Robbie Williams is a true British icon, it doesn't matter if Americans don't care

America may have shrugged at Better Man, but he's still a national treasure here

HERTFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND - AUGUST 1:  Singer Robbie Williams performs at Knebworth Park August 1, 2003 in Hertfordshire, England.  (Photo by Jon Furniss/Getty Images)
Robbie Williams performing at Knebworth Park in 2003, his crowning achievement. (Jon Furniss/Getty Images)

A few weeks ago, America learned about Robbie Williams. It wasn’t because of a new album or that the drunken belting chants of Angels had vibrated themselves across airwaves so hard that they filtered into the ears of the East Coast; but because of a CGI chimp.

In his off-kilter jukebox biopic Better Man, which tells the story of Williams’ tumultuous journey to superstardom, the UK’s premier cheeky chappy is played by a monkey [Editor's note: It's an ape, but we'll let it slide on the this occasion]. Everyone had the same question: Why is he a monkey? Only Americans had a different one: Who the hell is Robbie Williams?

The first has been answered in a number of ways by Williams and director Michael Gracey: He’s a performing monkey; fame literally made a monkey out of him; it’s inherently more sympathetic to see a monkey wreck his life to drugs than a popstar — take your pick!

The second is harder to distill, not because Williams’ fame is esoteric in any way (let’s not forget his record-breaking £80m EMI record deal in 2002 or his watercooler three nights at Knebworth) but because Americans simply… don’t get it.

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Unsurprisingly, Better Man flopped in its first week of release over there which, given the running joke of Williams’ inability to crack America over the course of his 30-year career, feels like some kind of kismet from the universe. But the discourse around the film’s box office failure has been odd, to say the least.

Robbie Williams (performance capture by Jonno Davies) performing with Take That in Better Man. (Paramount/Alamy)
Robbie Williams (performance capture by Jonno Davies) performing with Take That in Better Man. (Paramount/Alamy)

Americans who turned their nose up at the thought of someone being famous outside their cultural understanding getting the biopic treatment are reacting almost gleefully, littering social media sites like TikTok and X with smug I told you so’s and feeling vindicated in their incuriosity.

Why Robbie Williams has seemingly become the beans on toast of our time (read: something Americans like to make fun of Brits for on the internet ad nauseum despite ample evidence that it’s good) is something that’s been weighing on my mind since I saw Better Man last year.

Back in the summer, I saw Williams perform with a capital P to a crowd made up of one of the most coveted intersections of fans imaginable: men who’d like to go to the pub with him and women who fancied the pants off him. About four warm white wines deep I declared, out loud, "He is the greatest entertainer of our time!" and, now sober, I still stand by it.

Editorial use only and must not be kept after three months from Saturday July 6, 2024 Robbie Williams performing on stage at BST Hyde Park in London. Picture date: Saturday July 6, 2024.
Robbie Williams performing on stage at BST Hyde Park in London, 2024. (PA)

To encounter a swathe of people who seem impervious to his charms and an undeniable streak of bops feels like I’ve woken up in an alternate universe where up is down, right is left and the video to Rock DJ is cringe. I thought he was undeniable, but I guess not. So here’s how best I can explain the appeal of Robbie Williams

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To understand Robbie Williams is to understand the British consciousness. It’s easy for Americans to assume we’re not so different from them, especially as much of their pop culture is ubiquitous to us. But despite the shared language, there are stark differences between our friendly nations, and somehow Robbie Williams encapsulates them all.

Let’s start with the music, the place where everyone seems to be tripping up. I’ve never had to really sit and think about whether Robbie Williams sounds good, in the same way I’ve never had to question whether tea tastes good. They’re both just things we subsist on and that’s that.

An American friend recently said Williams makes ‘British pop’ not ‘Brit Pop’, which did have its moment of cultural exchange in the US thanks to Oasis and Blur, but a specific kind of music entrenched in the UK’s less cool touch points. I don’t think she’s wrong.

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Angels, our defacto national anthem and the pinnacle of the ‘funerals, birthdays, weddings, graduations’ meme, is best experienced when you’re a kind of drunk that can only be achieved from steadily pickling your liver from before the age of 18.

I can’t explain it, but no country with a drinking age of 21 will ever understand Robbie Williams. Brits are our most open when absolutely pished, and Angels unlocks a kind of vulnerability that otherwise stays buried under a calcified layer of sarcasm and discomfort.

The official language of the UK may be English, but really it’s insincerity. Earnestness is a crime in these Isles, and Williams understands this. The reason Rock DJ is such a good karaoke song is that it's impossible to make sound good on a reverb mic and there's nothing Brits love less than seeming like we tried too hard.

Pick any of the Top of the Pops performances Williams did in the early 2000s and see how expertly he balances performing and mugging for the camera as if to say ‘This is just a bit of a laugh’. His dance moves are bad, which we appreciate, because how embarrassing would it be for someone to be good? Robbie Williams isn’t so much a musician as he is an entertainer (he has a pretty famous song saying just that), which Better Man does a great job of dissecting.

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It’s a precise alchemy, however, because although Brits don’t want anyone to be earnest, they also don’t want people not to care. It’s tricky, and I get why Americans get stuck on us sometimes. Williams cares so much, but it’s not about the art or the community of music, which would mortify us.

He cares about being famous enough to say silly things and act like a tit with impunity. We only allow a certain number of celebrities to carry that torch, and he’s been lugging it for 30 years. While his personality has gone under various microscopes over the years thanks to invasive press and a few musical missteps, there’s an undeniable warmth Brits feel for the kind of soft lad that Williams is.

UNITED KINGDOM - FEBRUARY 09:  BRIT AWARDS, EARLS COURT  Photo of Robbie WILLIAMS, w/ fans  (Photo by JMEnternational/Redferns)
Robbie Williams greets fans at the Brit Awards. (JMEnternational/Redferns)

There’s an inherent sense of nostalgia attached to Williams, and not just because his anthems are so often tied to huge event moments in our lives. For some, he exists as that first moment of uninhibited teenage lust as one-fifth of Take That (his departure from the group led to support hotlines being set up).

For others, he represents the idea of ‘Hometown boy made good’. The fact he always sings with his Stoke-on-Trent accent and litters his lyrics with relatable British references imbues him as a man of people, even when he was grinding on Kylie Minogue on national telly. He also inhabits a place in 90’s British culture that, to many, signifies a simpler time when we didn’t quite realise technology was about to render our lives completely unrecognisable.

Mark Owen, Robbie Williams, Jason Orange, Gary Barlow and Howard Donald of  Take That (clockwise from lower left) at the Studio Session in New York City, New York (Photo by Larry Busacca/WireImage)
Mark Owen, Robbie Williams, Jason Orange, Gary Barlow and Howard Donald of Take That. (Larry Busacca/WireImage)

Ultimately, it feels futile to try and explain why Robbie Williams needs a biopic. The stats are all there, his rise from boyband member to the most successful pop artist of a generation is something primed for the movies and he’s got more personality than he can fit in his body. Americans may refuse to believe it, but he has the X factor, this nebulous idea of charisma that’s impossible to pin down.

America often believes it’s the epicentre of cultural importance, but on this one, they could not be more wrong.

Just let him entertain you, please, you won’t regret it.

Better Man is in UK cinemas now.