as an American of Irish descent from the Northeast, i completely know what you're talking about ibis.
as far as the moon-eyed crushes go, pretty much anyone who's reasonably attractive and has any variety of accent from anywhere in the British Isles can get laid with it in the US. guaranteed.
i think it speaks to the general perception of people from the UK and Ireland (which very much seem to tend to get lumped together, outside of the weird perception of Irish/English hatred which ibis mentioned) as non-threatening outsiders, friendly and familiar enough to be safe but still having the appealing whiff of foreign-ness.
i think most young people in America tend to think of people in the UK as being sort of witty, urbane, perhaps a bit bookish and intellectual, and a bit more cool/sophisticated than the average bear. this sort of replaces the older stereotypes common in the US of the British as snooty, uptight, boring, and repressed, though that's still common enough to be recognizable as a common comedy trope.
basically, the new image of young Britain to America is somewhere between Hugh Grant, Ewan McGregor, and Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, whereas the old one is very much well-dressed, haughty Victorians in the drawing room talking about Shakespeare and looking down on someone whose shoes are a bit scuffed and fainting when someone makes an off-color remark.
as far as foreign policy goes, the UK is pretty much seen by most as America's closest ally and best friend in the whole entire world, sort of an oasis in a semi-hostile world, not as arrogant, decadent, pretentious, and insufferable as the French and the rest of Western Europe, not as alien as the more developed parts of Asia, and not as barbaric and underdeveloped as the rest of the world. |
