Misused: The Mean Brit

To-do list:

• Sort on-page examples for The Mean Brit between British Stuffiness and Evil Brit if they fit, or remove them if they don't
• Turn The Mean Brit into a disambiguation page between British Stuffiness and Evil Brit after on-page examples are moved/removed
• Sort wicks for The Mean Brit between British Stuffiness and Evil Brit if they fit, or remove them if they don't

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 3rd 2022 at 7:38:57 AM

Paging ~Adept and ~The Mayor Of Simpleton as requested.

Thanks for pinging me Gaston.

I asked to be pinged because I wanted to mention the now-deleted Tropes Needing TRS entry:

• Mean Brit: Does this refer to any British character with a bad attitude, or specifically expies of mean British reality show judges like Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan? If it's the former, then it might be redundant with Evil Brit. Discussion here.

Per this, the first option might be redundant with Evil Brit.

Don't know what other option to take.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Aug 27th 2022 at 6:04:31 AM

Personally, at the moment I'm leaning toward redefining to fit the name if it's not redundant with British Stuffiness, and merging it with British Stuffiness if that would make it redundant, and moving expies to No Celebrities Were Harmed regardless of what we do with other examples. Merging with British Stuffiness (again, if it's determined to be redundant) would probably mean disambiguating The Mean Brit after that's done.

Edit: After looking at British Stuffiness's description, I don't think redefining The Mean Brit to be about mean Brits in general would be redundant because that trope is about Brits being unemotional instead of mean, but correct me if I'm wrong about that.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 27th 2022 at 5:14:32 AM

I said this in the Trope Talk thread: I think this is the intersection of two separate concepts:

• A Reality TV trope about the meanest judge on the judging panel (Nigel Lythgoe, Paul Hollywood, Janice Dickinson, Gordon Ramsay). This is a concept that goes beyond Cowell and being British so I don't think it's No Celebrities Were Harmed.
• A mean/snobby British person, Sister Trope to Evil Brit. (Is this British Stuffiness?)

I think the first one should be at least Yardable; for now maybe we can redirect to British Stuffiness or disambig with that and Evil Brit.

Edited by Synchronicity on Aug 27th 2022 at 5:19:37 AM

Would Caustic Critic critic already cover the "meanest judge" part of this trope? The description for it does mention "The Mean Brit is a Caustic Critic who gives immediate feedback in a competition setting".

Well, I suppose the "cold, snobby and uptight" aspects of British Stuffiness can be considered Jerkass-ish, and therefore mean. The description of that page even describes the "stuffy Brit" being portrayed as a Jerkass, especially if they're competing against an American suitor in a Love Triangle.

Re-checking the "British National Stereotype" misuses we have from the wick check, most of the characters are described as dour, surly, cold, grumpy, haughty, passive-aggressive, etc., so I think they can be easily folded to British Stuffiness.

Fair enough, though I wonder if they can actually be split, since a contest judge and a media critic have different functions.

Edited by Adept on Aug 28th 2022 at 12:36:25 AM

Edited by RandomTroper123 on Mar 3rd 2023 at 8:31:25 AM

In that case, I'm in favor of merging with British Stuffiness (and disambiguating the current name between that trope and Evil Brit) and Yarding the Reality TV trope.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 28th 2022 at 3:04:42 AM

I'm not sure if merging with British Stuffiness is the best call. There's a big difference between "serious and uptight British person" who may come across as a dick, and "British person who prides in being a complete jackass", which is what The Mean Brit is supposed to be about. It even says in British Stuffiness's description that The Mean Brit is more snarky and abrasive than British Stuffiness is.

Yeah, there's a difference to me between "uptight calmness and understatements" and "this Brit's an arse". I think we can disambiguate between Stuffiness and Evil and The Only Mean Judge Is British and/or examples of British meanness that aren't stuffy or evil can be yarded.

IDK, I feel like the "Mean Judge" concept goes beyond the British types and could also be broadened.

I think the Mean Judge has too much overlap with Caustic Critic as far as characters whose role is to assess quality and are harsh about failure to meet their standards.

I think that The Mean Brit could be used to describe British people in general who are intentionally being dickish, ala French Jerk as mentioned above. I don't see why it necessarily has to be about judges in particular.

This is a weird one. As I said in the trope talk thread, I know exactly what this trope is trying to describe and the trend in the 2000s of mean British judges has been noted outside the site

but given the few correct uses and the existence of Caustic Critic, I think we can just add to Caustic Critic's description that in American media, it's not uncommon for the critic/judge to be British due to something related to Evil Brit and disambig the page between Evil Brit, Caustic Critic, and maybe British Stuffiness

Snarky and stuffy are not mutually exclusive though, especially if they're the Gentleman Snarker type. "Serious and uptight" can also cover a pretty broad variation of personalities, ranging from "aloof and cold" to "grumpy and short-tempered". So if we want to keep this a separate National Stereotype from British Stuffiness, I'm not sure what sort of character would be included that isn't already covered by the other trope.

If there are enough examples to fit the definition, we could rename this to something like "Token Mean British Judge" or "Obligatory Mean British Judge".

Was a bit confused. I take "merge" the definition and example list, and "disambiguate" the name.

I tweaked the crowner entry a bit, so hopefully it's clearer now.

can the merge option be separate from the disambig option? there was some dissent about that in particular

Is the dissent about disambiguation as a whole, or just what goes on it? If Evil Brit isn't related enough, Caustic Critic can go on it in lieu of a specific mean reality TV judge trope (which I lowkey want to try and make now...)

Vicious Reality Show Judge sounds like the intended trope. Separate from the Caustic Critic because the intent from the show perspective is to either

• If there's multiple judges, they're the harshest one. They say what they other two used Weasel Words to agree with. It's a perfect score when they're impressed.
• If they're the only judge, the point is to contrast between their attitude at the start of the episode with the end of the episode. It shows how the "contestant" improved.

Caustic Critic is more two-dimensional and doesn't demonstrate that the person is a high-quality professional within the field (which I just realized was another detail that I didn't mention). I'm not saying it can't be super/sub, just that there's a significant distinction in execution.

Edited by crazysamaritan on Aug 31st 2022 at 3:38:38 PM

OK, now I really wanna make it. Mind if I filch some of the ideas in that post for a TLP, ~Tropers/crazysamaritan ?

Go right ahead.