Stiff, Upper Circle

[gattino]

 

[Mythopoeika]

That's so British.

 

[gattino]

That's so British.

Unfortunately I think its truer to say that it WAS. The fact we draw attention to such examples shows we find it out of the ordinary.

A younger generation would certainly not react like the lady there.

I remember, in television terms at least, the transition.

Back in the 70s/early 80s members of the public/tv audiences barely reacted ...the idea of whooping, hollering, cheering audiences was seen as an American thing that comedians and tv presenters would joke about. Then Leslie Crowther brought the Price Is Right over to the UK and the audience was encouraged to act like the American ones...and we've never gone back. Similarly hidden camera shows presented by Jeremy Beadle always had the "victims" supposedly effing and blinding with their responses filled with bleeps, as they over exageratedly put a finger to their own head to pull the trigger at having been caught. But just a few years earlier in the 70s the UK version of Candid Camera showed a very different world, which I didn't appreciate till they were repeated years later...pre-Beadle, members of the public faced with the most bizarre or insane scenarios barely reacted at all except with a look of mild curiosity and a meek "oh. Very good" when the reality was revealed.

 

[Andy X]

Unfortunately I think its truer to say that it WAS. The fact we draw attention to such examples shows we find it out of the ordinary.

A younger generation would certainly not react like the lady there.

I remember, in television terms at least, the transition.

Back in the 70s/early 80s members of the public/tv audiences barely reacted ...the idea of whooping, hollering, cheering audiences was seen as an American thing that comedians and tv presenters would joke about. Then Leslie Crowther brought the Price Is Right over to the UK and the audience was encouraged to act like the American ones...and we've never gone back. Similarly hidden camera shows presented by Jeremy Beadle always had the "victims" supposedly effing and blinding with their responses filled with bleeps, as they over exageratedly put a finger to their own head to pull the trigger at having been caught. But just a few years earlier in the 70s the UK version of Candid Camera showed a very different world, which I didn't appreciate till they were repeated years later...pre-Beadle, members of the public faced with the most bizarre or insane scenarios barely reacted at all except with a look of mild curiosity and a meek "oh. Very good" when the reality was revealed.

We were talking about this only the other day: it was very noticeable that British game show contestants (even the odd one who fancied themselves a bit) tended to appear ever so slightly uncomfortable before the cameras, or at least modest and in control of themselves, as though meeting Terry Wogan or whoever was akin to taking tea with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Maybe such deference to the Gods of showbiz was slightly misplaced, but it did reveal something of the national character.

I'm still not sure we operate in the 'American' style very naturally: look at a quiz show like The Chase, in which the "I'm here to take you down, bitch / bring it on then" banter seems extremely forced and embarrassing.

 

[Moth In Relay]

Unfortunately I think its truer to say that it WAS. The fact we draw attention to such examples shows we find it out of the ordinary.

A younger generation would certainly not react like the lady there.

I agree a younger person might well have acted differently, but perhaps that is not sign of a culture shift, merely that older people are often more tentative than the younger, whatever the era.

Data point: if the theatre couple were 70ish, that would make them 19ish for the summer of love (1967) and therefore part of surely the most tutted-about-by-their-elders generation for a long time, yet we see that generation as having a stiff upper lip that is now being lost.

Maybe, like an Escher drawing, a stiff upper lip is always seemingly being lost, and yet continues?

 

[gattino]

That's a good point and probably true. Also I think we permanently have in our minds that "old people" means people who were around as adults in the second world war..and not people who were relatively young quite recently. (I remember drawing attention a few years ago to that Macdonalds ad were the "old" white man and young black lad have such different tastes, separated by generations, but share the joy of greasy burgers in a bap. The actor, I pointed out, must be in his 60s, which means he'd be a young 30 something in the 1980s....so why was he painted as listening to crackly old jazz records on a gramophone? It'd be a mix tape of boy george and kajagoogoo...)

It's also true that the proper cliched version of the stiff upper lip is a class based one which was never reflective of the population as a whole, I suspect. That famous scene in Carry On Up The Khyber were the english colonial class are utterly nonchalant about the roof falling in over their heads at dinner is in a comedy film, and is funny, precisely because its recognised as satirising a cinematic cliche..if such behaviour was "normal" to the British public there'd be no joke. We're Peter Butterworth, not Sid James.

Nonetheless the reaction of audiences on television has changed dramatically over the decades. Chuckling amusement or polite appreciation has become hysterical laughter and standing ovations. Men embracing or cheek kissing friends or guests on chat shows is un-notable now but at one point was just weird and very unbritish. Understatement is now at the very least in competition with being a drama queen. Something has changed, because I remember noticing it changing.

 

[PeteS]

Something has changed, because I remember noticing it changing.

Is it a change for the better? I have my doubts but then I'm old anyway.

 

[gattino]

It probably is a change for the better over all. Or at least my own perceptions have changed. As much as audiences drowning out the act was initially alien and grating (and its gone so far that the likes of X factor are now unwatchable), what preceded it....a big name American singer or else a comedian performing to excruciating silence or muffled titters (and who doesn't like a muffled titter i hear you ask) on the Royal Variety or, my favourite of the genre, Pebble Mill at one...was embarrassingly uncomfortable too. So I'm glad they've livened up.

As for people - lets face it i mean men - being more expressive and tactile with their friends,that's surely a change for the better. Once you got used to it that is... Though you now have the dilemma you didn't used to: guessing correctly whether the other person is going to go for a handshake or a hug. Guess wrong and it's like a game of rock, paper, scissors...

 

[gattino]

 

[gattino]

 

[Yossarian]

I'm still not sure we operate in the 'American' style very naturally: look at a quiz show like The Chase, in which the "I'm here to take you down, bitch / bring it on then" banter seems extremely forced and embarrassing.

Purely on the quiz show aspect of this discussion, rather than the broader "stiff upper lip" discussion - on which I'm in more or less complete agreement with what gattino has said - the producers go to great lengths to try and force a kind of camaraderie and banter, that really doesn't come all that naturally to a lot of people.

It's not uncommon for the production company to put all the guests up in a hotel, then schedule "meetings" that you all have to attend - sometimes two or three over the course of the day, for minor bits of information that could be covered in ten minutes - with the goal being that the timing of the meetings makes it unlikely that you'll wander off to the shops or a nearby pub, and instead just hang around at the hotel bar and get to know all your fellow contestants, making it more likely that you'll be relaxed and chatty around them when it comes to filming.

Then, when it comes time for the episode to start filming, they'll send a car to the hotel, tell you to expect it at, say, 9am, but it won't get there until 10. That way, you're once again all forced to be in the same place at the same time, and, "when is this bloody taxi getting here?" is the perfect icebreaker for even the least conversational contestant.

 

[Moth In Relay]

As for people - lets face it i mean men - being more expressive and tactile with their friends,that's surely a change for the better. Once you got used to it that is... Though you now have the dilemma you didn't used to: guessing correctly whether the other person is going to go for a handshake or a hug. Guess wrong and it's like a game of rock, paper, scissors...

Yes! We are definitely at a liminal moment in terms of physical greetings, I hope by 2030 we've attained national clarity on greetings, because I definitely play rock paper scissors (great image) with my brother and some male friends.

There does seem a shift towards male expressiveness for formerly forbidden emotions, which I agree is excellent.

One bit of woolly data re: audiences, my impression is that US cinema audiences are more expressive than Brit audiences. I wonder if that will change over time here.

 

[gellatly68]

You've also got to remember that emotional expressiveness in British people, in particular with men, tends to go in cycles. If you read literature from the 18th century, you'll find men openly weeping for various reasons and hugging each other and getting all hand contacty. But look at attitudes from a century earlier, you'll find everyone being all puritan, because, well, they were.

 

[Zeke Newbold]

There's an interesting thesis to be found in all of this - somewhere.

First of all, I'm not sure that the direct comparison between Candid Camera and Beadle's About really tells us all that much. The latter really upped-the-ante in terms of the sophistication and personalisation of the pranks it played on people - and then it had the expansive ebullience of Beadle himself, all of which ensured -indeed begged - a rather more expressive response to the proceedings.

I'd say that Britain's escape from stiff upper lipness started after the Second World War.possibly even as a delayed response to this. Norman Tebbit used to complain about `post-war funk` and it is this which he may have been alluding to.

Post-War Britian: the plays of John Osborne...the hysteria of `Beatlemania`...the rie of melodramatic soap operas (`Eastenders` in particular)...the feverish new comedy embodied by the likes of Cleese...the entry on the scene of confessional newpaper columnists...the elevation of football, which allowed men to hug and kiss each other, into a media religion... the exponential drip-drip efect of the Gay liberation lobby...phone in radio...

The influence of American popular culture may have been paramount here, but other factors have to be taken into account too: some European influences like `It's A Knockout` (Stuart Hall's paroxysms of laughter during this show were really cutting edge at the time, but have been much im itated since) and.maybe, some of our own black culture too.

Some politicians followed suit too. Enoch Powell may have been an early example, but then we had Neil `Allriiiiight!`Kinnock. (A lot of Farage's enduring popularity arises from the fact that, as much as he references pre-1945 Britain he is very much a product of all the above - as evidenced by the fact that he is rarely seen without a gibbering smirk on his featues - and viewed as `refreshing` by dint of this fact.

By the time of the response to the death of Diana it had all reached critical mass and there was no going back.(Okay, I'm an anti-Monarchist and so not the best judge of this, but the two or so weeks following that tragedy struck me as truly bizarre). From then on the new Emotive Britiannia had been signed and sealed and the genie could not be put back in the bottle.

So now we're a bunch of Emotion-Signalling Nancies - with a Maeve Binchy novel in one hand and a man sized tissue in the other - and an avocado flavoured latte in fron of us. Ooooh, we are awful - but I like us!

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

You know what really winds me up? Something that has appeared in the last few years.

Audiences clapping along to whatever music is playing.

