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lokifan September 27 2013, 03:40:58 UTC
You don't have to have seen Glee! Especially when you help me understand it, because obvs American culture is super-pervasive but I've been startled by how often I've felt sort of at sea because of Glee's Midwest-America-ness.

And yeah. I mean underdogs winning the day, I get that. It's not like British media is over-respectful of victims, although we do traditionally prefer the losers to the winners. But that demand that Lone You Can (And Should) Fight Injustice just strikes me as so incredibly harsh.

Possibly it's like... both Arthur and Bilbo don't do much fighting or lone-heroing, if they do it at all. I think maybe it's that we do more ensemble/inspiring heroes than lone ones. Like, Ordinary Bloke Inspires Workers type stuff. Clearly your heroes need a union movement. (This reminds me of this fantastic meta on the impossibility of socialism in a Joseph Campbell world: basically if you have a lone hero story, mass movements against injustice become narratively impossible.)

Our more recent obsession with Massively Overblown Powers For The Good (We Swear!) (Ex. All of the Avengers vs. Lonesome Loki) is weird and counter intuitive to our sensibilities

Haha, it makes perfect sense to me. Fits right in with America's behaviour/image in the world, once slightly cleaned-up for a home audience.

(Random Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Hitchhiker squee!)

...Kurt is gay? And not dating Rachel? Fandom has misled me!

OMG, are you serious??? Ahahaha! Awesome. Nope, they're BFFs I think but up to the point I'm at, Kurt's not Rachel's type and also very vocally gay and not bi at all. :)

Um. Wow. That's terrifying. The UK also has a massive issue with those things - we're pretty much the worst in Europe. 1 in 12 young people (16-24) have chlamydia and condom use is less than automatic, to put it mildly. (Even though our super-religious population is tiny compared to yours.) But WOW.

Also I am struck again by how ridiculous and evil the US medical system is, in both the violation of bodily integrity (!!!) and the cost. Eeeeeek. The NHS has its problems, but... eeek. *clings to welfare state*

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