Dr. Craig Saucier presented a lecture for a filled bottom floor of the Pottle Music Building Auditorium on Wednesday, Oct. 27, as one of Fanfare’s closing productions.

The lecture, titled “Mything in Action: The Fantasy of the Special Relationship,” left much to the imagination initially. Once the lecture got underway, Saucier made it clear that the lecture would be presenting different views and perspectives of the United States’ relationship with Great Britain, all while in a humorous fashion.

“Much more to the point, underlying partnerships is the argument that the broad span of relation between Great Britain and the United States have been characterized by the gradual and inevitable development of friendship and cooperation,” said Saucier.

Saucier presented six key points to why Britain was at odds with the United States. These included that the United States has stayed neutral, the expansion of U.S. power at the expense of Great Britain and a struggle of maritime neutral rights, among others.

In particular, Saucier spoke of the War of 1812 and other land disputes that brought the United States and Great Britain to the brink of war in 1895.

“Otherwise, it’s also a period where we see real animosity and real suspicion and rivalry and misunderstanding between the United States and Great Britain,” said Saucier.

Throughout the entire lecture, Saucier made satirical comments of presidents at the time, aside from Franklin D. Roosevelt. Towards the end, he showed that two major events severely hindered relations between Great Britain and the United States, former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain turning down Roosevelt’s offer of a peace conference and the 1938 Czechoslovakian Crisis during which Americans believed that Britain and France would “sell out” the Czech people to the Nazis.

“I really enjoyed Dr. Saucier’s lecture because he brought out a point that I never noticed before,” said Megan Mosher, senior communication major. “You think of England and Britain all gun-ho cooperating during World War I and World War II, but they weren’t. So, the idea that the U.S. was only giving words and not backing up their promises was an idea that I had never thought of before.”