British TV dystopias

[kindkit]

I'm intrigued by the fact that series with the premise "in the future, our country is a quasi-fascist dystopia" are common enough on British TV, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, that you could call them a sub-genre. (I've just started watching one such show, The Guardians, which so far is excellent.) By contrast, I can't think of single example of this premise on US television, from that period or in fact ever.

Cultural difference? Or am I just not remembering US examples?

Comments

[shadowvalkyrie]

I'd say it's a cultural difference. British TV tends to be a lot darker and more socially pessimistic in general. (Take the also typically British Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist, compared to the US comedy protagonist, who is normally a lovable loser. TV tropes has a list of examples on that one.)

Add to that the US obsession with patriotism that practically forbids painting a dark future for that oh-so-perfect country... voilá, no dystopias.

Plus, you could argue that the US is stricken by a general lack of public awareness about civil liberties being eroded or straight-out taken away, e.g. the "anti-terror" laws of the Bush administration, Arizona's anti-immigrant laws, the whole ongoing religious-rights-before-women's-rights debate, and so on. If no one sees it as a problem and fears subsequent developments, no one is going to write TV shows about it.

[kindkit]

Well, yes, I didn't mean to imply that I couldn't fathom why this difference should exist. But I wanted to make sure that I wasn't just forgetting US examples, since I think at this point I have watched more British TV than US TV.

I'm not sure I'd argue that civil liberties in the UK before 2001 were all that much healthier than in the US (the Prevention of Terrorism Act and Section 28 spring immediately to mind), nor that people were as aware of and opposed to such laws as one might hope. US political culture has made an enormous and terrifying lurch towards right-wing authoritarianism since then, though. But I agree that the dominant US culture has at least since WWII been shaped by an uncritical patriotism, in fact a nearly messianic sense of national specialness and mission.