Why are so many film villains British?

 In his book Occidentalism Edward Said notes that The Orient maps onto the conquered territory of the various Western Empires. So that an Oriental for an American is East Asian, for a British they are Indian and for a French they are African. Occidentalism is the way that Western Empires project what they don't like onto the conquered and reserve the good for themselves. This is essentially the Jewish analysis of the Nazis that in their belief that they were superior they projected all the inferior qualities onto the Jews. This blog would note of course that the Jews are not immune from this and they do the same to the Gentiles. This Yin-Yang (or rather lack of awareness of the Yin-Yang) is universal.

Key features of this process occur in gender. Oriental men are seen as weak and unthreatening to the Imperial rulers, and the women loose and alluring.

So as the US Empire comes into ascendency it has an increasingly fraught relationship with the Empire that gave birth to it namely the British Empire. North America was until recently just another British colony, and there was a time in Britain where an American was seen as Oriental: unintelligent, unrefined preferring base animal instincts, weak men, attractive dumb women.   

After independence things slowly began to change. In 1942 Churchill finally let in the US and UK has been a country under occupation ever since. Escaping Europe through Brexit is just out of the frying pan: the US Empire is still in occupation across the whole of Europe.

So what effect on popular culture. Initially the British film star carried his/her weight. There was respect. But gradually the crass, fast talking, wise guy American that always existed to some extent in the shadow of the aloof superior English gave way and the American Film Star established them self as a genuine force to contend with and eventually out smart the conventional, old fashioned repressed English. While the British sit for afternoon tea the Americans ride in and take the glory.

So Hollywood has played a critical role in rewriting history. Many iconic scenes from history and especially WW2 are now rewritten with the starring roles played by Americans and the British simply playing support roles. A relationship that represents the new Non-Churchill understanding of WW2 that really it was the American War and the British were just a support role (that I myself subscribe to).

So what of the bad guys? Who gets evil projected onto them? Well for the US it is going to be their closest and dearest rival. When everything is stripped away, Empires are Good and the conquered are Bad. Its the oldest story in history. Its also the weirdest part of the human psyche that the real meaning of "evil" is "the conquered". If it was otherwise then why is there no way that evil can win? By definition evil will lose, and that is because evil IS loss. In Imperial thinking anyway.

So its a natural feature of Empire that the Imperial masters are fundamentally motivated by good, and their subjects--especially their chief conquered realm--are motivated by evil or at least dishonestly and malice.

And so what looks like fun in Hollywood just represents age old Imperial processes. And the British have been suckered into accepting it. Ironically the one country that has never had an independence day namely Britain is scheduled one very soon so we can start writing some stories where we are good guys again.