Comments on: Bad TV Accents

By: SFC SKI

SFC SKI — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:37:21 +0000

Actually, many Brits do a great job at the generic, read "Hollywood generic accent", I am surprised when I find out that some new "American" actor turns out to be from the UK. Most Americans can't tell the difference between Boston and Brooklyn accents once west of Pennsylvania, either. As for UK accents, it takes a bit of experince to tell Yorkshire from Liverpudlian from Mancunian, etc, but I htink most Americans can tell between stiff upper lip British, Irish, Scottish, and Australian. Overall, I'd prefer the characters do the accents well, or not at all. I lived in Boston and Cape Cod, when I see a movie purportedly based in Boston but the actors have no accents, it immediately kills the film for me. A movie like "Fever Pitch" in which only one of the bleacher bums has an actual accent, just another crime that made a terrible movie worse.

By: just me

just me — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 19:51:17 +0000

Shoot before the Irish get up in arms, they should pay attention to Sean Connery. In Highlander he played a Spanish Conquistador with a Scottish accent. In Hunt for Red October he played a Russian sub captain with a Scottish accent.

Sean pretty much plays all his roles with a Scottish accent.

By: Dodd

Dodd — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 18:02:59 +0000

If you want to hear a truly atrocious attempt at an Irish accent, watch David Boreanaz in any flashback scene from Buffy and Angel. Eight years he had and he never got any further along with it than No Longer So Painfully Bad It Would Be Preferable To Have An Icepick Jammed In My Ear, And That May Just Be Because I've Gotten Used To It. The accents on Heroes are brilliant by comparison.

By: just me

just me — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:28:18 +0000

I don't think it is a matter of people in the UK caring more about accents, they just care more about the accents they are familiar with.

Most Southern Americans cringe when we hear poorly done southern accents, but I doubt too many Brits would notice.

I think it is mostly what you know and are familiar with.

By: John Burgess

John Burgess — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 07:46:33 +0000

What Maniakes said: Hearing Brits try to do American accents is an absolute stitch! Forget American regional accents, even the standard TV dialect is beyond their ken. Sometimes they try to fake it with a Canadian standing in for the American, but even that's not very close.

By: Leo

Leo — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 05:33:32 +0000

Exactly...

I'm from the Boston area; I can generally tell the difference between a Charlestown and an Eastie accent. Actors are equally bad at American accents; Mystic River and The Departed both had lots of attrocious accents.

Oh well.

By: Maniakes

Maniakes — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:54:30 +0000

Most Americans are pretty good at telling the difference between, say, a Boston accent and a Brooklyn accent. It's a matter of familarity.

Hugh Laurie does a very good American accent, but most other British actors I've heard attempt American accents are terrible -- as terrible as Farrell describes American attempts to fake Irish accents as being.

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:58:44 +0000

And then there was Michael Caine's execrable Southern dialect in Hurry Sundown.

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:57:56 +0000

My experience is that Brits are, generally, more sensitive to dialects than Americans are. An American audience doesn't distinguish between differing Irish dialects, sometimes not even among various British dialects, sometimes not able to distinguish a Scots dialects from an Irish from Australian.

Then again, it's possible that the actors are being directed to speak in a “stage Irish” dialect so that the American audience will perceive it as Irish.