspeaker]

Scots have a real complaint in regards to more modern history when Margaret Thatcher tested her neo liberal policies on them causing widespread unemployment and misery.

I actually take offence to this comment because it seems to imply Thatcher was good for England at the expense of Scotland; but Scotland was NOT the only place screwed over by Thatcher. I'm from Liverpool and she quite literally hung my home city out to dry, letting it wither on the vine. So yes, Scotland may well have a real complaint with regards to Thatcher's policies but that has absolutely nothing to do with England considering how much parts of England got screwed over even worse.

 

[Rolaoi]

First off, I know this sounds like the title of a video that MovieBob would've made. Point aside...

I was watching Braveheart last night. You know, the movie about William Wallace and freedom [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLCEUpIg8rE]. I wanted to know more about all those historical inaccuracies, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. And right below the historical inaccuracies column, was this:

Spoiler

Sections of the English media accused the film of harbouring Anglophobia. The Economist called it "xenophobic", and John Sutherland writing in The Guardian stated that: "Braveheart gave full rein to a toxic Anglophobia". In The Times, MacArthur said "the political effects are truly pernicious. It?s a xenophobic film." Ian Burrell of The Independent has noted, "The Braveheart phenomenon, a Hollywood-inspired rise in Scottish nationalism, has been linked to a rise in anti-English prejudice". Contemporary Scottish writer and commentator Douglas Murray has described the film as "strangely racist and anti-English".

Now I know the movie is incredibly black and white, but I wouldn't call it "Anglophobic." Would you?

If Braveheart is Anglophobic, nearly every war movie is just as bad if not worse. I've grown up on Germans being the villains.

If a few stuffy Britons are offended by a movie, I'll quote another Briton on the subject:

It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what.

 

[Wolf In A Bear Suit]

You think that's bad? Wait until you start watching all those anti-English Irish films where ALL Englishmen are corrupt, all of them are roving bands of arsonists and murderers and all that can save them is generally some flavour of sweaky clean poor Irish lad from the countryside. Usually Liam Neelson.

Don't forget, boys, the IRA is nothing except brave freedom fighters who always gave the Brits a chance to fight fairly, ignore the dirty side of their dealings.

Also, I'm Scottish, but I do feel that the Brits and especially the English cop the most shit out of all the European powers who all did the colonialism thing.

Ah well, what are you going to do? Everyone hates the English, especially the Scottish and the Irish.

The Irish may, but as a Scotsman, we don't really hate the English. We detest the Tories, true, and we pretend to hate them as a kinda long-running joke (much like the general British and French relationship), but the days of actually hating each other has passed.

And they bloody well should. We (not the living generations, or me personally, but in a general, historic sense) tried to wipe out both the Irish and the Scots several times. We probably tried with the Welsh too, but I'm not certain.

Honestly, the English were rather lazy with wiping out the Scots. They kinda just ignored them for the most part, slapped them down when we got uppity, and then eventually bought us when our king kept spending money. Again, we're not Ireland.

Plus the Israel-Palestine conflict is basically our fault.

Oh, many people are at fault, not just the Brits (not the English, mind, all of us. Except the Irish, who were too cowardly to actually take part in the war and were too busy using this time of fighting the Nazis to start back-stabbing the Brits). We've got the French and Americans who agreed with us to shove the Jews there because none of us wanted to actually deal with all these displaced Jews, we've got the Muslims who were not happy with the arrangement, we've got the Jews who keep breaking their promise to not wipe the Muslims off the map and stealing their land, we've got the Americans still funnelling weapons to them, it's a whole fucking mess, but you cannot point at the Brits and say "Their fault". If anything, I'd say the Jews should have accepted a nice plot of land in the U.S. like what was suggested, but they wanted their holy land and at least the Brits were nice enough to oblidge.

And what we did all over the African continent was pretty bad.

Everyone was fucking around down there, and we've been doing so for thousands of years. Before we did, the Arabs and the Hellenics and the Romans and the Egyptians and the Carthaginians.

