Party, Not In The USA

There are many aspects of American culture which the British have enthusiastically tried to take on board, but with disappointing results. One example would be trick-or-treating; perfectly enjoyable in small town US suburbia, when brought back to Britain it met the slight hitch of the lack of local neighbourhood communities. It's almost commonplace for a staunchly patriotic middle-aged couple to refuse to give out sweets on Hallowe'en, whilst muttering about the Americanisation of modern society, and the fact that we're all going to hell on a hand-cart, but the same lack of participation in the USA could, if we rely on old children's films as our guide to their culture, result in social exile. (You know the type of film. It's Hallowe'en, and everybody is warned to stay away from the local witch, or somebody whose name is prefixed by Old Man, who inevitably lives on the corner, and whose house is akin to the gothic castle from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. They invariably turn out to be a lonely recluse whose spouse has died.)
Another example is that staple of American television, the side-salad that is the mid-season break. This is a winner with series in the US, mainly because they're ridiculously long and you can't go for 25 episodes without a huge climax of some sort. When translated to British television, however, the format suffers due to most series here having a maximum of about 13 episodes. Steven Moffat, the current head-writer for Doctor Who, adopted a mid-season break for the current series and its predecessor. It received mixed views, and although there were some who praised it, many (including myself) thought that it gave the characters only 7 episodes to build up a story arc and then have a momentous cliffhanger, resulting in one particularly bizarre point where the characters were planning a divorce WITHOUT TELLING EACH OTHER WHY THEY'D BROKEN UP. In the space of one minute, the characters had the brilliant idea of enquiring about this, and promptly got back together again.
But the one feature of US culture that I think fits least well into the mould of the UK is the end of year prom. Despite being held in July, the school is gripped with a feverish obsession with Kings, Queens, and bad disco tunes. The more optimistic of students are already getting prom dates, which is essentially gambling that there will be no other romantic action in your life for the rest of the school year. Standing in a classroom, you can hear excited conversation about whether it's more tasteful to arrive in a limo or to simply materialise in a whirlwind of glitter. The cynics are gleefully polishing their critique, and secretly enjoying that they get the opportunity to lambaste the materialistic nature of today's youth, and how modern society is, like, so fake?
All in all it makes for a jolly time. But I have reservations as to whether the prom really suits our culture. Although pretty much all American high-school movies are ridiculously exaggerated, you still get the impression, both from the media and the anecdotes of the internet, that the US high-school has a more clear-cut sense of hierarchy than we do here in Britain. There are those who are clearly popular, and those who are clearly not. When the Inbetweeners was recently adapted for American audiences, there was a lot more focus on how confusing it was that they didn't fit in either extreme, whereas the British version seemed to take it for granted that being between cool and uncool was a recognised social clique, not a lack of such. It's this sense of popularity that lends itself so well to the prom spirit, with the king and the queen, and it's certainly helped by the crucial facet of US culture which is a tendency to be more accepting of all things saccharine.
But to hold a prom in Britain? It's pretty much universally accepted that as a nation we are inherently cynical and sardonic - when faced with sickly sweet scenarios we are more inclined to be dubious than entranced. To add to this, from what I see in my school, the lines between popular and unpopular and blurry. There are numerous factions and subfactions and intermingling of the two. Popularity is measured in shades of grey, rather than existing as black and white. I am biased, of course, because I am within the school - an outsider may have the opinion that the hierarchy here is as obvious as it was in 17th Century aristocracy.
But the cynicism is rather tarnishing the vision of the perfect prom, for some. There are more tales of people planning to go in fancy dress than in suits, and 99% of all the suggestions I've heard for Prom King and Queen have been ironic. There is only one person I've heard of who is rumoured to want this coronation, and she's been quietly mocked for it for the last two weeks. She hasn't actually said that she wants to be the Prom Queen, and yet she's being ridiculed for being the type of person who might. Our cynicism is so strong it is surpassing apathy.
Come July, we will see. It could be a night full of suits and dresses, with excited chatter and polite applause for the pseudo-royals. But it's far more likely that we'll see a room full of pantomime horses and dinosaur costumes, cheering and wolf-whistling as the most testosterone-fuelled thug in the room climbs on to the stage reluctantly to be crowned Queen.