I live just a few mintues away from Arlington and the people here don't talk with those thick accents. It was bugging me throughout the entire movie.
I only got one law. A kid who tells on another kid is a dead kid.
I have never been to Arlington, but I think the accents in the movie are hideous! Movies are notorious for exaggerating accents - especially southern accents. I live in Tennessee, and movies usually do a pretty bad job imitating accents from this area.
shareI live in New York and even I knew that accents were overdone... so much so I had to zone out whenever Elizabeth Rohm was on. I felt sorry for Amber's family because the bad acting, the exaggerated accents and even the tacked on story about Nichole made this semi-biopic unbearable. But regarding the accents, in general unless you have a bland nothern-type accent (whatever that is) every accent gets that over-the-top treatment. My family is from the Caribbean Islands... Hollywood butchers island accents as well... and just like they do with southerners, somehow every island has the *same* accent, which is certainly not the case.
shareIt was weird when she said "MO-lested." I didn't think anyone had an accent that thick. Maybe the real woman does though.
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"Love means never having to say you're ugly." - the Abominable Dr. Phibes
Hollywood will never change. If they did a movie to take place in a southern state and used accurate and realistic southern accents, the world would blow up. Hollywood cannot/will not do it.
Actress Jobeth Williams for example, actually born and raised in Houston, did a movie that was set in Houston. She opened her mouth and out came the worst, fake Texas accent.
Not even the authentics can do it.
Can't be done.
That's one of the steroetypes of Hollywood that will never change: the way they view the south. TO them, the south is basically hillbilly central and they assume that if one area of Alabama, or Tennessee or another southern state talks one way, the entire south must sound liek that too. Just like the common misconception about Texas and Montana being cowboy/farm territory and ntohing else.
Its sad, but unfortunatly its not going to change unless...we Rednecks can ban together and take over Hollywood!
It must be especially hard to do a Texas accent in Hollywood, because Texas has a lot of accents. In this movie, think of the accents as East Texas and they're still bad, but not AS bad. (East Texas has sort of a twang, well, more like Tennessee than Alabama.) President Bush has a West Texas accent, being from Midland. (although most Texans can say nuclear) Houston and Dallas accents sound, on average, like Yankees, because we're outnumbered by the transplants now. :)
But for sure, people in Arlington do not talk like that, unless they've just moved in from West Virginia. :)
I agree!! I live in Arlington. This being a story so close to home and Amber and I are/would be the same age, I've always been very interested in this case, so I was very excited to watch the movie. However, the entire time I was wishing I was from Connecticut or something, so that I could enjoy the movie more. We do not talk like that, the police do not all wear cowboy hats, and we do not all drive the same kind of pick up truck.
shareI'm from Alabama (Birmingham) and recently moved to Nashville. I also have a degree in Speech Communications. That said, it absolutely blows my mind how poorly movie-makers research dialect when they make regional pictures. There are at least a dozen distinct dialects just in the Southeastern U.S. alone, but Hollywood only recognizes one - the hysterically exaggerated country "Coal Miner's Daughter" crap perpetrated by Rohm in this movie. Native speakers from urban and suburban areas of the South (cities such as Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, Birmingham, Memphis, Houston & Dallas, etc) just do not have the over-stylized dialect portrayed on television and in the movies. Most suburban white Southerners sound something like Matthew McConaughey - a definite, noticeable Southern flavor but not the elongated vowels and adding extra syllables to words (dayum for damn, etc).
When done well, however, an exaggerated Southern accent (yeah, I know you're supposed to call it a dialect) can be absolutely hilarious. My favorite is Jackie Gleason in "Smokey and the Bandit." The accent is horrendous, but Gleason executes the exaggeration so well that it ends up being funny. There are a few other actors out there besides McConaughey that have retained their native dialect and do a good job of retaining it without stretching it to a wretched country mess. Holly Hunter, Sela Ward, Morgan Freeman, Billy Bob Thornton (although his is a bit thicker than others) are good examples.
One absolutely superb non-Southern depiction of a true Southern 'accent' is Kevin Spacey in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (he's a Jersey boy). His dialect is SPOT ON, especially given that he is portraying an erudite rich boy from the Southern Atlantic Coast. The other great accent in that movie is the judge, who is played by the real Sonny Seiler (Spacey's lawyer).
Anyway, long post just to say this: Hollywood absolutely doesn't even come close to portraying genuine Southern dialect except on extremely rare occasions.
H
Bih H29 you are exactly right, however this extends beyond film while oerforming Wilder's "OUR TOWN" as part of the Southern Writer's Project at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival a few years back we were provided with a Dialect Coach who happened to be from New York City. I myself am from Alabama and as such the "Southern Accent" is natural to me. The Dialect Coach entered my dressing room on night to inform me that I said the number "Four" imprpoerly that throughout the South it is prononced "Fo" dropping the ur. Also if you check out the imdb page for this page you will note that the personal listing for the voice coach praises what an expert he is and how he is greatly in demand but conspicouslly absent is any info on where he was born and raised I am willing to bet it was nowhere near the south. So as result I am compiling a list of "great/expert" dialect/voice coaches throughout the entertainmant industry who just don't it right. So if you would like to provide a name to my list e-mail me [email protected] and I will research them and see if they warrant inclusion.
sharePlease excuse spelling errors in the previous post, Trying to type with a splint on one hand kind of lends it's self to typing errors.
shareI concur with the first poster. I live in Grand Praire (right NEXT to Arlington) and NO ONE I know talks like that.
shareI agree and can totally relate. My husband is from Austin, his father is from Houston and his cousins are in Dallas and have friends in Arlington and they all say they hate it when people do southern accents in films.
I myself am from Maine and do not have that stereotypical accent and neither does anyone in my family. I HATE Stephen King movies that take place in Maine because the accents are just so overly done and riddiculous. And I think sometimes, just like the southern states, they try and lump all of the new england accents together..people who are not from Maine or Mass but think that the Maine and downtown Boston accent are the same, but they are deffinatly, DEFFINATLY not. The accents in The Spitfire Grill were HORRENDOUS. Whenever Marcia Gay Harden spoke I cringed.
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I just saw Amber's mother in an interview on E! and she doesn't have the slightest bit of an accent.
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Elisabeth Rohm's accent was dreadful. You'd think with all the actresses out there, they could get someone with a real southern accent. I find things like that VERY distracting.
shareI DO live in Arlington.... this is not how we talk... at all.
shareyeah i lived in Arlington from Kindergarten all the way thru high school and i never ever heard a stereotypical "Texan" accent until i moved to Abilene for college 2 years ago - but even their accent isn't as thick as in this movie
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