Why are british uptight

You disgust me. I know what people like you get up to, and I think it's disgusting! He even tries to spy on them to catch them red handed. Doctor Who : It usually blows this away, especially hiring such energetic and expressive actors as David Tennant and Catherine Tate , but they did play with it in " The Idiot's Lantern ". Lampshaded in " The Unicorn and the Wasp ". When Donna wonders about how everyone involved is going to deal with the weirdness of the episode, the Doctor says, "They'll never speak of it again, they're too British.

The Doctor, said in " The Daleks' Master Plan ", "I am a citizen of the universe and a gentleman to boot" which was to represent 19th century British ideals. Often lampshaded by Max on The Nanny when he uses this as an excuse for why he is unable to show his feelings. He and his entire family are perfect examples of this, with the exception of his brother Nigel, who has been shown to be very passionate and exuberant, although he was considered the black sheep of the family, and supposed to be the exception that proves the rule.

One place that this seems to be inverted, however, is talk shows. On American shows like Letterman or Leno , the host is usually behind a big desk, and everything sounds a little formal barring certain circumstances like the guest and host being longtime friends, or the guest just being a little wacky, then things will usually go a little off the rails.

On British shows like Graham Norton , the set is made up like someone's living room, there's usually drinks available, and everything seems a little more informal and chatty. Horrible Histories frequently plays this for laughs, although the show's goofy energy, as far from stuffy as possible, always shines through.

Lane Pryce, and just about every other British character on Mad Men - with the exception of Jaguar representative Edwin. Lane tries to approach his fellow ex-pat as a kindred spirit, but fails. It turns out he's just as debauched as Roger or Pete, and his idea of a fun night involves visiting a brothel. This backfires spectacularly when Edwin's wife finds out and Lane is the first to hear of the deal being called off. Roger: Why would he say anything?!

Puppet Shows. Bizarrely enough, in Thunderbirds which is a British - made programme , many of the British characters were quite stereotypically uppercrust, like Lady Penelope. Parker, Lady Penelope's driver and manservant may be a subversion. He affects what he may believe is a "posh" accent, but only indicates his London cockney origins. He's based upon a real man the Thunderbirds production members met running a pub.

Jeff Tracy wears morning dress and affects a British accent to go to an airshow in one episode. Penny is too pleased to correct him.

All the more impressive since Jeff was played by Peter Dyneley, a British actor with a Canadian accent, playing an American trying to affect a stuffy British accent and doing it badly. Not so bizarre when you consider Thunderbirds was an expensive show to make — Lord Grade, as with so many shows he commissioned, saw first showing in Britain as irrelevant compared with lucrative resale to the USA, and insisted it be made primarily with the American market in mind.

Therefore all the action heroes speak with American accents and the British characters were tailored to American expectations — toffs and Dick van Dyke cockneys. The Muppet Show was a later example: the guest star was nearly always an American celebrity, often virtually unknown in Britain. Bleak Expectations : A Running Gag with the series' narrator, Sir Phillip Bin, who shrugs off any acknowledgement of his awful youth by saying he ignores it, often via drinking, and that this is "the British way".

Curiously, his past self is not usually an example of this, often being very emotive. Except in one instance when his sister is being a Mood-Swinger , which makes Pip declare his desire to "go down to the pub with a crossword and not talk to anyone for a month" in response.

Also played for laughs with Harry Biscuit, after apparently fixing his marriage in series 4, series 5 begins with him and his wife on the outs, which Harry explains is because as an English gentleman, it's taken him fifteen years to process his emotions, and now that he has, he's broken up.

Note that Harry is as far from a "typical" English gentleman as it's possible to be. Also also done when one of Big Bad Mr. Benevolent's schemes is to have British explorers melt the Antarctic, by exposing them to London call girls — their embarrassed awkwardness is what's going to melt the ice. In Anne of the Thousand Days , the French-educated Anne looks down upon Englishmen as barbaric, lacking in culture, and too secretive on the subject of sex.

It's fitting that this farce also was turned into an Awful British Sex Comedy later. Video Games. Mostly averted, especially in beat 'em ups, where the British female characters, including Cammy from Street Fighter , Ivy from the SoulCalibur series, Christie from Dead or Alive and of course Lara Croft , are all easily amongst the most fanservicey.

All of them tend to be fairly no-nonsense in demeanor however, and speak with the applicable RP accent , so perhaps not a complete aversion of this trope. However, when it comes to the men, Brits Dudley and Eagle both Street Fighter fit the bill perfectly. Whether or not Miles Edgeworth is an example of this is the subject of much debate in the Ace Attorney fandom.

