[DanBC]

There's lots of really lousy things happening in the UK. It doesn't seem to matter which party is in government - some of the stuff New Labour was doing was breath-takingly awful.

Having said that: This YouTube clip of Will Ferrel is just disturbing. How many of the audience get the irony? How many are oblivious to it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQzkMoEGDGE

[quesera]

Context is everything.

To American audiences, that's obviously satire. Standard fare for the actor and the host. It's definitely, deliberately, over the top and uncomfortable in a Sascha Baron-Cohen kind of way, but we know when we are making fun of ourselves. The combination of exceptionalism with schadenfreude is always ugly, and gross exaggerations of both, well, satire.

Outside of the US, where the players aren't as well known...maybe it's not clear satire. Where folks are quick to judge (often rightfully) American bluster...yeah, it makes him and the studio audience sound like colossal jerks, and people might add it to their mental list of examples proving that Americans suck.

But what does that have to do with the UK? :)

[wavefunction]

Let me put your poor benighted heart to rest and let you know that 100% of the crowd is in on the joke. Anytime someone gets up and starts shouting "USA!" in American media, it's a joke. Never in my decades on this planet have I ever seen any American chant "USA" in any venue that mattered (sporting events do not matter.)

[thisiswrong]

Very disturbing indeed. I guess George Orwell was right all along.

YouTube clip mirror for non US viewers:

http://teamcoco.com/video/will-ferrell-hates-russian-gymnast...

[knapp]

That Ferrel clip is no more or less disturbing than any featuring Al Murray doing The Pub Landlord. How many of his audience get that it's all an ironic joke?

[DanBC]

True. Alf Garnet is another example of very uncomfortable viewing.