Sometimes a moment comes along that crystallises everything you’ve ever suspected about a cultural divide — and this week, that moment arrived in the form of Anne Hathaway belting out an Arsenal chant with all the sincerity of a Broadway overture.
There she was: animated, committed, pausing only to declare Declan Rice the “man of the game” before throwing herself back into song like she was auditioning for Les Misérables: Emirates Edition. It was excruciating, it was baffling, it was—well, very American.
Hathaway’s painfully earnest performance was just the latest example of the irreconcilable gulf between Britain and the United States. Yes, it’s easy to scoff at Anne. She’s always been a bit of a theatre kid made good — a bit too enthusiastic, a bit too polished. But that’s not the point. The point is: she posted it. Willingly. Without a trace of irony or shame. And in that moment, a thousand Brits felt their spines involuntarily recoil.
It’s not just her. Take Meghan Markle’s new podcast, Confessions of a Female Founder, where she chats with Bumble boss Whitney Wolfe Herd. The conversation is drenched in corporate Californian affirmations. Wolfe Herd says things like “your story is just you,” and Markle responds with “I think that’s beautiful.” You half expect them to break into tears over a kale smoothie.
They “appreciate” each other. They’re “proud” of one another. It’s all so desperately earnest, as though mutual admiration and personal branding were national currencies.
This syrupy sincerity — this deep, unwavering belief that feelings must be expressed loudly and without irony — is alien to us. It’s not that Brits lack emotion, we just prefer ours wrapped in layers of sarcasm, awkward humour, and the occasional passive-aggressive grunt. Anything else feels like showing off.
And then there’s the language. Americanisms have been seeping into our vocabulary for years, like a slow-moving cultural oil spill. “I hear you.” “You’re good.” “Let’s touch base.” These phrases are now as common as “Cheers, mate” in some offices, and every time one escapes our lips, a little part of us dies inside.
We’ve gone from ordering food with a polite “I’ll have…” to declaring “I’m gonna do the salad,” as though it were a military operation. It’s not just the grammar that offends—it’s the performative assertiveness of it all.
Even American food feels like an affront. Chocolate that tastes like chalk. Chicken inflated to cartoonish proportions. “Snacks” that contain more chemicals than a GCSE science lab. When you ask what the Special Relationship has given us lately, and the answer is Anne Hathaway singing football chants and mutant poultry, it’s tempting to suggest we’ve given more than we’ve got.
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And what of the so-called diplomatic benefits? JD Vance recently described the UK as “a random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 years,” which will come as news to anyone with a vague memory of Iraq or Afghanistan. Meanwhile, despite Keir Starmer’s best efforts at transatlantic flattery, Britain has secured trade terms barely better than those granted to Afghanistan. With friends like these…
Of course, it’s not all bad. Americans are friendlier. Spend five minutes in a Texan café and you’ll have more conversations than in a year on the Jubilee line. They’re open, often kind, and driven in ways we secretly admire — even if their corporate lingo makes our skin itch.
But the truth is, we’re two nations divided by a common language, and by a profound difference in emotional expression. Anne Hathaway’s Arsenal aria was a reminder that we may never fully understand each other — and maybe that’s okay.
Perhaps, as Trump pushes further into isolationism and our own identity crisis continues, now is as good a time as any to reassess the “Special Relationship.” Let it drift into amicable estrangement. Let the Americans keep their podcasts, their kale, and their singing actresses. We’ll stick to self-deprecation, sarcasm, and knowing precisely when to say sorry — even when it’s someone else’s fault.
