one poster said ww2 was the turning point in film attitudes towards the british. Look at it another way: how many "sound" movies were made before ww2, period? talkies started in what, late 20s, early 30s? Although film had passed its' infancy, nobody can say there were more movies made before the war than after, lol. ;-)
Here is a second issue. Ever notice how Disney movies use various ethnicities in their animated films (sometimes with an unfortunate racist overtone)? The vastly different voices are needed to distinguish one character from another, because a cartoon's lip movements aren't enough. Accents provide distinction even for human actors.
The third reason was also touched upon. For hundreds of years England was the big bad ass superpower of the world, with fingers in every political pie. In case you have forgotten, we in the USA had a bit of history with them ourselves, lol. (The British might sometimes forget this. Similarly, we are sometimes mystified at Britain's harsh rivalry with German sports teams. An American had to be reminded, "Because Germany BOMBED us, idiot." Oh. Right.)
Fourth is the stratified class system of England, which we revile just as much in our own Bostonian, Harvard, private school types as in the British "public school" (fyi Americans that means private school over there, lol) privileged and titled types. In theory everybody in the USA has the same opportunities as everyone else. We don't, but in theory we do, and that makes British society objectionable.
And now the ironic final point. As the "last remaining superpower in the world" ... the USA is now suddenly the playground bully. I'm sure we are the first choice for "foreign villains" in most movies made around the globe. :-D
Of course, as is typical of our (admittedly lamentable) provincial and insular attitudes ... we've never seen those movies, and we don't care, lol.
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