Special relationships: romance, race, and the friendly invasion in film and television, 1941–1996

Edwards, S ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1433-8243 (2020) Special relationships: romance, race, and the friendly invasion in film and television, 1941–1996. Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 18 (3). pp. 353-381. ISSN 1754-1018

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Abstract

The story of the wartime ‘friendly invasion’ by American soldiers has been a staple of British popular culture since at least the end of the Second World War. Transatlantic love affairs and sexual encounters between Americans and Britons during this invasion were central to the origins—and lived experience—of the ‘special relationship’. This article assesses how such events and episodes have been re-imagined in post-war popular culture. By examining various films, novels and television series from the 1940s to the 1990s, it explores how cultural representations of the ‘friendly invasion’—and especially of Anglo-American romance—have played an important role in mediating the discourses, disputes and shifting realities of contemporary Anglo-American relations. In doing so, the article contributes to on-going work interrogating anew the cultural history of the special relationship.