Watched the QI on Film (with Emma Thompson, who is just fucking brilliant. I loved it when she scared Stephen Fry by threatening to show him her muff) the other day and they brought up the fact that Brits are always cast as villains or gays in US films, or villains and pansies usually have accents.
Well, WTF about all these (new-ish) US shows (post-Hugh Laurie on House) with British and/or Australian leads with American accents? It's disconcerting, especially if you're most familiar with the actor with their natural accent, and really, you can *tell* (well, I can tell) when they're slipping. Some examples:
The Riches - Lead Eddie Izzard as Wayne Malloy (British... born in Yemen?! Did not know that, thanks IMDb)
Eleventh Hour - Lead Rufus Sewell as Dr. Jacob Hood (British)
Mentalist - Lead Simon Baker as Patrick Jane (Australian)
Nip/Tuck - Co-Lead Julian McMahon as Dr. Christian Troy (Australian)
United States of Tara - Lead Toni Collette as Tara (Australian)
Oh, there's more but I'm getting tired of all the online ads I'm having to slog through to get the links.
One actor that doesn't force a fake American accent is Tim Roth in Lie to Me (the show is actually kind of interesting, or at least the first two episodes I saw). I wouldn't be able to watch it at ALL if Tim Roth did an accent. I just couldn't handle that.
I've got lots more annoying shit to write about, but this has been tops on the list, especially since FX was showing the Fantastic Four today. It features Julian McMahon as the villan (sans natural Australian accent) Victor von Doom. Since it was the DVD on TV thingy FX does, it had behind-the-scenes with Mr. McMahon using his natural accent and it just made it that much more obvious how fakeity fake his American Accent was. I dunno, it's probably because I'm so sensitised to accents as well as voices in general, but it really kills when the wrong voice comes out of someone.
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I think it really isn't up to the actors much. I'm sure they'd feel more natural using their own accents. I've heard that when Brit TV shows air on US TV a lot of Americans can't understand Brit accents (WTF, seriously? We're speaking the same freakin' language!) and that's why most Brit shows get re-made for US audiences. I find THAT insulting. The Brits don't re-make American shows because "we can't understand the accents" - I mean frig me! I'm sure there must be a good percentage of American society that would find the notion of things being re-made in their own accents insulting too.
ReplyDeleteI think The Riches plot could have been more interesting if Wayne had obviously come from Britain to end up living an American gypsy lifestyle. The thing that made it sort of funnier for me was Eddie's obvious flaws with his accent, whereas Minnie Driver (to my untrained ear) had a rather believable southern accent.
Some actors must have the choice. I think it was David Tennant's decision to do The Doctor with a "estuary English" - (non geographically specific south-east England/London) accent. But it's always made obvious it's not his own accent because he talks in his natural Scottish brogue during Doctor Who Confidential episodes. It was made all the more odd when Christopher Eccelston steadfastly stuck with his Salford (Manchester) accent for the first season of Who. It would have been fun to have had another Scottish accented Doctor.
Whoops, that was a long comment...
:-)
Yay! Thanks for your thoughts on the matter (why I totally sent it to you) and the thing about the Riches. I totally loved when his accent slipped so massively, it was like finding a prize in cereal or something. But, yaknow, I totally blocked Minnie Driver TOTALLY because well, I can't stand her, any accent.
ReplyDeleteHugh Laurie said something to the fact that brits are saturated in American accents constantly, whereas there's a lot less exposure here (Stupid Americans, I guess. I only have ever had problems understanding people like Johnny Vegas, but I don't think it's an accent issue, more of a general language barrier) so Brits are better at American accents. However, most brits doing american accents for british shows tend to uniformly do John Wayne, and though that's just funny, it bleeds over into the british-as-american-for-american-audiences, which to ME is condescending, but I understand I'm not the targeted audience.
Kyle said something that actually prompted me to write this about how the new boss on the US Office is British, and was supposed to use his natural accent, but at the last minute was told that American audiences wouldn't understand him. (this is heresay, and I'm not bothering to actually fact check it). Another tick in the "reasons I don't watch the US Office" list.
Also, I know that it's not an actor's decision, esp. in television, as the production process is so whacked out on television shows (see Echo Beach and Moving Wallpaper... god those shows continue to make me feel uncomfortable for liking them so much).
And I sort of like how DT has a "doctor" voice and then his brogue, as it's another layer that gets into the doctor's head. I think that it'd be a totally different tone, maybe not as serious feeling, if it weren't estuary English. Oh, I don't know, I can't fault DT for ANYTHING. :)
Only marginally related: Alan Rickman in Die Hard had a fantastic accent.
ReplyDeleteAnd Tenant is teh awesome.