As a Brazilian, I can safely say that I was appalled by Penelope Cruz's performance. The accent was the worst though -It was just Penelope's regular Spanish accent, there was no actual effort in trying to make her sound like she was actually from Brazil.
sharewell, SURPRISE. There are other countries then USA (or America, as you like to call it!) They might focus on other things in the movie, things that are important, than focusing on the smaller details like her accent. She isn't brazilian, so why talk like that when nobody really cares?
Not to be rude or anything:)
People from the USA are referred to as Americans..sooo whats with the correction..and it would be annoying having someone whos character is meant to be brasilian speak with a spanish accent =| kind of like a new zealander accent being used for an australian character...or not lol, that being said, i LOVE this movie :)
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lol i know there are the 'Americas' but what do you refer to people from the USA as, if not 'Americans'? **cOnfused**
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There you have it! Estadounidenses don't care about the rest of the world and are completely insensitive to cultural differences! LoL. :D (lady_t333 - I do agree w/ you in a sense, even though I do believe that if you were to watch Americans in a movie from a liberal Euro perspective, you'd be very offended).
But that's not the only movie that South Americans/other non-white ethnicities have had to endure Penelope's abysmal accent: "Blow" - if you watch the deleted scenes, you'll see a scene of Penelope trying soo hard to pull off the "Uruguaya" accent and failing miserably; "All the Pretty Horses" - what was she in that movie?; "Capt Correlli's Mandolin" - dood, she was GREEK in that role -- and so on and so forth... (oh, and Nic Cage being a complete duschebag in an Italian "accent.")
But what annoyed me most in "Woman on Top" was that the stupid producers cast her as a BAIANA!! A Baiana, o icono da mulher brasileira, protagonizada por uma ESPANHOLA!!! I'd be much happier if she was portraying a Sao Paulina/Carioca/etc. But baiana, man, she didn't even have a bundinha!
Anywho, I'm done, lol.
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i happen to be from the USA and i'm not ignorant to other
countries. don't try and peg us as all the same. if you
got to know more of the people from the USA you would
make that broad generlization. it's rude and condesenting.
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Because while Cruz isn't Brazilian, the character is and should have a Brazilian accent, or at least try to. I'm American and I honestly wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a Spanish and Brazilian accent. In fact, I can't. But I can understand why Brazilians would be annoyed. It would, as another poster pointed out, making a movie about people from New York who had a British accent. Doesn't make sense.
shareI also am from Brasil (Oba, Como va você?) =D Its very true that this accent is not good! She sound like Mexicana! In Brasil we speak Português! NOT Español! So why she have this accent? Maybe director think because words are similar in Português and Spanish then accent is same too, but it very different! Muitos beijitos, tchau. (Please excuse my terible english!)
sharereally honestly, who gives a *beep* focus on the MOVIE, not on the dialect. you guys are bitching about the wrong thing. if it affected her performance THEN it would be an issue.
i love you all, but for real. damn.
We're only bitching because Hollywood always clumps South Americans into two categories:
1) Mexican (with sombrero)
or
2) Mexican (with no sombrero)
Frankly, it's annoying when producers cast Mexican/Spanish actors to play Brazilians (see Incredible Hulk, Turistas, Women on Top, etc), when there are loads of available Brazilian actors capable of playing those parts. Shoot, I wouldn't have minded so much had Penelope at least tried to pass off a Brazilian accent. But she didn't even care. It's pretentious, condescending and slightly hypocritical.
Then again, had she not been in this movie, it wouldn't have seen the light of day; slapping Penelope's name on the cover sells.
Seriously! I'm tired of people saying "you're overreacting" or "it's no big deal". Just because it's not a big deal to THEM, they think no one should care. What if a movie was made with an American character, who was born and raised in the States, yet the actor playing him spoke with a British accent? It wouldn't make any sense, right? It's the same thing here. A Brazilian woman speaking with a Spanish accent makes no sense.
shareWell checkout some old movies like the Charlie Chan movies. They used real Chinese to play his sons, but Charlie was always played by Anglos.
I'm a native born American from the US, but because of my love of most things Brazilian, especially the music and models, I can tell the differences between Brazilian and Spanish accents. But Hollywood rarely gets accents correct, even in various parts of the US.
Being from Louisiana, I've certainly heard some terrible Louisiana accents. Either they have everyone speaking in a France French accent or the stereotypical southern accent. From Baton Rouge north, people speak similar to Mississippi, Alabama, etc. people--that stereotypical accent with slight variations. But south of Baton Rouge, there are varieties of French accents (Cajun, Creole French, etc) as well as non-French. Most of the New Orleans area has an accent ranging from light to heavy that resembles New Jersey and the Bronx accents. In one unique area with a large population of Canary Island decendants, Los Islenos, there's an accent that first sounds similar to the local French. And when they speak Spanish, it's spoken in the rhythm of local French. Then there are the people from my hometown, a migrant town settled by Russian immigrants who were later joined by New Orleanians. No one has the French accent except the people from surrounding areas that have moved in. My mother's family spoke more like New Orleanians because of family there. So getting a Louisiana area accent right can be a challenge. But Dennis Quaid's Algiers (a city next to New Orleans) accent had to be the funniest and strangest ever, seemingly trying to combine everything! LOL "If you go down tuh Algeuz, dey'll cut yo troat and trow you in duh ribuh!" LOL
Under our clothes, we are all naked!
It IS an issue. So if it doesn't affect or bother you, then it's not an issue? A movie with an American character, born and raised in the States, yet speaking with a British or German accent would be completely ridiculous right? Likewise, a Brazilian character speaking with a Spanish accent makes no sense at all.
shareand if you REALLY wanna split hairs, she is from SPAIN, not mexico.
shareyou should practice your english more often. i'm portuguese and i'm actually suffering with embarrassement from your english. And if you can´t understand what i've just said, here it is in portuguese:
Não finjas que percebes ou falas inglês! em vez de inventares palavras e outras merdas, tenta ao menos procurar 1 dicionário para ver se sabes o que estás a dizer.
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I agree... it was a little strange to see them speaking in English when alone...
shareif they used the english only in the san francisco scenes it was ok , but 2 brasilians speaking english while they're on brasil ...
and yes the portuguese from this 2 countries is different but she's spanish. its a different culture, however she, as spanish , could have done more effort to speak portuguese, but that's typical from them.
this " little" mistakes made me not enjoying this movie, which had everything to be good,
and does she know who lemanja is ?? lol