How Hugh Grant shaped perceptions of the British
I am often reminded that the British, much like luggage, are divided into two neat categories when they go abroad. The first of these is the loud-mouthed, pink-necked beer-drinker made famous by Oasis and football hooliganism; the second is the slightly bumbling, apologetic and frightfully posh pretty boy with high cheekbones and floppy hair.
Both were made in the 1990s, but the latter has proven to be the most enduring. When we’re not pissing on national monuments, getting sunburnt on the beach or chanting “two world wars and one world cup” to the tune of ‘The Camptown Races’, we’re apparently behaving like the English gentlemen of old. So who do we have to thank for this deeply optimistic view of the British national character? Enter Hugh Grant (not to be confused with the huge grant I’m currently paying back to Student Finance).
The origin of the Hugh Grantian mode (yes, I did just make up that adjective) lies with the films of Richard Curtis. In the 1990s, Grant established himself as the go-to guy for romantic comedies starring posh, slightly awkward, but always lovable Englishmen with amorous intentions. It was a role that he would return to time and time again, and it made him a British sex symbol. Even Madonna was rumoured to have pestered the actor for a date for months before being turned down.
It all began with Four Weddings and A Funeral. The Curtis-directed picture premiered in 1994 and became the blueprint for a new wave of British romantic comedies. Richard Curtis originally hated the idea of having someone like Grant play Charles. The character had been crafted in his own image, and he didn’t want the audience to think that he might feasibly get the girl. At once deceptively self-deprecating and powerfully charismatic, Grant’s Charles is a character stuck between the old world and the new. Though he is clearly well educated and of aristocratic stock (they don’t teach you to quote Shakespeare at state school, trust me), he also simmers with the confidence of the Brit-pop era. He’s somewhere between Lawrence Olivier, Rupert Brooke and Damon Albarn: elegant and well-meaning but also capable of being smutty and erotic. Most importantly, however, he is unaware of how alluring he is.
The same is true of William Thacker in 1999’s Notting Hill, in which Grant plays a penniless bookstore owner who somehow manages to bag a Hollywood actress. We root for Grant because he is the underdog. Of course, he can’t really be the underdog, because he’s able to run a business in central(ish) London without ever making a single sale. Like Bridget Jones, William and Charles are failures born into a society that expects excellence. Because they don’t adhere to the world they have inherited, they’re able to cut through Britain’s icy exterior and showcase a non-conformity traditionally associated with The Beatles, The Sex Pistols and the Young British Artists. Grant’s Bridget Jones character, the ever-so-sleazy Daniel Cleaver, takes this one step further.
Though he admits that he “fucking love[s] Keats” and quotes him unprovoked, Daniel is also happy to brawl on the street and sleep around as if it’s going out of fashion. He is, in the sense, a fine example of the ‘New Lad’ of the 1990s. He’s probably read half of Germaine Greer’s Female Eunuch but also likes boozing with his friends and kicking a football around.
Grant’s characters are an encapsulation of a whole century of Britishness. They paint a picture of Britain as being full of middle-class, blue-eyed dreamboats, who, though unable to express their emotions, are all the more charming for it. Blimey, if only they knew the truth.
