Dodgy British accents in films/tv

[sauvignonbonk]

Watched 2 things on Netflix recently (haunting of bly manor and Juliet, naked) which featured American/Australian actors putting on really dodgy British accents and it was so distracting! Surely just cast somebody who can do the accent correctly or is actually British themselves?

It must happen the other way round as well but I’d never be able to tell if somebody was doing a poor American accent.

I've just finished season 2 of The Boys and had NO IDEA Billy's accent was supposed to be English. I thought the character was Australian.

@Burnthurst187

OP I really hope you aren't from GB! There's no such thing as a British accent

Somebody could speak with a Scottish accent for example or, a Welsh accent etc etc

It's very uneducated to say that somebody speaks with a "British" accent

Oh don't be so pedantic. Everyone knows what she means.

Plus it isn't incorrect. Saying there is one "British accent" or the British accent would be wrong but "British accents" (which is what OP said) as a category is perfectly correct, as any accent from within the British Isles is a (as in one example of a) British accent, in exactly the same way as a New York accent is one example of an American accent. So there is nothing wrong with the plural "British accents" as she used it. A Brummie accent is a British accent. A Cardiff accent is a British accent.

Finally, if you have watched the show in question, OP referred to "British accents" which is correct as the characters in question all use (or attempt) different British accents (sometimes in the same character) despite being supposed to be the same family. So she is actually saying exactly the same as you, i.e. there are multiple British accents.

Why be a dick if you're not even correct about the subject you are being a dick about?

RP is a non regional accent.
It isn’t. Just because some people in Harrogate and Edinburgh speak as though they are from the South of England doesn’t make RP non-regional.
It is a South of England accent.

@DynamoKev

RP is a non regional accent. It isn’t. Just because some people in Harrogate and Edinburgh speak as though they are from the South of England doesn’t make RP non-regional. It is a South of England accent.

"RP: a social accent of English Received Pronunciation, or RP for short, is the instantly recognisable accent often described as ‘typically British’. Popular terms for this accent, such as ‘the Queen’s English’, ‘Oxford English’ or ‘BBC English’ are all a little misleading. The Queen, for instance, speaks an almost unique form of English, while the English we hear at Oxford University or on the BBC is no longer restricted to one type of accent. RP is an accent, not a dialect, since all RP speakers speak Standard English. In other words, they avoid non-standard grammatical constructions and localised vocabulary characteristic of regional dialects. RP is also regionally non-specific, that is it does not contain any clues about a speaker’s geographic background. But it does reveal a great deal about their social and/or educational background."

@DynamoKev well a pretty big reason would have been because the actress didn't do a very convincing northern accent. If they cast a northern actress then go for it.

So if RP is non-regional why does it contain pronunciations like glarse for glass which are specific to the South of England?

Those pronunciations aren't only specific to the South of England. They are also part of RP which is standard English. It is the accent that is taught when people learn English as a foreign language.

RP derives from class not region. Upper class people from north of the Trap/Bath split would pronounce their vowels in the same way as upper class people from south of the split.

@FridayNightAtTheBronze

And yes to James Marsters in Buffy! Not sure why so many people say it's good when it's so terrible.... Weird hybrid American English. And I have never heard any English person say bint. We do say bloody alot though!

I’m from London, bint is used a lot.

@Housewife2010

Those pronunciations aren't only specific to the South of England. They are also part of RP which is standard English. It is the accent that is taught when people learn English as a foreign language.

As I said, all RP does is make a person from Harrogate or Edinburgh speak as if they are from the South of England. It IS regional.

@ODFOx

Boy manor was ruined for me by the narrator hanging English accent evvery 20 minutes. One episode she began like Emma Thompson and ended like Ena Sharples. Absolutely bizarre. Would it really have blown the budget to have a different person doing the narration to the actress who was made up to look older and was supposed to be the narrator but didn't have an English accent in RL by the end? Dreadful.

It was two different actresses

@Housewife2010

Those pronunciations aren't only specific to the South of England. They are also part of RP which is standard English. It is the accent that is taught when people learn English as a foreign language.

The accent I most often hear from non-native speakers of English is American. Most hilariously on a tour of Rome where the Italian guide complained about American cultural imperialism (specifically McDonalds) in an American accent.

RP is a construct of the South of England telling itself that only the pronunciation and use of language of posh-sounding Southerners is "standard" when it is nothing of the sort.

My Linguistics lecturers at university would beg to differ, but, hey, what do they know?

Josh Hartnett in Blow Dry. He plays a Geordie hairdresser 🤣🤣

[quote Piglet89]@EarringsandLipstick the play on which “Wild mountain rhyme” was based is called “Outside Mullingar” and it’s set in the midlands of IRELAND.[/quote]
@Piglet89

Er, yes, I'm aware. I am IRISH living in IRELAND.

I used the word 'Midlands' meaning Midlands of IRELAND.

Which is not WEST OF IRELAND as implied by the PP (although it was filmed in Mayo).

Cheers for that little patronising post 😐

Oops @EarringsandLipstick my bad! Apologies!

Thanks @Piglet89

Northern Irish living in England and clearly assume everyone means Britain when they refer to the midlands of...their own country. 😱

@PamsterWheel

Anne Hathaway's ?Northern? accent in One Day. She really needed a better dialect coach.

And now she's back with garlic in the soup 😂

@elQuintoConyo

As much as I love The Boys and Karl Urban in anything, his Billy Butcher accent is atrocious sorry Karl!

I agree. His was the first name that strange to mind for a bad british accent. If they wanted him to be in it, why not just make the character the same nationality as the actor. It would make no difference to the story.

My most annoying one is Russell Brand in Rock of Ages. He is English (cockney?) Putting on a different English accent (liverpool?) Terribly

Another one here who thought Billy Butcher was an Ozzy until DS put me straight ...
I sort of got used to Spike but Drusilla was beyond parody - bit like Orish Angel's wig!

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion

I came on to say Charlie Hunnam in green street. I always thought he was Australian or something and doing a terrible cockney accent. Turns out he's English! From the North but still!

It was the most ridiculous accent of all time - I actually quite like the film but want to scream everytime he speaks

To be fair to Karl Urban, it's supposed to be absolutely over the top and horrendous, and Karl NAILS it.

This is what I was thinking. His accent is supposed to be terrible. It's part of the show.

The Outlander cast isn't great with accents. Some of the Highland accents need work, especially Lotte Verbeek. Caitriona Balfe got better but at first her English accent is a little OTT. Sophie Skelton's American accent is terrible so it does work the other way.

Also Caitriona Balfe is supposed to be a Brummie in Ford vs. Ferrari but doesn't sound like it.

When it comes to British accents being a mix, I do give a little leeway, like the gardener/narrator in Bly Manor. As someone who has moved around a lot, I've picked up so many accents that some words sound northern, some sound southern, and others sound a mixture of Scottish accents. Nobody can tell where I'm from just by listening to me so if a character is supposed to have moved around (like the gardener/narrator) then I can forgive the mixed up accent.

Someone mentioned Chernobyl, and I'm glad they stuck with British accents. Reign did the same thing. Everyone in France had various English accents. Even some of the Scottish characters sounded English.

Daphne in Frasier makes me cringe; meant to be from Manchester, sounds nothing like.