If you can find somebody who actually has an accent, it sounds nothing like any of those featured in the movie. And that stereotypical "Ooooo" noise that all middle-aged Minnesotan women make in every single movie is fictional also
shareIt is not nearly as prevalent as it is made out to be in this movie. But in certain areas of Minnesota, people do have those accents.
sharei live in minnesota and no one sounds like that lol.. this movie is exagerating the minnesota accent.
____
I've heard lots of people with this thick of an accent, it's just not in southern Minnesota. If you spend much time N of a line from Duluth to Alexandria, and particularly in the Arrowhead region, you're bound to hear the "uff-dah"s and "you betchya"s...
Of course, most folks near any population center don't talk like this. This is similar, I'm sure, to how some southerners feel when all people from Alabama are typically portrayed as having very thick, redneck, southern accents. It's a movie.
/ Spent the first 18+ yrs of my life in MN
// Spent quite a bit of time in rural northern Minnesota, where the stereotypical accent is a bit more common
Yeah, I just recently had someone asked me, when they found out I'd grown up in Duluth, ask me why I don't have *that* accent. I said that no one has *that* accent.
These peeps watched Fargo too many times.
http://www.hboforum.com/
I lived in Minneapolis for several years and I would say in the city it's not as noticible. When you get out of the city a bit it starts to come on stronger. The other issue is, if you are just in the midwest, you won't notice this accent. But when people go to a place like CA, they will notice that accent pretty quickly. It's there, it's just over exaturated to make it funnier.
shareMy husband is from Minnesota and his family does talk like that. They are from the northern part of the state.
shareI have met lots of Minnesotans from Duluth and St Paul, and their accent, to my British ears, sounded pretty neutral and flat, perhaps more like Canadians than anything else. I could be wrong, but this film, and Fargo, were possibly just beefing up the German/Scandinavian influence which is still very strong - and depicted as quaint and idiosyncratic - amongst some of the more static rural communities in northern MN. The film does make a point early on that New Ulm is supposed to be the 'most German town' in the US.
shareAfter not living in MN/WI for a couple years now, I have to say the accent is more noticeable. I still get called out from time to time about being from up north! When you live in MN/WI you don't think there is an accent. When you leave and come back you see it right away. It's kind of funny. It obviously is thicker in small town areas, but it's still there in bigger cities. Again, it's made to be over the top in the movie.
shareI've heard it and I'm from a small mn town. It's more the small rural areas that there's that accent. I sometimes find myself saying somethings in that accent even though my parents are from Minnetonka mn so they didn't have that accent. It's not the entire state, it's just the little towns really.
shareIt's obvious to anyone who has lived in both small towns and (big) cities that old-style living, lifestyle, accents etc are more pronounced in the small towns and rural areas. It is the same everywhere, even in Europe.
In big cities, where there is more affluence from the outside, people to tend to lose those habits as they everyday life becomes "contaminated" from outsiders and foreigners.
And it's not like everyone from New Ulm in this movie has a thick accents. The foreman, his ex-wife etc don't, yet they are from there. It just confirms it.
They kind of sounded like Canadians.
It's that man again!!
They probably over did it for southern Minnesota. The heavy Fargo-esque type is more northern Minnesota. And it's not THAT cold and it doesn't snow all that much in New Ulm, which is why they filmed in Canada.
shareI never knew there was a difference between southern and northern Minnesota accents. All I know is I have relatives in Spicer and nobody there talks Like they do in this film. I think it would've been better if they didn't attempt any regional accent.I. found it distracting.
share