While it’s a bit of a generalization, one of the differences I’ve noted (being a long-term serious Britainophile) is that by and large men in the UK don’t take their masculinity as seriously as they do here in the US. By way of a very crude illustration, pull 100 UK men and 100 US men and tell/show them things which challenge their masculinity. If 50% of of US men got aggressive and tried to use overt masculinity to lash out, maybe 20% of UK men would do the same — actually I’d even say more like 10–15%. And if you frame the ‘challenges’ in humor or sketch comedy, the UK number would probably be even lower in comparison to the US number. Making fun of their own stereotypes has a longer tradition in the UK, and they’ve gotten very good at it — though we are catching them up.

In terms of social evolution, I often think of the U.S. as the 19-year-olds who aren’t kids anymore but still have little clue what they’re doing, and the UK as the 25-year-olds who are looking back at us going, “Do you remember when we behaved like that?”

Or maybe it’s more to do with the nature of ‘posh’, and how certain things the US has long treated as feminine were once the domain of European aristocracy — makeup, stockings, wigs — and so very much in fashion. Perhaps part of it comes from having banned female actors at one point, so that seeing men in drag became such a source of entertainment. The rich history of comedic cross-dressing and panto also probably contributes — it goes back past the Python boys in wigs, even to before the gender-bending in Shakespeare’s plays, which would’ve been further confounded by having a man playing a woman who is masquerading as her own brother (Twelfth Night can give you headaches if you think too much about it).

Whatever factors combine to effect it, what toxic masculinity is in the UK seems to have less toxicity than it does here, simply because they don’t take it as seriously. And they don’t care as much when traditional masculinity is under a perceived threat. Of course it has it’s trade-offs — you might just end up with a man who doesn’t cry not because he’s a man, but because he’s British, and it wouldn’t be seemly. :)

Whatever that difference is, I find I like it. And if you look at what men are considered on the ‘hot list’ right now, in both the US and the UK, you’ll find many of them are also the type to never take themselves to seriously in any way. Idris Elba, Chris Pratt, Tom Hiddleston, Robert Downey Jr., Simon Pegg, Ryan Reynolds, Michael Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Colin Firth — all men known for (among other things) their willingness to make fun of themselves, including their perceived masculinity.

Or to put it more succinctly — sure, Kurt Russell dressed up as an exotic dancer and climbed onto the back of Teri Hatcher’s motorcycle once, but could he ever have gotten away with Robert Webb’s Flashdance routine? I think not.