A friend of mine has proclaimed that all British people are full of themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Me, in this thread.
My impression is that he has let British stereotypes commonly seen on television shows and other forms of media in the U.S. define a country's people to him. In many children's shows, characters with semi-British accents are normally the ones that play the part of the antagonist, or the character in the show whom, at one point, learns the true meaning of caring and sharing. :love:
In shows meant to be humorous, an impersonation of a generic British person is normally among the voices that will often be used to set up a character's traits without giving them very much time on screen. For example, say there is a British man. Let's give him a monocle, too. He is in an office. An work-mate of his comes up to him and says something profane. The British man's monocle pops off, and he spits out tea. The advantage to this is that it's a joke that entirely pertains to a specific character's unique personality, and the creator did not have to flesh out his character to define his personality beforehand. (He or she also didn't have to make a good joke) Family Guy and other popular cartoons often do something similar, but rather than use stereo-types towards a large range of people, they use celebrities who have defined a personality for themselves in the media.
Because of how often an accent is used to define characters in media (with more than just British, of course), many people listen to a person's voice and have an idea of that person's personality, and they may come to an incorrect conclusion about a person's personality because of this. Along with this, because one may be looking for specific personality traits in whoever they may be talking to, they may ignore the traits of this person which they don't associate with such stereotypes.
I doubt this is new to anyone here, though, and you probably have payed it much mind. Why, neither have I. That's why I'm posting this in General Chat. But I would like to ask you guys something, which shall be the main topic.
Has a friend of yours or someone else you know judged a person prematurely? And, if so, how did they do this? How did you react? How did people around you react? :eek:
