What do you think about villains in American media having British accents?

[Ceka Cianci]

I remember on friends when they had their fake English accent friend they were trying to ditch.. because when they grew up with her she didn't have that accent..

They kept saying how they couldn't stand when she said Arse..

 

[Orfeu Miles]

1 hour ago, PixieGirrrrl said:

Hi I'm from Britain and can confirm that we are all quite evil and are constantly scheming up ways to reclaim America and achieve world domination, so that stereotype does in fact ring true. 👍

I can confirm, I am British too, and my heart is given over utterly to evil, malice, and every vile calumny. The complete ruination of the world is something of a hobby of mine, although like many of my countrymen, it is masked by a veneer of politeness, which is usually enough to throw the suspicious off the trail.

[Paul Hexem]

[Maryanne Solo]

For the official record I would like to state that a "Pacific accent", (think: Cate Blanchett), IS NOT or will ever HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH being British!.

Got that Goovna? Eh wot? Pip pip! Tally f👀kin hoe, n all that rot.   

[Quartz Mole]

12 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

I've read a few articles documenting that some many villains in American movies, TV shows, video games, etc. have British accents. What do you guys think about this phenomenon?

I think it's an example of "othering", stereotyping people who are not your own. This othering would probably stem from nationalistic pride after Americans drove the British away in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The way a British actor once explained it to me is that Hollywood pay actors a good deal more than do British movie or TV studios or the live theatre,  and if you're an established US star, then your status and future earnings depend very much on what your last role was worth, which is why you're more interested in the lead roles, since the bad guys tend to be in the second tier in terms of both the pay scale and of screen time.

The result of this is that there are a lot of talented British actors who want to continue their careers in the UK but who are more than happy to go over to Hollywood every few years to make several million dollars as the villain (and often having a blast camping it up to the limits) and then they return to the UK to carry on with what they see as their main jobs in the live theatre or with British production companies.

ETA: Is also English -- you might think I'm evil, but I could not possibly comment, any more than I can possibly comment on what really happens on region SSP83X.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Quartz Mole

[Amina Sopwith]

Elijah Wood's English accent is perfect. Doesn't sound in any way forced. I thought he was English when I first saw LOTR. 

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

I'm reminded of Hugh Laurie adopting an American accent to play the role of Dr. House on TV. The story goes that the producers wanted an American for the role, and didn't realize Hugh is British until they'd already hired him. Brilliant and evil.... yep, he's British. 

[Quartz Mole]

5 hours ago, Dano Seale said:

Always thought us 'Manc's' were as distinctive as cockney's and scouser's tbh. Then again, the term "Northern" encompasses Lancashire and Yorkshire and there's a lot of accents between them with only slight differences, so yeah, it can be awkward when guessing, even for me!
Just finished the TV series 'white lines'. Apart from the Spaniard's, the rest are pure 'Manc's'. Give a go, it'll train you better for guess work!  😆

Trying to match the various Westeros Northern accents in Game of Thrones to places in northern England was quite fun.     

ETA:  https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/may/10/sicansios-game-of-thrones-accent-stumps-spanish-voice-actors

"At a pivotal moment in the battle of Winterfell, Ser Davos Seaworth looked up from the battlements and realised that the airborne dragon division, commanded by Queen Daenerys, hadn’t clocked a vital signal.

"The knight duly telegraphed his epiphany to fellow soldiers – and viewers – with a single word.

"'Sicansíos!' he exclaimed, in his best dubbed Spanish. Sharper viewers soon realised that something had been lost in hurried translation and that sicansíos was in fact a garbled rendering of the knight’s original, Geordie-accented line: 'She can’t see us!'"

Edited May 18, 2020 by Quartz Mole

[Orwar]

50 minutes ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

Brilliant and evil.... yep, he's British. 

 

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

4 minutes ago, Orwar said:

 

Ha, I happen to own a set of Jeeves and Wooster videos. I love them!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 hours ago, Amina Sopwith said:

Here, @Scylla Rhiadra, this video didn't win but it remains my personal favourite.

Yeah, I've known the Weapon of Choice video for ages -- it's one of the reasons I think Walken is awesome! (Did I read somewhere he's a trained dancer?)

I did not know about the juggling videos for That Old Pair of Jeans (although I think I've seen the hula hoop version: it was familiar). This is LOVELY. Thank you!

