King of Queens - Something-something British guy
A clip from an old US sitcom triggered something in me and this article is the result
After a year, my sleep apnea disappeared when I was finally given medication and I now feel rested. This has led to an almost hyperactive fervour for life but one which has to be tempered with the realities of my existence - parenting young kiddies who wake up early etc. So I can’t itch that urge to go to an Indie club until 2am.
For a year it was so hard to motivate myself to do anything other than write. This especially included the tasks - like research - that would place me in a position to sit down and type. Now I’m bursting with ideas.
Some are a bit offbeat and have unusual triggers. Today I’m musing on how accents change the way publicans and staff deal with people of colour like myself when we order drinks. The idea came after I saw this clip on Instagram of a scene from the US sitcom King of Queens and slowly, but surely, became borderline obsessed with it.
Not because I find it offensive as the person who posted it on Instagram was hinting at by saying “you’ll never hear a joke like this today!” but because it’s actually a rare sighting of an exploration of racial bias and how, when you’re part of a diaspora, you’re supposed to act and sound a certain way.
Maybe this was by sheer chance because there’s a lot of King of Queens episodes, and I don’t think it really explored racism in this way elsewhere.
If you’re at work and can’t view the clip then what happens is the lead character (Kevin James’s dunderheaded Doug) goes into a Chinese takeaway and is greeted. Doug pauses awkwardly and says “You threw me with the British thing there”. The service industry worker, called Joe (played by actor Peter James Smith) replies. “I grew up in Hong Kong. I apologise if I’m not ethnic enough for you. Would you like me to Chink it up a little?” He then proceeds to act in a stereotypical way.
This article does accuse the show of tokenism, homophobia etc - but when it’s repeated on Channel 4, the station cuts Joe’s response so you just have Doug saying “you threw me with the British thing there”, which is far worse as it shows that the assumption should be just accepted.
Which is a mistake because what I love about this clip is Joe is the empowered character while Doug gets his comeuppance for expecting a stereotypical interaction. Yes the use of the word “chink” is coarse and the audience laughter (at Doug’s prejudice) is jarring, but I find it uplifting that this situation became inverted. That has never happened to me.
My accent has been said to be many things and has changed over the years. I grew up in Bedfordshire, moved to Leeds as a teenager and then came back to the London area with gaps in Hertfordshire and Kent. If you listen to this week’s Moon Under the Water podcast you can make your mind up yourself - some have said, embarrassingly, that I sound like Nick Clegg. It’s true though!
And if I throw you with the British thing, would you like me to XXXX it up a little?
I walk into the pub. There’s a stiffening of shoulders among the customers. There’s a pause that reveals the common confusion. They stare waiting for me to speak.
When I open my mouth, their limbs relax, conversation starts and life continues. They waited to hear how I talk and my accent has given them the answer they sought: “who is he?” I’m one of them. It’s ok. I’m a drinker. (But if I didn’t have a ‘British’ accent who would I’ve been?)
I then tailor my accent for them. In my head I quickly process if they would like me to be more London-y or more neutral southern. What would serve me best?
The weight of these interactions make me feel a fraud and I’ve started to lose a real sense of who I am. Maybe I’ve never had a true sense of self. Maybe I was born into such a fraudulent system that the real me left my body in 1978. This second self - the ‘authentic’ me - is probably stuck in the walls of the hospital.
In reality I bent my accent to fit in with other children. Apparently, at lower (primary) school I spoke with a slight Malay accent, mispronounced words like my Dad (fillum, instead of film) and got laughed at. A decade later in Yorkshire, I was called a Cockney, so I softened the estuary, only to be called posh at University when fillums like Lock, Stock and the Long Good Friday were popular.
Then I worked at a newspaper where you had to be a certain type of liberal posh to fit in. They were the last in a long line of white groups who pulled me towards whatever suited them best. But it also gave me my cloak of Britishness.
But this shield is penetrable and the weapon that’s wielded to pierce it is a simple sentence that’s been said in many pubs: “where you from?”. Because the answer can never simply be Bedfordshire, Leeds, London or the Guardian. Maybe my answer here should be like Joe’s - “Did I throw you with the British thing, would you like me to XXXX it up a little? Would you like some poppadums with that, sir?”
Worst of all, my voice enmeshes me in the class system - thanks, Nick Clegg. Maybe that’s my subconscious defence against a certain strain of liberal prejudice: the type that punches down and views people as thugs when they drop their aitches.
Either way it’s my voice. And many people have started to like it. So it’s about time I did.
This blog, my book and other writing has been nominated for multiple awards. Thank you for supporting all this work as it wouldn’t have got noticed without you!