And during Colonialism, the Spanish, French and British all had a go. If you're discussing slavery, it's worth remembering three things:

1) The slave traders bought the slaves from the local black slave traders, who had been doing so since times of Darius I and selling to the Romans, Greeks, Muslims, Egyptians, etc, etc.
2) It was in France and Britain that slavery was quickly abolished and they were granted their freedom, slavery certainly never took off in Europe during those times

And our colonisation of America was hardly nice and peaceful.

Again, the Spanish and the French were involved. Why do they never get any of the blame?

And it was quite peaceful until tensions began to increase. It wasn't a one day decision "Let's go murder all the indians", it was a progression of unease that erupted into war, and at the time, we were simply better at it. Nations rise and fall. The colonisation of Britain under Rome was hardly nice and peaceful, but I don't see us throwing crap at the Italians.

Plus the fact that we have no culture whatsoever apart from racism and thuggery.

You know, apart from our literature, our art, our science, our history. Byson, SHakespeare, Austen, the Beatles, Isaac Newton, the Queen, Henry VIII, the Titanic, tea, politeness, classism, the NHS, Keep Calm and Put Slogan Here, etc.

Regarding racism, we were one of the kinder colonial powers, we've parted peacefully with most of them, we retain good relations with them, we've traded with them for thousands of years, they have fought with us in many wars including two World Wars, we forbade slavery quickly, we allowed the natives to be educated in our universities for most of the time, hell, Ghandi was educated here. Believe it or not, we didn't just kick puppies over there.

Thuggery? You do know the Bill is a program, and not real life? Crime has been falling for years.

Politics

Not even going to deal with this, politics is politics. Also, you do know that racism towards them is still racism even if they are racist?

Chuffing hell fire England is just shitty shitty shit shit shit.

I don't know, I've lived in a few countries in the world, I don't think England is that bad, I can see why so many people want to move there.

EDIT: OK, yes some of that last paragraph was about the UK in general (the part about the political parties). That said, those parties are English, with English leaders, so frankly it's still our bloody fault. I'm really, really sorry, ok? Most of England are. Apologetic is our natural state.

Feel free to run for politics, I'm sure you'll do a far better job, my English hating fellow.

I liked the part where you went off on a bitter little anti-Irish crusade for absolutely no reason, and were keen to distance yourself from percieved Irish Anglophobia, that Scotland is without doubt equally guilty of. I'd write a longer post, but naturally I have an I.R.A cake sale to go to (despite finding I have more in common with the English than any other nationallity), before dodging a world war (which thousands of Irishmen fought and died in), and watching the Wind that Shakes the Barley before turning in and saying a prayer to my god Gerry Adams.
(Apologies to the second guy I accidentaly quoted in this post before editing).

 

[Bibilongstocking.]

Scots have a real complaint in regards to more modern history when Margaret Thatcher tested her neo liberal policies on them causing widespread unemployment and misery.

I actually take offence to this comment because it seems to imply Thatcher was good for England at the expense of Scotland; but Scotland was NOT the only place screwed over by Thatcher. I'm from Liverpool and she quite literally hung my home city out to dry, letting it wither on the vine. So yes, Scotland may well have a real complaint with regards to Thatcher's policies but that has absolutely nothing to do with England considering how much parts of England got screwed over even worse.

Well I live up in your neck of the woods and yes, we in the North of England were also royally screwed. However Scotland was the testing ground for various policies including poll tax so its not unreasonable to assume they have something of a grudge, as the son of a trade unionist I was in no way trying to imply that evil cow was good for England, just that she royally screwed Scotland to the extent the conservative voter base north of the border is now non existent.

 

[jklinders]

I want to say that there was an unnecessary anti English vibe to the movie but it was actually legitimately based on the bard Blind Harry's account of William Wallace's life. There is little agreement historically about Wallace but most say that Blind Harry was definitely taking the piss. I'll leave the speculation about Randall Wallace's narcissistic musings about being descended from William Wallace to others. I would argue that using source material such as Blind Harry's for a dramatization constitutes fair play. There was even that bit in the prologue that said the whole thing was a tall tale and that should really settle this.

Someone said that Mel Gibson seems to have it out for the British because of this movie, The Patriot and Gallipoli.

