America is influence by a lot of cultures and country. The
country I found to influence them the most is the British UK culture. A great
example is the American music call Rock and Roll. The influence of the rock and
roll culture was shown by the British. In the 1960s British artist took their
version of rock and roll and brought to America. It had a big success in
America and was referred as the “British invasion” the popular Rock and Roll
was led by the most famous of groups, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
These famous bands had a lot to do with rock and roll in
America today. Other groups gained popularity from the big influence that had a
big influence from British music such as little Richard, chuck berry ,jerry lee
Lewis ,buddy holly, and the crickets, the Everly brothers and the famous Elvis
Presley. All the artists were influence by British pop culture.
Music is not the only thing that the British had a big
influence on in American culture but fashion was one as well like the mini
skirt and the “twiggy” look. The teens
now set the trends so unlike in the 1950's when daughters tried to look like
their mothers, in the 1960's mothers tried to look like their daughters.
Designers like Mary Quant who made the old look more daring, colorful and
brought about this new fashion. This created the image of the "swinging
sixties". Mary Quant, she designed clothes, which "allowed people to
run, to leap, to retain their freedom. Here styles were brighter, more colorful and more
daring then anything people had ever know before. A model like Twiggy became
fashion icons and idles for many young girls, by modeling in America.
Shows like the X factor and The office have a big
role to play in Amercian culture and how we look at t.v today. The X factor UK
brands the creativityeconomy a “great
unsung success story”. Which employs 1.8 million people and generates annual
exports worth more than about 4 billion dollars.The pilot episode of the
US version of The Office was a duplicate of the BBC series, with some minor
changes in dialog. The reviews were decidedly mixed, with most critics
dismissing it as a pale copy of the British series. As time went on, however,
additional writers were brought on, the cast was expanded, and the overall tone
took on a more American flavor. The British Office has an air of crushing
depression, all the employees feel stuck in dead end jobs, but luckily they
find humor in their hopelessness. In the U.S. version, however, there is always
a subtle undercurrent of hope among the workers. Even the lowliest drone likes
to believe that if he at least gives the illusion of productivity, he can work
his way up the corporate ladder. The British the Office cancelled in 2003, but
the American the office is on its 9th season and a big American TV
show now.
The famous American show Sanford and Son was a spinoff of a British
TV show called Steptoe and Son was a British sitcom about an aging, somewhat
cranky but always wise “rag and bone man” and his argumentative son. The two
lived together and even though the son had an occasional delusion of grandeur,
he remained a partner in his father’s junk business. Wilfrid Brambell played
the scheming Albert Steptoe, whom his son often dismissed as a “dirty old man.
The same with the American version when His dad was a cranky old man and ran a
busted down business as well. When the show was revamped for American
audiences, it became Sanford and Son, and while Redd Foxx’s Fred Sanford was
just as irascible as the elder Steptoe, the characters’ personalities were
reversed a bit in order to exploit Foxx’s comedic abilities. His son, Lamont
(lovingly referred to as “you big dummy” by his father), was usually the voice
of reason when his father fell victim to a new con game or “get rich quick”
scheme. The show became a big hit and was view mostly by the black community.
The British has played a big role in how we have looked at fashion, television,
music, and etc. American owes the British a lot of thing for us sort of copying
or using their ideas to help us expand our entertainment enterprise.