I can just see them all now, inane fixed grins, like a bunch of f**king performing seals. They don't even do it in time.

I'm furious just thinking about it.

 

[Mythopoeika]

You know what really winds me up? Something that has appeared in the last few years.

Audiences clapping along to whatever music is playing.

I can just see them all now, inane fixed grins, like a bunch of f**king performing seals. They don't even do it in time.

I'm furious just thinking about it.

Must make your job as a DJ really hard. People enjoying themselves - whatever next?

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

Must make your job as a DJ really hard. People enjoying themselves - whatever next?

:lalala:

 

[Spudrick68]

I personally blame Cilla Black. My recollection was of it starting on 'Blind Date' and everyone joined in. Ever since every idiot has been doing it. I never watched 'Blind Date' BTW so have no idea how I know this but i do. If anyone can pr-date this memory please do so.

TV shows should use Slipknot as their theme, clap along to that.

 

[Zeke Newbold]

You know what really winds me up? Something that has appeared in the last few years.

Audiences clapping along to whatever music is playing.

I can just see them all now, inane fixed grins, like a bunch of f**king performing seals. They don't even do it in time.

I'm furious just thinking about it.

Do you mean on TV shows? If so, there's a reason for this. Producers of the shows ask the audiences to clap along as the opening music to the programme comes on. The rationale for this is that when people are doing nothing on camera their faces go slack and bored looking, which looks bad on TV - so they have to be given something to concentrate on (For the same reason news readers immediately fiddle with their papers after they've read the news).

If you mean clapping along in public places - then this is something you start doing when you reach A Certain Age (or banging on tables, in my case). I would never have dreamt of doing this in my twenties, but now that I'm a clapped out Old Geezer - whenever there's a bit of live rock on in a bar I'll just have to start drumming the table - or indeed any object (or person!) around me in rhythm to the music. I'm like a fuggin chimpanzee - just can't help it. It must be something to do with Evolutionary Biology and the Territorial Imperative...or something.

What about clapping on planes? In Russia the passengers will burst into applause whenever the pilot lands the plane after a flight. There's a part of me that sees this as a bit...well. cloddish, but there's another part of me that thinks it is a rather commendable acknowledgement - on the clients part - of the difficulties and dangers of landing a plane - and an expression of gratitude for this being carried out with success - and why not?

Brits would never do it, would they though?

 

[ramonmercado]

What about clapping on planes? In Russia the passengers will burst into applause whenever the pilot lands the plane after a flight.

Hungarians tend to clap the pilot as well.

 

[Dr_Baltar]

Brits would never do it, would they though?

I may have quoted this before, but it's worth repeating; I've seen Mrs Brown's Boys referred to as "comedy for the kind of people who clap when the plane lands".

 

[Min Bannister]

I hardly ever travel by plane but a few years ago I was on one that had to land in extremely windy weather. It bounced back into the air four times and when we eventually landed, the pilot was given a round of applause by the passengers. It seemed appropriate somehow!

 

[luvpixie]

When I was a small child, if my parents or grandparents took us to the theatre or even cinema, they`d make us sit through the finishing credits of the film and then stand for the national anthem. :O

 

[Mythopoeika]

What about clapping on planes? In Russia the passengers will burst into applause whenever the pilot lands the plane after a flight. There's a part of me that sees this as a bit...well. cloddish, but there's another part of me that thinks it is a rather commendable acknowledgement - on the clients part - of the difficulties and dangers of landing a plane - and an expression of gratitude for this being carried out with success - and why not?

Brits would never do it, would they though?

I was on a plane coming back here from Bulgaria, and we had a difficult landing because of the side-winds. Once down, the Bulgarians gave much applause. I joined in - seemed appropriate to thank the captain.

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

I should have been clearer in my earlier post....I was only talking about TV audience clapping. At a gig I positively encourage it!

I don't mind people clapping to a live band on the telly either....it's when they do it to the theme tune or incidental music in a tv show.

It's mainly an ITV phenomenon (which we never, ever watch by choice).

 

[Spudrick68]

People have never clapped the pilot when we have landed in Greece but they have in Menorca for some reason. He's a pilot, it is his job, why clap him? No-one claps me when my fruit and veg looks great.

 

[ramonmercado]

People have never clapped the pilot when we have landed in Greece but they have in Menorca for some reason. He's a pilot, it is his job, why clap him? No-one claps me when my fruit and veg looks great.

Yeah! Next they will have a collection for the pilot!

 

[Spudrick68]

I'm of course very grateful that the pilot has landed safely but he is paid handsomely to do so and it is also in his interests to do so. Does anyone else get a parade of cheers when they step into work?

 

[Mythopoeika]

I'm of course very grateful that the pilot has landed safely but he is paid handsomely to do so and it is also in his interests to do so. Does anyone else get a parade of cheers when they step into work?

They cheer when I leave. Does that count?

 

[Andy X]

I'm of course very grateful that the pilot has landed safely but he is paid handsomely to do so and it is also in his interests to do so. Does anyone else get a parade of cheers when they step into work?

Professional darts players?