Gallipoli came out in 1981. That was before Mad Max: The Road Warrior and before Mel Gibson was any kind of name outside of Australia. We are talking really low budget localized cinema here. It is extremely unlikely that this was anything other than a paycheck to him. And if he had an anti British vibe then, what of it? He's Australian by birth and there would be a bit of anti British vibe there.

The Patriot had a lot of things wrong with it, I doubt Mel Gibson's influence was biggest among them. He neither wrote nor produced it. I had until this morning thought there was a connection between the Patriot and Braveheart outside of Gibson, but I was wrong. The Patriot looks to me like little more than jingoistic propaganda meant to inspire nationalism in it's primarily American audience. Having said that, my mom likes the movie a lot, but then she liked pre batshit insane Mel Gibson a lot too. Interestingly Harrison Ford turned down Gibson's part as he felt the film was far too one dimensional.

I'm not sure that Mel Gibson hates the British or not. Three movies in thirty years though is a pretty weak basis for that notion though, especially when the first one was before he had any influence on it and the second could be called fair play based on it's source material.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Scots have a real complaint in regards to more modern history when Margaret Thatcher tested her neo liberal policies on them causing widespread unemployment and misery.

I actually take offence to this comment because it seems to imply Thatcher was good for England at the expense of Scotland; but Scotland was NOT the only place screwed over by Thatcher. I'm from Liverpool and she quite literally hung my home city out to dry, letting it wither on the vine. So yes, Scotland may well have a real complaint with regards to Thatcher's policies but that has absolutely nothing to do with England considering how much parts of England got screwed over even worse.

Well I live up in your neck of the woods and yes, we in the North of England were also royally screwed. However Scotland was the testing ground for various policies including poll tax so its not unreasonable to assume they have something of a grudge, as the son of a trade unionist I was in no way trying to imply that evil cow was good for England, just that she royally screwed Scotland to the extent the conservative voter base north of the border is now non existent.

I don't think you quite understand how badly Liverpool got screwed and how much some people here hate her. People had parties when she died. No exaggeration. There was a very distinct air of triumph and celebration over her death. Hardly unsurprising given the riots in the 80s. I found it extremely distasteful, but it happened.

I'm pretty sure the Conservatives poll significantly higher in Scotland than in Liverpool. I just looked up a couple of recent City Council elections...in 2014 in Liverpool the Tories pulled around 5% of the vote. In Edinburgh in 2012 they pulled nearly 20%. I don't think they've held a single seat here since the 80s because of all that happened.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

If Braveheart is Anglophobic, nearly every war movie is just as bad if not worse. I've grown up on Germans being the villains.

If a few stuffy Britons are offended by a movie, I'll quote another Briton on the subject:

It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what.

Stephen Fry?

Anyway, I tried watching Braveheart once. I don't actually remember any of it, so I can't imagine I found it particularly insulting. I suppose my take away from this thread is that Mel Gibson is fucking mental, but then South Park taught me that long ago.

 

[Ryotknife]

Granted its been awhile since i watched the patriot, but i dont remember it being anti-british. There is only one british character that is evil, and he kinda went rogue. Sure, the other british characters didnt stop him, but that doesnt make them evil.

Nor was the movie that patriotic. I mean the main character wanted nothing to do with the war. Gibson's character basically said, F#$% freedom i have a family to raise. His sons were patriotic, and got their asses killed which is what dragged him into the war. Really the movie should have been renamed "Family Man" or "a single dad in war."

 

[Breakdown]

Granted its been awhile since i watched the patriot, but i dont remember it being anti-british. There is only one british character that is evil, and he kinda went rogue. Sure, the other british characters didnt stop him, but that doesnt make them evil.

Nor was the movie that patriotic. I mean the main character wanted nothing to do with the war. Gibson's character basically said, F#$% freedom i have a family to raise. His sons were patriotic, and got their asses killed which is what dragged him into the war. Really the movie should have been renamed "Family Man" or "a single dad in war."

At least the evil guy seems reasonably smart and can actually handle himself in a fight. The rest of the Brits are all incompetent morons.