Stiff Upper Lips is a broad parody of British period films especially the lavish Merchant-Ivory productions of the 'eighties and early 'nineties. Although it specifically targets A Room with a View Chariots of Fire Maurice A Passage to India and many other films in a more general way Stiff Upper Lips satirises popular perceptions of certain Edwardian traits: propriety sexual repression xenophobia and class snobbery.