You know what's wrong with Camping and so many other American remakes of British comedies, the Americans struggle with losers.
they can't have their protagonists be losers, you might argue, but what about Leonard and Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory, they're losers, or Earl from My Name Is Earl or any shlub or 'loser' from any American series, you might be saying to yourself, but American comedy is made up of loser protagonists, but you would be wrong, Leonard and Sheldon get all the funny lines, they get the girl/s they (within their own world) are popular and by and large happy, they are not losers, nor is Earl nor Uncle Buck, nor any of the shlubs or would be 'losers' from the world of American comedy, few are true losers, the Always Sunny crew come close, but again within their own strange world they still seem to be winners.
How could America create a true remake of Julia Davis's Camping, when their version of the show refuses by and large to show ugly people, refuses to have its characters roll around in the mud, refuses for its characters to be the absolute losers they are in the original, where we had an insane controlling woman who believes her son is turning gay from eating sun dried tomatoes and forces him to wear a bubble helmet, instead we have the beautiful Jennifer Garner, playing a woman who is very controlling, but not a genuinely insane neurotic, just a woman who is a bit much. Her husband is a well-presented David Tennant not Steve Pemberton, looking like a normal middle aged shlub.
They can't even get the subtlety right, and it wasn't the most nuanced show to begin with, Julia Davis's character, the trendy, vivacious Fay, is supposed to contrast with the other women who are camping, who are much less attractive and sexual, her character is supposed to make the other couple on the trip look and feel inadequate, like losers, she is also supposed to be a loser herself, Fay is a stupid middle aged woman who has never heard of the Nazis and can't help but speak and act like a vacuous 20 something clubber, not only are the campers pathetic but they are made to feel inadequate by Fay who in her own way is just as pathetic as the rest of them. In the remake with none of the characters being true losers how could any of them seem or be made to feel inadequate by the character Jandice, she isn't prettier than the rest of them, her life does not seem more glamorous, her character is too arch to be threatening, her character comes across as a drunk soccer mum not the trendy seductress that is Fay's character.
Why remake a comedy if you cannot neither understand nor bring yourself to recreate the character dynamics that made it funny in the first place, if you can't bring yourself to create characters who are true losers, then don't try and remake classic British comedies.
