BRIGA DON’T!
From whisky to claymores, woad to tartan, Scottish stereotypes are a Hollywood staple, as Sanjeev Kohli discovers in a new BBC show
SPORTING a bushy ginger beard, dungarees and a fist clenched in anger, Groundskeeper Willie shouts: ‘Damn Scots! They ruined Scotland!’ He slams his hands down on a desk, growling at Principal Skinner who recoils at the enraged gardener.
The Simpsons’ portrayal of an angry Scotsman makes for an interesting initiation into Scottish culture for outsiders.
It’s one of hundreds of ways the country, and the people who live here, have been introduced to the world via the silver screen.
And even home-grown programmes often indulge in a stereotype. Peter Capaldi’s first episode as Doctor Who sees him coming to terms with his new accent and heritage with the observation: ‘I probably blame the English.’
So just how has TV shaped perceptions of the Scots over the past 100 years? How do we come across to viewers from other nations?
And, as comedian Sanjeev Kohli puts it: ‘Which of our on-screen traits have a whiff of truth, and which deserve to be boiled up in a sheep’s stomach and fed to the Loch Ness monster?’
Kohli takes the matter to task in his new programme, ‘Wha’s Like Us?’ which will air on BBC Scotland on Hogmanay.
In the hour-long show he goes on a whistle-stop tour of Scotland, examining films of the last century in a bid to expose ‘the good, the bad, and the glorious’ of Scottish stereotypes.
To begin, we must travel back decades to some of the earliest depictions of the country on film.
In the 1953 action flick Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue, starring Richard Todd and produced by Walt Disney, we are immediately thrown into all things ‘Scotland’. Scenes of Highland cattle, pipers and swashbuckling men built like outhouses grace the screen.
Skip forward 42 years and the appeal of men exposing their knobbly knees was alive and kicking, with Liam Neeson smouldering in the 1995 adaptation of Rob Roy.
Like most ‘goodie vs baddie’ films, it’s almost impossible not to root for the underdogs. When it comes down to an honest Highlander fighting for his rights against corrupt aristocrats, who wouldn’t want the valiant Scots to prevail?
The year 1995 was a good one for movie fans hoping to see a romanticised, failed rebellion with a die-hard Scotsman at its heart.
The classic scene of Scots defiance in the face of oppression comes courtesy of a kilted Mel Gibson as William Wallace is condemned to public torture and beheading in Braveheart.
Even while being hanged, drawn and quartered, he refuses to submit to the English. The magistrate offers him one final chance to utter the word ‘mercy’ and be granted a quick death – but the hero instead shouts ‘freedom’ at the top of his lungs.
The film won five Oscars after its release but it wasn’t until Gibson screened it at Stirling Castle in September 1995 that he realised the impact it had had.
‘I didn’t know there were that many people in Scotland,’ he said in an interview shortly after. ‘It was like this moment people were waiting for in their DNA.’
And the nation has no shortage of braw Scots who have tugged at the world’s heart strings. Sam Heughan, who plays Highland warrior Jamie Fraser in the popular US series Outlander, has sent pulses racing and viewing figures soaring over the past few years.
The series, set mostly in 1743, is considered one of television’s most sexually-charged shows, replete with kilt-dropping moments and patriotic scenes of Scotland churning with the stirrings of Jacobite rebellion.
Such is the appeal of the ginger hunk, and the image of the heroic Scotsman that he projects to the world, that hordes of American tourists travel more than 3,000 miles to visit set locations.
It has become so popular that Outlander tours are now held in the Highlands, bosses at a sword shop in Edinburgh say sales of Outlander-style weapons have gone through the roof, and fans send biscuits to the actors on set.
The show has even been thanked for a tourist boom in Inverness – which now ranks above Montego Bay in Jamaica and Bologna in Italy in a list of the top 15 destinations for European travellers in 2017.
An equally irresistible stereotype is that of the angry Scotsman, who has the ability to blow his lid at the slightest inconvenience.
Shrek loses his temper in spectacular fashion at Donkey, intruders in his swamp and the band of soldiers who continually try – and fail – to murder him for a bounty.
In The Last King of Scotland, James McAvoy comes close to being shot for his fiery temper and is only saved when he shows off his Scotland shirt, which takes the fancy of the man about to pull the trigger.
And let’s not forget Groundskeeper Willie, who keeps the children of Springfield Elementary School on their toes with his choleric personality. But maybe he’s just misunderstood. Maybe he just really likes gardening.
Despite its small size, Scotland has no shortage when it comes to cliché. It even has a stereotypical drink.
Ask any foreigner what beverage characterises the country and most will deem whisky the top choice. And the apparent love for the water of life is mirrored in films over the decades.
From 50,000 cases of the stuff washing ashore in Whisky Galore, to a wee dram making an appearance in Bonnie Prince Charlie, The Great Escape and Small Faces, whisky is a key feature (and fuel!) in most Scottish tales.
As a result some of the most memorable scenes featuring Scots characters have involved a bevvy.
But no mention of Scottish stereotypes would be complete without acknowledging two of the most iconic – yet polar opposite – classics: Brigadoon and Trainspotting.
Where the former is a musical about a picturesque Highland village stuck two hundred years in the past, the latter shatters the cosy image of a tartan-wearing warrior and focuses on the darker side of the working-class community.
EWAN McGregor serves up one of the most famous scenes of Scottish film history in the starring role of heroin addict Mark Renton in the 1996 drama. He screams: ‘It’s s***e being Scottish. We’re the lowest of the low. The scum of the f ***** g earth. The most wretched, miserable, servile pathetic trash that was ever s**t into civilisation.’
Whether you agree with him or not, there’s little doubt that Renton’s frustration has become a quintessential representation of the oppressed working classes of the 1980s and 1990s.
Trainspotting was released just a year after Braveheart and both portrayals of Scotland were astounding box office hits – another indication of how audiences have embraced the hugely diverse Scottish stereotypes that Hollywood offers.
Scottish author and broadcaster Muriel Gray says of the never-ending cliché conundrum: ‘Everyone wants their culture and their country portrayed in a certain way – something to be proud of, something that makes you laugh, something recognisable – because it is a calling card for the world.’
The tangled contradictions that have appeared on screen over the past century have shaped perceptions of Scotland in ways that other nations can only dream of.
As Kohli puts it: ‘At least we have made an impression. At least there is a Scot in The Simpsons.’
Wha’s Like Us?, BBC Scotland, Saturday, December 31, 10pm.