"English" Accents

[dgs49]

After a couple years of considering my options, I finally took the plunge and started watching Game of Thrones last week - Season 1, episode 1. On consecutive nights, I've watched one or two succeeding episodes, and this evening I'll watch Season 2, episode 5. It's a good way to view a series.

GoT takes place on a mythical planet like earth, but with unique geography and seasons.

The characters basically all speak English (it's made by an American company, mainly for American audiences), but inexplicably all of the actors speak with a real or pretended English accent. Even the American actors.

WTF?

What is the logical justification for this accent? It's a mythical planet for goodness sake.

Similarly, it seems like more and more advertisers are using actors with either real or faked English or Australian accents, even when the product or service has nothing to do with those countries. Outback Steakhouse, a restaurant chain with Australian pretentions, uses actors with the worst faked Aussie accents I've ever heard. The GEICO lizard has some sort of a mixed Cockney/Australian accent for no actual reason that I can figure out.

Do Americans feel so culturally insecure that we feel we need English pretentions to feel comfortable with the products or services?

It's wierd, and I'm starting to be aggravated by it. Obviously.

[Long Run]

Have a spot of English Breakfast tea; it'll calm you.

[Sue U]

In the same vein, I saw Jersey Boys (I know, right?) Saturday night. Half the cast were doing terrible Brooklyn/Staten Island accents, rather than even attempting to approximate our own mellifluous regional manner of speech. Believe me, we have plenty enough character in our dialect without having to New York it up. (I know, it's a silly musical and not a documentary, but it still bugs me.)

Christopher Walken, though, was great and sounded convincing even though he's from Queens; the man is a pro.

(BTW, trailers for the movie about James Brown due out this fall look fantastic).

[Gob]

Everybody knows that people on faux-medieval fantasy worlds speak "received pronunciation" English, FFS.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Do Americans feel so culturally insecure that we feel we need English pretentions to feel comfortable with the products or services?

Ah well mate, you're the one using an archaic English spelling of 'pretensions' Not wrong though; not wrong - appropriate really.

[Daisy]

GoT is made in Northern Ireland... lets see, shall we get a load of actors from LA and fly them all over to Belfast OR shall we draw on the massive pool of talent in the UK and Nor'n Ireland?

What bugs me more is the amount of British talent that goes to the USA and puts on the US accent, watched the first episode of Black Box last night and the main three characters are all played by English actors affecting american accents. And Dominion where Horror of Horrors Anthony Head is also at it... that's a whole 'nother bowl of wrong.

I blame Hugh Laurie

[Sue U]

puts on the US accent,

What in the world is that?

I blame Hugh Laurie

So do I, but maybe for different things?

[Lord Jim]

None of this Anglo actors and actresses and American actors and actresses doing cross accents bothers me in the slightest...

So long as they do it well, and many do...

The greatest of all of course, was Peter Sellers...

Hugh Laurie did an "American accent" superbly; (my aunt had no idea he was English until I told her)

Robert Downey Jr. has done completely believable English accents a number of times...(Chaplin, Sherlock Holmes)

I thought Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) was an English actress doing American accents for some of the characters...

Turns out she's actually a Canuck (as is "Felix" Jordan Gavaris) whose "real" voice sounds most like "Allison"... rather than "Sarah" (working class English) or "Rachel" (posh English)...

Marina Sirtis has a working class North London accent, but you'd certainly never know it just from seeing her play Deeana Troi...

And Martin Freeman had the Minnesota accent nailed...

And then of course there are the Aussies...

They seem particularly good at doing "American" accents...The best known of course is Mel Gibson...

Whatever you may think of him as a person, he certainly would never have been spotted as an Australian in the Lethal Weapon movies...(If you compare the way he sounds in those and later Hollywood movies to the original Road Warrior flick, you wouldn't think it was the same person)

I didn't know that Jane Badler, (Diana from the original V) was an Aussie until I saw her interviewed a couple of years ago right before the new version of the show came out...

And I would have had no idea that Robert Taylor, (Walt Longmire) was an Aussie if I hadn't looked up his bio...

So long as the accents are done well, and the performance is good and the character is believable, it makes me no matter mind where they hail from or what they "really" speak like...

Of course if it's done poorly, that's another story...

And there are plenty of examples of that as well...

[Daisy]

puts on the US accent,

What in the world is that?

It's the bland, generic American that the vocal coaches teach them. It's the equivalent of the British "Standard English" where any trace of regionality and character has been washed out.

