Hello, I would like to state that I am French so I don't have much personal bias to view the Brits favourably.
My question is why do we view them so favourably?
The Empire they had wasn't evil but they did some bad things occasionally. The starvation of Indians during WW2, the slave trade.
How come despite events like that when we view films such as Zulu, The Longest Day etc, we get this feeling of yay the British are here we are safe now. It doesn't apply to Americans (Too gung-ho), Australians (Too crazy) or Canadians (who?) Even on games like Total War it feels like the Brits are the proper and light side factions.
Is this a literature and media bias (The clumsy but well meaning and successful 'tommy' we see a lot, soldiers featured in Shakespeare) or is it a matter of their historical contributions (Saving freedom in both world wars, fighting the slave trade first)?
Tldr; why do we view the British as the good team?
Well, Zulu is a British-made film. The Longest Day had substantial British involvement. Contrast The Longest Day to the more recent and American-only Saving Private Ryan, where Montgomery is described unfavourably and the drive on Caen described as a "sideshow" (effing lol).
And then there's A Bridge Too Far, where the British are arguably portrayed as snatching defeat from the jaws of victory during Operation Market Garden by refusing, as the Americans urge, to drive XXX Corps' tanks on to Arnhem without waiting for the infantry to catch up.
And then there's Gandhi, The Patriot, Braveheart...
This is a very hypothetical question. In Ireland and in other parts of the former Empire they are viewed far from 'favourably'.