Are British stereotypes offensive?

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I've been looking at a video on YouTube about offensive things in Simpsons episodes, and practically all episodes where they travel to another country was considered offensive (even Polish stereotypes in the beginning of the Das Bus episode), except for the episode where they go to England. Did anyone in England get offended by this episode? There were plenty of English stereotypes in this episode, and making the English characters talk in exaggerated cockney accents could be racist too, as a lot of poor people in London spoke in the strong cockney accent during WW2 when London was being bombed.

Not that I got offended at all by any of the jokes about England, I still thought that in today's world where making any stereotypes or jokes about another country's culture is racist if it portrays unsettling history, the jokes about London and the guards at Buckingham Palace would be considered just as offensive as making exaggerated or stereotypical jokes about a famous place in, say, India or somewhere.

I even tried googling it but the words "racist" and "offensive" were striked out!

Disclaimer: I don't usually post in the PPR because of the risk of being personally attacked, but it is a burning question that I really want to ask.
Ps. I do understand how offensive racial stereotypes are and why, so don't go accusing me of being disrespectful. I'm just wondering why the same doesn't apply to British people, that's all.

Please keep it civil.

As long as it's done in a way that isn't promoting them, but lampooning them, I see no problem. When it comes to humor, context is everything.

But it seems that every Simpsons episode where they travel to another country is controversial, except for The Regina Monologues (the episode where they travel to the UK).

I don't find it offensive. A bit annoying because I'm Northern and the rest of the world doesn't know we exist, apart from Dr Who fans.

It's the same with America. Everyone thinks that they all talk with a Texas accent while in reality they have a diverse range of regional accents just like here in the UK. I sound a little like one of the Wurzels only without the oo ar bit just so people know!

Who are the Wurzels? Well, here's their most famous song.

I could see it bothering some Britons to whom it seems like these stereotypes make everyone think that everyone in the UK speaks Cockney, since the UK has great dialectal diversity.
I could also see them not appreciating the stereotype of Britons having bad teeth, which is outdated and classist imo. If anything, the stereotype should be that Americans have bad teeth. At least in the UK dental care isn't treated as a luxury like it is over here. Hope you can afford to get that root canal, American, or you're gonna have a bad time.

But if there was a British person in a cartoon with big teeth, nobody will bat an eye, but if a Japanese character in a cartoon has big teeth it is racially offensive.

Completely different.
People aren't using white Britons' bad teeth to dehumanize them and show their supposed racial inferiority to us white Americans. White Britons haven't spent history struggling with discrimination based on race.

Makes sense. Thank you.

That's why it's not as funny as Bart vs. Australia.

The Simpsons is owned by Fox, which is a tv network which is far right politically.
I like the Simpsons however I am bright enough to know that a great deal of the content in the Simpsons,
in the same way a great deal of content from most media products, are designed to seduce us into
taking on the stereotypes for what ever reason... even in an attempt to be funny.

The Simpsons does make most things funny and I do find the content funny, but as mentioned before
you don't have to take on board the racism. A person can find a stereotype funny while at the same time
retaining their own anti-racist perspective.

I am an anti-racist, as my mates all are. there are people who i know who will include in their banter
personal remarks which from the outside would be considered racist but are done in a friendly gesture
as friendly banter among friends... If that makes sense.

Like i say, I am really anti-racist. But i think that some of British Humour can be like that, meant to be taken
with a pinch of salt, and never done to really cause offence.

The problem with tv programs, is that when making such products you don't know how the audience are going to react.
Or perhaps some of the makers do know how people are going to react, and they will do it intentionally in order
to incite people to develop certain views.

Britain hasn't been occupied, British people have not been enslaved, Britain hasn't been demonized by American war propaganda - rather the opposite: Britain has done all those things to other people. Caricature is meant to take the mickey out of people - but it requires the people caricatured to be piss-proud first. Otherwise it's just insulting, reminding of a history of dehumanization or simple kicking people who fell they're already down.
I've lived in the UK for a while. I didn't have the feeling the national feeling was one of indignation, of being wronged by history, or of having their history disrupted by some superior military power -

I hate to say this but sometimes I wish I didn't live in a country that used to think they were so superior to other races. It makes me feel ashamed.

I've been educating myself on racism lately and the videos I watched on YouTube were shocking, the harmful racial stereotypes they used against black people in old cartoons. I know some controversies these days are a bit over the top, like taking Apu out of the Simpsons, but I'm talking about the way TV used to actually stereotype black people in an offensive, exaggerated way, like having a black person dressed as a slave eating a watermelon and being dumb...now THAT'S awfully racist.

Setting aside the visits by the Romans, Celts, Saxons, Angles, Danes, Normans, etc. who invaded and occupied...


"Slavery in Great Britain existed prior to the Roman occupation and until the 12th century, when chattel slavery disappeared, at least for a time, following the Norman Conquest." (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_British_Isles)

There is also the question of how closely "serfdom" (which continued well after this time) came to "slavery" as well: https://legalhistorymiscellany.com/2019/08/15/how-to-tell-a-serf-from-a-slave-in-medieval-england/

With the first 2 statements shown to be so inaccurate, no doubt the rest of the post followed the same pattern...

The Wurzers sound like they’re from southern Missouri.....but not the Ozarks.

Some probably are, as are some stereotypes about other countries. I think context is important here. To me, The Simpsons seems to make fun of everything and everyone, the main target being the ideal (?) middle class American family, so the series making fun of stereotypes about characters from other countries isn't as big of a deal as it would be if it was done in some non-comedy show.