Grayson Perry's Big American Road Trip

Grayson Perry, a British citizen, takes a quick cross country look at the USA. He covers all economic and social demographics (in a rather microscopic way) but he brings his view of America to the surface with each encounter.

What I found uplifting in this 3 episode series was his outsiders view of the US today and his comparison to his country and the world in general.

My take away on his message is that we are all in the same boat and we had better choose a wise captain.

Both thought-provoking and entertaining. Grayson Perry likes to laugh a lot and I laughed a lot along with him.

I suspect you need to share his analysis in order to really appreciate this, but he does such a good job of listening without blatant prejudice that this deserves to be seen even by those who will likely disagree with him.

Another reviewer mentions selective editing, and I guess you can never edit impartially, but I do think there's a decent amount of balance here. Still, the fact that the participants of the Martha's Vineyard dinner party are the people who come across as most deluded, probably does say something about bias.

I've only ever seen Grayson Perry as that irritating left wing transvestite on Have I Got News for You. Turns out this probably says more about me and my assumptions than it ever will about Mr.Perry. This is a well thought-out, well executed ( if a little uncomfortable in places) view of the socio-political state of the US. It does not criticise or make fun of anyone and Grayson comes across as genuinely inquiring and interested rather than patronising, as others often do when they try to do this kind of program.

I will admit to some surprise how well he seems to have been accepted in the US given he is clearly the text book definition of an eccentric Brit questioning a fairly fundamental part of American life. Again maybe that says more about my assumptions than it does about the people in this show.

I hope he does many more of this kind of show, he does an excellent job.

I worked for a pro-vaccine organization on communications issues a coupled of years back.

That is why I found the Wisconsin section more than a bit strange and inaccurate, and which makes me think that responses and vignettes in Perry's travelogue on this and other subjects he covers have been edited to reflect his onw incorrect prejudices instead of being at least balanced anecdotes.

Why do I say this? Because the social science, and I dealt directly with it, shows that there is only a very small correlation with political beliefs and anti-vax nuttery, and if anything, Pew surveys and Yale cultural cognition studies have found the US left is over represented among those holding whacked out anti vax views. And let's not forget this is a British infection that built this craziness. It was a British doctor, Andrew Wakefield, trained and practicing in Britain, and published by the top British medical journal, The Lancet (despite Lancet having had indications the research was bad before they published) that spread the major anti-vax quackery to the US, Canada and Australia. In the end with Perry's travelogue we get the worst of British travel lit that has been evident for centuries -- a condescension and inaccuracy, that tells us more about the observer and nothing interesting or really valid about the subject.