MovieChat Forums > Main Street (2012) Discussion > accents....again

accents....again

posted 13 years ago by fishyk
17 replies | jump to latest

Dear Hollywood,

Not everyone who lives in the South has a Southern accent. It would be nice if you people got your head out of your behind sometime and took note of this fact. We also don't necessarily speak slowly, nor do we say ya'll constantly. We do have brains. In fact, some of us even live in cities that are in the swamps, backwoods, or country. Please stop assuming that "life" only occurs in LA and NYC and that only "old-time" problems happen in the South.

Thanks,

A born and bred southern belle

[–] mcleburn45 13 years ago

Agreed. And if you have to make everyone have an accent, could you please sacrifice the big name and get someone who can pull it off, like...well...anyone else?

[–] classyjane 13 years ago

Especially since this is supposed to be about Durham...where barely anybody I've encountered even has a southern accent!

[–] bluescreek-236-425382 12 years ago

Folks born in Durham and the surroundin' area have southern accents, evidently you only encounter the droves movin' in from up north.

[–] Hancockenstein 12 years ago

that's a tall order, and goes against pretty much everything Hollywood has ever done

[–] beat 13 years ago

i'm not an expert, but even to me colin firth sounded ridiculous in the trailer.

[–] severine999 13 years ago

Agreed. I love Colin, but his accent was not good.

[–] rice_plate 13 years ago

I had to have the subtitles on - I couldn't understand what the heck Colin during one of his conversations with Georgina/Willa.

[–] Dennis_Cooper 13 years ago

That is so true. I live about 25 miles north of Atlanta and maybe one in five people have anything close to a discernible Southern accent. So many people from the Northeast and Midwest have moved to the area stretching from Virginia to Central Florida in the past 10 to 15 years that the American South is drastically different than what most perceive it to be.

[–] pfdocwilson 13 years ago

I've lived in North Carolina for more than forty years, all of my mother's family is from North Carolina, and I don't know who the previous posters are hanging out with when they're not hearing Southern accents in the South, but people _do_ talk like that down here.

You often don't hear it when you're in the middle of it all day. My mother was born in Mount Airy, got married in 1946 and mover to Pennsylvania, and all the time I was growing up I heard people talking about her "lovely Southern accent." I never heard it -- it was just Mom.

[–] guy48065 12 years ago

My parents & their families were from Galax, Va. and nearby Mt. Airy, NC but they moved north during WW2. They soon "lost" their accents but certainly the rest of the family down there didn't. It's funny though how much the accent varied among family members--who mostly all lived within a couple miles from each other their whole lives. From s l o w drawl to quick/short & clipped and everything in between.

But this is a lot less true these days. IMO television has been the great equalizer of accents and dialects. With children growing up listening to voice-trained midwestern-neutral TV actors more than their own family it's no wonder.

[–] DCI77 12 years ago

IMO television has been the great equalizer of accents and dialects. With children growing up listening to voice-trained midwestern-neutral TV actors more than their own family it's no wonder.

Unless kids sit in front of the television all day TV as a great equalizer for accents and dialects is far from the truth.

The Interrupters, Le Havre, Chan-wook Park - Stoker (2012)

[–] thetrev 12 years ago

I think it was revenge for Kevin Costner, Dick Van Dyke and Keanu Reeve's "English" accents.

To be fair, I thought the whole thing of having Bloom and Firth in this film was pointless. Still, at least it gave orlando the chance to wear trousers instead of tights and carry a gun instead of a sword.

[–] SataiDelen 9 years ago

RE: Kevin Costner, WHAT English accent? He was so arrogant he didn't even bother to TRY! At least Dick Van Dyke TRIED. And I'm not sure what movie Keanu Reeves was in that was supposed to be English, so I can't comment as I obviously haven't seen it.

EMOTICONS ARE BACK! YAY!   

[–] DCI77 12 years ago

I went straight to the board to comment on the accents right after I watched the trailer (the second time I watched it I stopped it immediately after Firth's "Durham in the south . . . ." line - the accent holy sh*t) and I'll say it was like hearing nails on a chalk board.

@ OP - Hollywood is liberal as heck so they're most likely not going to care if they portray the South or any place besides the coasts as ignorant fools. They'll use convenient stereotypes to further their story. The sad part is if both Colin Firth and Orlando Bloom take their experiences of filming this as truth about small, decaying towns. I hope they're smart enough than that.

The Interrupters, Le Havre, Chan-wook Park - Stoker (2012)

[–] bluescreek-236-425382 12 years ago

A "born and bred southern belle" without a southern accent? What a shame!

[–] lorisloan 9 years ago

Why was Patricia Clarkson's so bad? She is from New Orleans! And what was with that insane clothing that Colin Firth wore? Is he a square dancer? Yeesh... I am from Texas and I wouldn't let my man wear anything like that. Also, do the morons in Hollywood think everyone in the South either has a grand old home or a plain, run of the mill, nothing special house that is either covered in floral wallpaper or is in dire need of being painted? It was a really good cast, but oh my gosh... the stereotypes were just too much! I couldn't watch more than 15 minutes of it. Thank God it was from the library, because if I'd have paid for it, I would have been ticked off. 👎