How does Edgar Wright parody typical American action film tropes through the emphasis of Britishness in Hot Fuzz?

Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz (2007) positions itself as an atypical film in terms of genre, with the film’s last third serving very much as a bricolage of action film tropes, even aping shots from other action films referenced within Hot Fuzz itself.
 
However, despite conforming to these very typical action film tropes, Hot Fuzz, as a comedy, very much subverts these, which is evident even from the images above, with Wright parodying the film Point Break (Bigelow, 1991). This is not the only example of this, however. Potentially the most obvious moment of a parodical view on American action tropes is when the protagonist of the film, Angel, comes into the town riding a white horse whilst also wearing a huge armament of firearms. This highly dramatic scene highly juxtaposed with the ensuing reaction shots of the older aged, middle-class population of the village along with the setting of the village itself, very much subverts the audience’s expectations as Wright is creating a complete disjunction between both tone and aesthetic. The film is playing off of the juxtaposition of the scene, it’s an action film injected with elements of Britishness “Hot Fuzz plays off the comic juxtapositions of genre and British location - a ‘big’ film in a ‘small’ location”  (Archer, 2015, p. 15).
This is further established throughout the scene with the village members not only playing as a comedic juxtaposition to Angel’s character, but also playing an active role, serving as the antagonists of the scenes by pulling out weapons themselves. The use of this further cements the juxtaposition and parodical nature of the film, which is evidenced through the shot of the old lady taking the pistols out of her bike. It could be argued, however, that Wright’s use of parody in the film is not just about deconstructing the tropes of action films however, it could also be argued that Wright is also attempting to parody the innate quaint Britishness that the village of Sandford exudes. An example of this is how the accents of the village members are that of a strong west country, which further gives the population a sense of innocence, an audience simply would not find this accent threatening, which is far more impactful when they as the antagonist of the film. Wright is finding humour in not only the outward parody of American action tropes, but also an inward parody of typical middle-class Britishness (Townsend, 2014, p. 226).
Image result for hot fuzz no luck catching them swans then
In conclusion, it seems evident to state that the subversion of tropes in Hot Fuzz is communicated through the contrasting imagery between the highly stylised and dramatic presentation of American action film tropes in accompaniment with a very middle-class and quaint British village and it’s population. Despite Wright also parodying middle-classed Britishness in the film, its evident that Wright’s primary objective with the film is to construct a juxtaposition between these two opposites, it. There’s evidently a “disjunction between the foreignness of the generic conventions invoked and the prosaic quaintness of the English surroundings” (Hall, 2012, p. 110).
Bibliography:


Bigelow, K. (Director). (1991). Point Break [Motion Picture]. United States: Largo Entertainment.


Hall, S. (2012). Carry On, Cowboy: Roast Beef Westerns. Iluminace, 24(3), 103–125. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f3h&AN=84586391&site=ehost-live


Townsend, N. (2014). Working Title Films and Transatlantic British Cinema (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of York, York. Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30268034.pdf
Wright, E. (Director). (2007). Hot Fuzz [Motion Picture]. United Kingdom: Working Title Films.

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