Watching Toby Young on Top Chef the other day got me thinking. One common trope in reality television is the use of a panel of experts that judge a contestant's worth, eliminating one person every week. Within that trope, it's incredibly common to see at least one of the judges be English. I think everyone can name a few. This phenomenon isn't restricted to reality television, as television authority figures of all types come in the English persuasion. (A particularly curious sub-archetype often recalls a dominatrix, but that's a digression for another day.) However, English reality judges are the most common.I think that the prevalence of these characters sheds light on an underlying patriarchal relationship between Americans and English. We've heard since we were born that they used to rule us, we used to be them, and that we broke away to be more independent, more rugged, and more free. But the English still held the mantle of taste, refinement, and pure blood, in contrast to our messy, crass melting pot. (I should note that, of course, I realize this isn't the reality, but just a perception dominant in mass culture. I love multi-culturalism and Britain is almost as heterogeneous as we are anyway.)
In our secondary role, we still aspire to access that thing long lost from our cultural heritage, the link to royalty and aristocracy through the English. They know what's best. They're our cultural parents. Every truly bourgeois family has links via the Mayflower the old country. So who's better to yell at us, belittle us, and show us exactly how short we have fallen from their lofty standards?
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