He spent part of his childhood in America and his teen years in Germany, but there's room to suggest he was born British, and his behavior and speech patterns certainly fit. His voiceover in Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice even has the right accent. Also, he can get quite emotional but usually keeps it under wraps unless it's sheer exasperation.

Subverted in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater , where Zero at first seems cold and snarky like this trope, but as time goes on he's shown to be really quite emotional shown especially in him eventually becoming a Stalker with a Crush in Metal Gear Solid 4 and Peace Walker , and kind of a Cloud Cuckoo Lander. The last part's probably based on the other stereotype of the British sense of humor. Web Animation. Zero Punctuation : In his review of Bayonetta , Yahtzee admits to this.

This doesn't save him from Freudian Slipping several times throughout the review. Yahtzee: Fortunately, being English, and therefore utterly repulsed by the slightest sexual urge in myself and everyone around me, I am immune from any callous attempt to touch my heart via my wrinkly undercarriage, and Bayonetta looks about as sexy to me as a pencil stuck through a couple of grapes.

Yahtzee: It's my oppressive British upbringing. Gabriel: All this intellect, all this analysis, all this critique, brought to its knees by "boobie boobie bum bum. Web Comics. The problem is, this is also his attitude to his kids, which is pretty much the reason they're so screwed up America being the boisterous rebel, Canada being the intelligent yet weak "favorite" of sons who was adopted from France when he was a teenager, Australia is the wacky problem child, and New Zealand is a sheep.

And their being uptight about sex comes across in one strip where England's Internal Monologue berates himself for being a rapist And according to the Author's Note for that strip, it's apparently Truth in Television though not quite to that extent. Humon: I've been to conventions in quite a few countries by now, and England is the only country where most people asked for a handshake rather than a hug. Web Videos. Titli of Titli's Busy Kitchen parodies these tendencies in several of her videos.

Western Animation. The Flintstones : When Fred Flintstone attempted to pass himself off as uppercrust and well-mannered, he affected a British accent. One episode of Danny Phantom where the Fentons have the usual stiff British butler.

Owen Burnett, Xanatos' butler on Gargoyles. This was totally on purpose, though, since Puck copied his alter ego from another, equally-wooden, majordomo and just slapped on an accent for better effect.

There is no need to be rude! I paid good money for this crack, and it is all burnt up, look! Herriman pictured above , from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends has never been to Britain, but has a British accent from pure stuffiness.

Sarah, the British journalist and later American immigrant from Liberty's Kids is initially like this. Samuel the camel from Willa's Wild Life. Family Guy 's use of "high-class British porn". British Man: You know Margaret, we could have sexual intercourse right now. British Woman: Yes, yes we could. British Man: Hm, but let's not. Real Life. Culturally, India and Britain are polarised nations. So when we feel like our personal space is being invaded, or someone gets too close to us, we lose our minds.

Arriving with this as my cultural conditioning, I may be forgiven for saying that India has a tough time with acknowledging this basic premise. Moving to India, I had to give up my right of personal space and accept the fact that, to a large extent, personal boundaries are just as much as foreign as I myself am. But it has made me realise that us Brits can be over-sensitive and over-entitled.

Share their lunch with me. Hear my story. Clinging on to this norm has been a daily battle for me in India. I refuse to go any later. This whole obsession we have with respecting privacy and space has spilled over into our culinary experiences. Sharing food is way too intimate of an experience to have with just anyone. Even without making up new words, the British definitely have, and make use of, a larger vocabulary of swear words than Americans.

The stronger your friendship, the more you can lay into each other and still come away with a warm feeling. This is not how Americans roll. Indeed, there are some words the British use casually that are considered more offensive or insulting by Americans. Americans find it really shocking to hear it used carelessly. Since the Cathars made a special virtue of chastity, it was a shade unfair. However, since in the Middle Ages sodomy and buggery were linked to heresy as well as to witchcraft, it was perhaps only to be expected.

Bloody is an all-purpose intensifier that, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, once qualified as the strongest expletive available in just about every English-speaking nation except the United States. This is the risk with any good swear word: Overuse it and it loses its meaning. Both countries share a fascination with swear words' that reference the male anatomy. Americans and the British have dick, cock, and prick in common, but Britain takes the theme further with pillock and knob, as well as masturbator synonyms tosser and wanker.

The entire British contingent had to leave the room in hysterics.