Jim, the accents used in Orphan Black are perfect. Sarah's accent drew some criticism until people understood that the character was brought up in both London and America.. it has flavours of both. And Fee's accent is brilliant. As if he puts it on stronger for camp effect. Very, very clever vocal coaching on that show.

[Guinevere]

I don't think so much its a bland, generic US accent, but its more Middle Atlantic American, where we generally have very little accent (small pockets in Bawlmer, Philly, Delaware, notwithstanding). Probably the least accented speak in our country. That's what I think *I* sound like, although I would call it straightforward, not bland.

I do love a little bit of accent, almost any accent will do. My Swede has a pretty accent-less voice, but every so often a little bit of home creeps into his speech on certain words, and I adore it. Sometimes I make him repeat just those words, over and over

[BoSoxGal]

Daisy, I've finished the first season of Orphan Black and now I'm trying desperately to resist the temptation to pay for season 2 before it becomes free on Prime. You were right, it's a great show!!

About Game of Thrones; I've not yet started watching it, but I accidentally turned it on in my hotel room whilst in San Diego recently. I tuned in in the midst of a gory battle scene, so my question is: Are gory battle scenes something that happen frequently in GoT? (If you can't tell, I'm not a big fan of gore . . . )

[rubato]

I don't think so much its a bland, generic US accent, but its more Middle Atlantic American, where we generally have very little accent (small pockets in Bawlmer, Philly, Delaware, notwithstanding). Probably the least accented speak in our country. That's what I think *I* sound like, although I would call it straightforward, not bland.

I do love a little bit of accent, almost any accent will do. My Swede has a pretty accent-less voice, but every so often a little bit of home creeps into his speech on certain words, and I adore it. Sometimes I make him repeat just those words, over and over

The "General American English" accentless speech is from the Midwest via California where it was spread via the movies and television.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American

Some regional accents can be very elegant and quite beautiful to hear. We had dinner every night for a week with a nice family of rice and soybean farmers from Arkansas and the matriarch had a wonderful accent. Very musical.



yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

About Game of Thrones; I've not yet started watching it, but I accidentally turned it on in my hotel room whilst in San Diego recently. I tuned in in the midst of a gory battle scene, so my question is: Are gory battle scenes something that happen frequently in GoT? (If you can't tell, I'm not a big fan of gore . . . )

It's not just gory battle scenes, a certain level of gore runs through the entire series. People get stabbed, beheaded, have limbs cut off on a fairly regular basis. There is a particular grotesque torture sequence that runs through several episodes of the season before the one that just ended, which I found myself fast forwarding through. And you'll probably want to take a pass on watching the Red Wedding (three guesses why it's called that).

But in spite of all that, I who cringe from watching gore have gotten hooked on the series.

[BoSoxGal]

Sounds good; I had to do the hand in front of the screen for Dexter and Hannibal, so I'll be prepared for it with GoT. I'm anxious to watch it given all the raves I hear from friends.

[Guinevere]

I disagree Rube -- the midwsterners I know have quite a twang to their voices, and I don't think they sound like the "telecaster" voice. Interesting that it developed from the Middle-Atlantic English ---- I still think its mostly more like those voices.

[Guinevere]

I hated the violence in GoT. Not because it's gory, but because I thought it was senseless, misogynistic, and masochistic. I just never enjoyed the show. I had subscribed to HBO to watch it, and then unsubscribed when I decided it wasn't for me.

[Daisy]

Three times I've started to watch GoT. Each time I've been a bit nonplussed by the whole thing.

In theory I should love it Fantasy being a favourite genre, but I just can't bring myself to give any amount of shit for any of the characters.

[Long Run]

Not because it's gory, but because I thought it was senseless, misogynistic, and masochistic.

I think you are mistaken on the middle adjective: the psychopath women are just as ruthless/successful as the psychopath men.

[Guinevere]

Daisy, that's why I wanted to watch it -- I loved the setting and the general premise, but you're right, the characters are not endearing in any way.

And Long Run, fair enough. I stopped watching about half-way through the first season, so admittedly my sample size is very small.

[BoSoxGal]

Sounds like I'll be waiting until it's free before bothering to give it a try; I know from posts here and the Goodreads that I generally have similar tastes as Daisy & Guin.

Long Run, without having viewed GoT I wouldn't discount Guin's perspective on the misogyny; jut because there exist female characters who are as ruthless and ambitious and violent as the male characters doesn't mean there isn't also misogyny.

Example: the same world that gave birth to Margaret Thatcher and Hillary Clinton also sees women stoned to death for exercising autonomy and subject to all manner of misogyny. The two are not mutually exclusive.