My Problem with Britannia

[torque2100.livejournal.com]

I have been a fan of this show since it first started airing.  However, something always bothered me about the Britannians.  They never felt sufficiently British to me.  I mean, no pubs, no pints, no bangers and mash or shepherd's  pie. Not once do you hear the characters say "bloody," "bugger," "Blighty," or "zed." I am an American but I do enjoy BBC comedies and Doctor Who.  I don't claim to be an expert on British culture but a lot of things in Code Geass just felt a bit off.   For starters, why were the stalls at the Ashford festival selling hamburgers and soda pop and not hot cider and scotch eggs or lamb kebabs?  I know the target audience probably has no idea what those things are, but would it hurt the writers or art directors to do a little research?  While we're on the subject of Ashford academy, the teachers were WAYYY too nice.  Teachers at British boarding schools are notorious for being snarky, jaded and cruel.

Furthermore, the Britannian empire is all wrong.  I can accept that they fought off the Romans and have an Emperor instead of a King, but why isn't India part of the Britannian empire?  India was always the Jewel in the British empire's crown.  India was the one conquest that Great Britain was most proud of and seeing a parallel universe British empire without India is kind of jarring.  Furthermore, some humorous references to ridiculously inefficient bureaucracy would have upped the Britishness factor a lot.

Adding to my distress is the english dub.  Not only is it  one the most atrocious pieces of voice work I have ever heard, there is not a single accent to be heard. It even makes sense for the western release.  To American ears, anything said with a British accent automatically sounds intelligent and sophisticated.  I mean, imagine how much cooler the line "destroy shujinko ghetto, leave no one alive." would have sounded said in a classy uppercrust accent.

I suppose you can argue that the target audience for this show wouldn't know any of this, but that's no reason not to include it.  It would have helped to give Britannia a unique feel.   As it  is they seem too much like a generic Zeon clone.

Rant over.

Comments

[x-reggg.livejournal.com]

as much as i would love to agree with this rant in some way or another, i can't.

it's quite hard to compare the current culture of britain with that in the code geass. the world of code geass is much more like a parallel world, not the exact same world. the chance of getting the exact same culture in two completely different/isolated world is negligible. and the status of brittania is very different to that in current britain. for one, an emperor still reigns. and it's pretty much based on warfare.

personally, i think there's a bit of stereotyping :x not all people who are british have to say 'bloody', and not all people who say 'bloody' are british. there's also enough globalization in this world to safely say hamburgers and soft drinks/soda pop are commonplace. and putting pubs/hot cider would be SLIGHTLY inappropriate, since some of the target audience are kids...

the britannian empire is another issue. if they did fight off the romans, would they have went to conquer india? it's not something we would know.

final conclusion: looking into britannia history too deeply will cause confusion. confusion no good to brain :3

[fox-holland.livejournal.com]

It's hard to see the correlation between those two events since the Roman incursion occured about two decades after A.D. started, and India was British territory by the late 18th century.

Not really, history is always a fascinating and interesting subject with few controversies. "Pseudohistory" is all the more the same.

[x-reggg.livejournal.com]

it's confusing for me because i'm not a history student XDD

interesting to read on, hard to argue with :p

[nitaspitas.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how you can say that history has few controversies, as almost everything recorded in history is from a biased perspective, so it's hard (if not impossible) to determine what is truly "correct" without any controversy.

Unless you're saying that the fact that history is always fascinating and interesting is incontrovertible. In which case, I'd still have to say it depends on the medium in which it is presented. Dry history book = not so interesting. Code Geass pseudohistory = insane, but fun, whether or not it makes sense :D

[fox-holland.livejournal.com]

I agree, bad generalization on my part.

I was just thinking about that in same examples it's rather simple, such as in prospects of war, rebellion, conquest. Side A is planning to invade Side B for these reasons, however Side B is dealing with an invasion from Side C etc cetera. The details of the overview, general information, and required details.

However, when getting down to the personal individualistic level, sources are said exaggerated, bloated, and biased.