And just to complete the derail, here's my favourite "amateur" video made to a Fatboy Slim tune -- actually, a remix of Cornershop's Brimful of Asha. I love love love the dancing in this video, and how everyone just looks sooooooo joyful just moving. I actually tried to do a pic in SL that was a tribute to the shuffle dancing in this video (it wasn't very successful, though).

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 hours ago, Orwar said:

It originates from George Sanders voicing Shere Khan in The Jungle Book. The 'Queen's English' isn't just 'British', it's specifically that upper-class kind of 'correct' English, along with the polite demeanor which, apparently, appears untrustworthy and disingenuous.

George Sanders had the most wonderful voice!

But for my money, the absolute best British accent in movies goes to Joan Greenwood. Here's a clip of her from the 1952 movie version of The Importance of Being Earnest (she's the affronted one in pink). I'd almost literally give my right hand to have a voice (and accent) like Greenwood's.

 

[Amina Sopwith]

24 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I did not know about the juggling videos for That Old Pair of Jeans (although I think I've seen the hula hoop version: it was familiar). This is LOVELY. Thank you!

 

The hula hoop one was the winner, IIRC. Caused controversy because a lot of people hadn't realised that non-jugglers were also eligible to compete, and the video was produced professionally; I don't know if that was against the rules technically but certainly a lot of people were under the impression that the idea was to see what enthusiasts could do with their own home video equipment, not to commission professional production companies. So it may have been against the spirit, if not the exact letter, but I'm not sure.

Lovely video! 

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

"Clytus, I'm bohhh-d..."

 

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

3 hours ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

Brilliant and evil.... yep, he's British. 

I was quite shocked when I listened to an interview with Tom Holland.

[Bree Giffen]

I’ve read that Hollywood uses a lot of British actors because American actors have too much plastic surgery. You shouldn’t feel bad about a British villain because the hero is probably also British speaking with an American accent.

[Amina Sopwith]

I shared this on another thread yesterday. It's glorious anyway, but it's made about 500 times better by the Scottish accent, ye ken.

 

[Lyssa Greymoon]

16 hours ago, Pixie Kobichenko said:

& just remember- theY chose the king of breakfast sausage & country music star Jimmy Dean to be the bad guy to the British playboy spy hero James Bond aka 007 in Diamonds are Forever in 1971.  I mean if you want to stereotype Americans as hillbilly hicks.. it can certainly said stereotyping goes both ways.  

The villain in Diamonds are Forever was played by the very English Charles Gray. Dean's Willard White was a patsy being held hostage by Blofeld.

[Nagafusa Takeda]

It keeps people from throwing a bitchfit like they would if the bad guy had a strong american accent. there would be a *****ing outrage and I know this because there HAS been.

 

did you see the crybabys that came out of the woodwork when farcry 5s villian was announced to be both southern american AND christian? people screaming about how ubisoft hates white people and religion. how they're attacking the white race and they're all evil sewjes.

[Dano Seale]

It still baffles me how 'Son's of Anarchy' had two of the three "presidents" of that motorcycle club being Brit's! lol

[Bradford Mint]

Precisely what does a British accent sound like? 

Do you mean Dai, the Welsh villain?

Paddy the (Northern) Irish villain?

Or Jock the Scottish villain?

Or do you mean a stereotypically movie English accent?

Clue: British accent is somewhat meaningless.

[Dano Seale]

13 minutes ago, Bradford Mint said:

Clue: British accent is somewhat meaningless.

At a guess I'd say you're averagely intelligent enough to know EXACTLY which accent we're going on about mate.

[Bradford Mint]

24 minutes ago, Dano Seale said:

At a guess I'd say you're averagely intelligent enough to know EXACTLY which accent we're going on about mate.

So you mean a specific ENGLISH accent then? Not a British accent of which there's really no such thing.

[Marigold Devin]

9 hours ago, Amina Sopwith said:

You are pretty distinctive but Jane Leeves appears to have made you her own! I could not work out where the hell that accent was supposed to come from. Did it sound properly Mancunian to you?

My mother was from Manchester, and several of my old work mates were from different parts of Manchester and Lancashire, and Jane Leeves' Manchester accent, while definitely northern, could not be pinpointed to any one area, definitely not true Mancunian. 

[Dano Seale]

3 hours ago, Bradford Mint said:

So you mean a specific ENGLISH accent then? Not a British accent of which there's really no such thing.

Yes mate, that's factually correct, well done. However, while they now have to understand that there's English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh accents, you're going to have to learn all 50 of theirs! No such thing as an "American accent"...right?