Okay, I have to admit I’ve been thinking about writing about this lately, but it took a passing quote from some internet movie review show to make me actually do it. So I’m lazy, what do you want? But there’s this review of Red Riding Hood, by What the Flick?!, where one of the reviewers complains about how most of the characters have American accents in a medieval European setting. (Another America-basher! {I’m kidding, I hope you realize.}) So, why would it be possible for there to be a bunch of American-accented characters in a European-themed movie? Well, it comes to an issue I realized long ago, when the world was young. Most Americans don’t speak any foreign languages. Why should we? We’ve got nukes, plus a population of citizens who keep espousing that we’re the “greatest country in the world” without ever having visited any other places. So, how do you represent characters you’re supposed to identify with? Well, use American accents. And how do you denote any kind of foreigner or villain? Well, obviously, they’d have British accents (See: The Borgias).
Think about it: British accents represent the enemy to all good Americans, whether we realize it or not; it’s built into our DNA, as a sort of genetic memory. Who first oppressed our countrymen enough to fight a war for independence? That’s right: the British. Who dragged us into fighting two world wars for them? That’s right: the British! And where were the guys from who used espionage to steal the secrets of the atomic bombs and give them to the Soviets, ramping up the Cold War to epic proportions? That’s right, they were, of course, from England. That’s why President Obama sent back the Winston Churchill bust, right?* Anyway, my point is, deep in our subconscious, we’ve all got the knowledge that Brits are evil, right? And then there’s the fact that nobody here speaks any other languages. So what foreign-sounding accent can we all understand, but still recognize as foreign? Yes! It’s just the British accent! So that’s what movies use as a sort of de facto accent to tell us that someone is not from America, or that they’re evil, usually. Check your movies and see if I’m right on this. (English movies don’t count. They cheat by having heroes with British accents!)
BTW, here’s the review I was talking about:
* Okay, no it’s not. That’s some old family feud.
