I found it interesting in our discussion on Monday how the British classify drama into so many distinct categories. But even more so, I found it interesting how most of those categories did not seem to translate to US audiences, yet escapism, and more specifically The Avengers, did find popularity. So I decided to do some digging on both escapism and The Avengers to simply try to find out why the genre works so well in the US.
While there seemingly is not a definitive reason why escapism works well on US television, I think the answer may lie in the advertising based structure of American television. The ads lead to programming that seeks to bring in higher ratings, which often means more entertainment programs, which in turn has resulted in a large number of escapist shows. On the other hand, in the UK – as we well know – the format encourages more educational and informational programming without the revenues from ad dollars. Thus, escapist programs are less common perhaps? This 2010 article from The Telegraph that I found seems to touch on this briefly, calling out funding as a reason that British shows tend to lean away from more “risky” and high budget escapist programs. The article focused on NBC’s The Event, but I think it raises some interesting points about disparities between British and American programs.
I also looked at The Avengers to see how it did in the US and what the general thoughts on it were. I found it interesting to see that the show was described as “very violent” for American television. (The opinion comes from an interview with the series stunt coordinator, Ray Austin, via Wikipedia. So of course, it has to be taken with a grain of salt being from Wikipedia, but there is a footnote on the claim.) Specifically, Austin said that The Avengers was initially put on the late night block at 11:30pm because of the perceived violence. It then gradually moved up to 10pm and then eventually to 7:30pm. Nevertheless, I thought it interesting that a British show during the 1960s was considered too violent for American television, while today the British seem to think American shows display too much violence. The Wikipedia article also talks about how particular episodes were censored and the early Avengers series weren’t aired until the 1990s. It is funny how perceptions of some television series have changed over the years between the US and UK.
I’m not sure how correct I am in saying this, but from what I found it looked like escapism programs increased in the US during the 1970s with shows like All in the Family and Happy Days. That also coincided with The Avengers moving up into primetime. But the bottom line I took from this merely an interesting look at how escapism has seemed to be popular in the US and grown while it seems to remain relatively rare in UK programming.
When you think of the 1970s, particularly the shows that you cited, I think it’s easy to see how escapist entertainment like “The Avengers” would play really well in America. In a post-Vietnam era, American popular culture was looking for an optimistic break. “The Avengers,” too, seems to play on ideas of the “Swinging London” of the 1960s, a certain nostalgia for the past and the popularity of “James Bond.” And while I do think that escapist television has stuck around in America, and that more risky material often finds a better home in Britain, I think there are clear examples of both types of programming in both countries, and their popularity often depends on certain historical and cultural contexts. For every “Big Bang Theory” or “New Girl” (if you want to call those escapist, in a way), we have “The Walking Dead” or “Mad Men.” And for every “Luther” the Brits have, they also have “Mrs. Brown’s Boys.” In a still very post-9/11 world, it seems like we see both a lot of antiheroes and a lot of escapist buffoonery on television, both American and British. Advertising probably has a lot to do with where you find these types of programming on TV (i.e. the “darker” stuff can be on terestrials in the UK while it’s mainly relegated to cable here), but I think we have plenty of darker programming of our own, and the Brits have some escapism as well.