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"This article is absolutely dreadful!"
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"(contestant name), I thought it was horrendous."
—Simon Cowell, many times
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"I have a name for people who like to hurt people's feelings: It's called Simon."
—Ellen DeGeneres
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"Anne Robinson, Simon Cowell, and now me... proving once again that the British are a bunch of [expletive deleted]."
—Jimmy Carr, on the trailer for the US version of Distraction
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We can blame Simon Cowell for this. After his success on American Idol, just about every American Reality Show has seen fit to cast a British guy as the snarky, ultra-critical judge.
The Mean Brit will bluntly tell mothers their kid sucks and make two-year-olds cry if their talent isn't good enough for him. The flip side of this is that if he does compliment you, it means you must be really good, and he's usually willing to stake his reputation on anyone who measures up. The other good quality some of them possess is that those who fall short of his standards but need help (or previously impressed him but have lost their way) can expect constructive criticism rather than just barbs. That's in the best case, however; in the worst case, they can just come across as a bully with a media platform and a fortune picking on people who can't fight back.
Expect him to appear on any show that has an American Title. Call it subtle (or not-so-subtle) nationalism, but note that these people are seen as nasty at home too. Another possible explanation is that several of these reality shows originated in Britain, such as American Idol (from Pop Idol), Dancing With the Stars (from Strictly Come Dancing), and America's Got Talent, which was based on an unaired British pilot which would eventually become Britain's Got Talent.
Compare and Contrast Evil Brit.
Real Life Examples[]
Reality TV[]
- As mentioned, Cowell on American Idol and Britain's Got Talent. He's known for his "No... I won't send you home" approach, his cases of hitting his fellow judges' klaxons in Britain's Got Talent and his put-downs, usually to Hopeless Auditionees. Granted, generally he's simply telling the truth, but does so in such a blunt way that it could only be taken as offensive.
- Some American Idol viewers took to saying "Paula will give you a pass if you're nice, Randy will give you a pass if you're black, but Simon will only give you a pass if you can actually sing."
- Piers Morgan, also known as Piers Moron, on America's Got Talent.
- For extra fun, Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell are judges on Britain' s Got Talent and often seem to compete to see who can be the most cruel to the contestants (though Piers will often deliberately go against what Simon said, and praise an act Simon hated, presumably to irritate him, since plenty of these acts really are awful). Admittedly he's far less nasty on Britain's Got Talent than its American counterpart, but he's still capable of some mean put-downs.
- Australian Idol's answer to Simon Cowell was Ian "Dicko" Dickson.
- Germany has Dieter Bohlen, who manages to cause the majority of all complaints filed with the broadcasting commision.
- Peter Jones on American Inventor.
- Len Goodman on Dancing With the Stars isn't really mean, but he is much more demanding and less likely to hand out fuzzy, feel-good comments like "I loved your energy!" or "You are a smoldering sex goddess!" than either Carrie Ann or Bruno, and more likely to base his comments on the actual dance. Like Simon, if Len says it was good, it was very good, and his criticisms virtually always relate to something the dancer needs to work on. On the other hand, if a performance was genuinely bad he won't pull his punches, as during the second season when he told Master P essentially 'You don't care, you aren't trying, you don't belong here, it's time for you to go home.' in the third week.
- Toby Young on Top Chef. He started out as this trope in trumps, his comments about the contestants' food being incredibly snarky and including comparisons to WMDs and cat food. He admitted in his blog on Bravo that he had no idea what the show was about when he accepted the job, and assumed that what the producers were hiring him for was to be the Mean Brit. Once he realized that he was expected to actually critique the food, not just criticize it, he got a bit better. But not enough better to get the producers to keep him on for another season, though.
- "Nasty" Nigel Lythgoe (who is bringing his show to the UK) held the title before Simon Cowell.
- Red Symons, the main judge on the Red Faces segment (a segment similar in format to The Gong Show) of Hey Hey It's Saturday.
- Gordon Ramsay acts this way in his shows Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, although it is arguable that the show's producers gave him directions to do so. At times his temper becomes too much to handle that it pushes buttons and some contestants will once in a while lose control and lash back at him. On the other hand, any aspiring chef who makes it through his tutelage must have truly worked hard and honed their skills, as well as when praise and enthusiasm is due, Ramsay will give it to the deserving.
- He tends to keep his temper relative to his expectations: screw-ups by professionals in the culinary - restauranter, chef, waiter, etc.(who should know better) - will get the full brunt of his wrath, while non-professionals (like those who appear on The F Word) are treated much more patiently by Ramsay.
Game Show Examples[]
- Anne Robinson on The Weakest Link.
- Jimmy Carr on Distraction. Some of his insults are just about as X-rated as his stand-up show.
- Steve Valentine on Estate of Panic.
Other Real-Life Examples[]
- Video game critic Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of Zero Punctuation.
- Yahtzee's fellow Escapist contributor Jim Sterling, of Jimquisition.
Fictional Examples[]
Anime and Manga[]
- The Anthropomorphic Personification of England in Axis Powers Hetalia is cynical, bad-tempered, and has a sharp tongue, but he does occasionally show a softer side.
Film - Live Action[]
- Simon Cowell as himself in the rap battle scene in Scary Movie 3.
Live Action TV[]
- Begley in Neurotically Yours is British. He's also very mean, but so is pretty much everyone else.
- David Mitchell's "incredibly posh and aristrocratic" character in That Mitchell and Webb Look. He takes a number of different jobs like waiter, clothes store clerk, or vicar. He always gets contrasted to "that friendly australian girl" who used to work in his place.
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Waiter: "I saw you in here last week. I saw you drinking your soup. I saw you blowing and slurping and dunking your bread. We were watching you on the monitors in the kitchen, and we all thought you were a dick!" |
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- The Psych episode "American Duos" parodies American Idol, with Tim Curry playing the Simon Cowell role.
Video Games[]
- Mass Effect 2 gives us Zaeed Massani: Bounty Hunter, Sociopathic Hero and borderline Psycho for Hire:
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Zaeed: "Walk it off, Commander. A little poison never hurt anyone." |
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- Shaun Hastings in Assassin's Creed II, especially to Desmond.
Western Animation[]
- The Simpsons got Simon Cowell to play a parody of himself as a staff member at an exclusive preschool in which Marge was trying to enroll Maggie. At the end of the episode, Simon's snark finally pushes Homer to violence...and he proceeds to criticize Homer's beating.
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"Simon": Ooh, again with the chin. I have a nose, you know. (punch sound, thud) |
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- He also criticises the show's credits and makes special note of how unoriginal his own appearance is.
- There's also a Simpsons short where he plays as a really hopeless contestant. An interesting role reversal, to be sure.
- Then Simon plays as himself in another episode, in which Moe Syzlak winds up as an American Idol judge after becoming a Jerkass. Simon convinces Moe that being the Mean Brit is a lonely life—which is just a ploy to make Moe look weak and eliminate him as a potential threat for Simon's job.