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"Why Do Cartoon Villains Speak in Foreign Accents?" Topic


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Personal logo Nashville Supporting Member of TMP10 Jan 2018 9:06 a.m. PST

link

But Gidney and Dobrow's findings suggest that there's something more specific at play than a general American bias against foreign accents. They said that the use of German, Eastern European, and Russian accents for animated villains is likely reflective of America's hostility toward those countries during World War II and the Cold War. They have continued to find these same accent trends through the past few decades, even as the political and social climate changes and the nation's zeitgeist is marked by different ethnic and global tensions. Gidney and Dobrow noted that, contrary to what researchers might have expected, children's TV today is no more likely to use, say, Middle Eastern or Korean accents for villains than it was in the past. Slavic accents, German accents, and the like are still the voices of choice for "bad" characters.

YouTube link

Winston Smith10 Jan 2018 9:32 a.m. PST

Boris Badenov did not come from Illinois.

Cacique Caribe10 Jan 2018 9:32 a.m. PST

Lol. And, in the US, while most of the other characters have North American (US/Canadian) accents, all the smart heroes sound British. :)

I wonder if foreign movies do the exact same thing with accent stereotypes but, for some reason, the focus of these writers is only on what we do here in the US and the UK. You'd think that would be the first thing they should investigate before getting people all worked up and guilted.

Dan
PS. What accent did Dr. Evil have? :)

ZULUPAUL Supporting Member of TMP10 Jan 2018 10:38 a.m. PST

Because it is not PC to use mid eastern accents.

willthepiper10 Jan 2018 11:11 a.m. PST

Reminds me of this commercial:

YouTube link

Haven't watched kids' cartoons in a long time, but I remember being bemused that low-grade villains (mooks?) on GI Joe often had Australian accents.

Personal logo etotheipi Sponsoring Member of TMP10 Jan 2018 11:44 a.m. PST

I defy the writers or researchers to tell James Earl Jones to his face that he does not perform the Transatlantic British accent well and it sounds like an American one. Or perhaps that's what they think everyone in Mississippi sounds like ..?

"Funny characters, on the other hand, often speak in German or Slavic accents (Dobrow offered as an example the associates of the evil Dr. Claw in Inspector Gadget), as well as in regional American dialects associated with the white working class."

That's because most people, including the writers of the article couldn't distinguish among different Teutonic phoneme language accents ("Germanish"? Really?), nor know what is or isn't Slavic in the mix of Eastern European languages. My relatives were just all "dumb Polacks" when they immigrated to the US post WWII.

Winston Smith10 Jan 2018 12:26 p.m. PST

British actors do American accents well. Watch Band of Brothers, House, Private Ryan, etc.
American actors doing English? Cough cough Dick van Dyke cough cough.

I watched a video of Game of Thrones actors discussing the Summit in the Dragonpit. It was hilarious. All these actors from all over Britain (and Denmark and USA) discussing what was going on in natural accents; cut to the action on screen.
British actors learn accents with their mother's milk. It's like plumbers with "rightie tightie, lefty loosie". It's what they learn.

I remember when the Lion King came out. The outrage over Scar was his languid "gay" accent. Really? Well, ok. If you go around looking to be offended, you can always find it.
I love Mel Brook's Yiddish speaking Sioux Chief in Blazing Saddles.

Cerdic10 Jan 2018 12:42 p.m. PST

To be fair, Winston, I think Dick Van Dyke did A great service to the American acting profession.

Because his 'cockerney' accent was SO famously rubbish, it forced succeeding generations to up their game! There have been several American actors in the last few years who have done perfectly good British accents.

Personal logo 20thmaine Supporting Member of TMP10 Jan 2018 2:13 p.m. PST

Give Dick Van Dyke his due – he has apologised.

Took more than half a century, but, well he has said sorry now:

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40691894

The 91-year-old was recently announced as the recipient of a Bafta Britannia award for his work in TV, and said of the accolade: "I appreciate this opportunity to apologise to the members of Bafta for inflicting on them the most atrocious Cockney accent in the history of cinema."

Personal logo Parzival Supporting Member of TMP10 Jan 2018 8:41 p.m. PST

Well, sometimes the character has a accent because it simply happens to be the accent of actor. Whoopie Goldberg plays one of the hyenas in The Lion King. The character has the voice she gave it because it's her voice, and the director wanted a talented comedic actress for the part. I don't think it's anything more serious than that.

Scar was probably intentionally cast to have an *aristocratic* voice, as was Mufasa, which for American audiences, who don't have an aristocratic class (snobs not withstanding), means an upper class European accent. The villainy isn't the accent, it's the actions.

Patrick R11 Jan 2018 5:36 a.m. PST

Lord of the Rings online is an MMO where players quest in Middle Earth concurrently with the whole war of the Ring. The story is right now in-between the destruction of the Ring and the crowning of Aragorn when the free people of Middle Earth finally get a chance to peek at what's inside Mordor.

They have been extremely good at linking details from the lore to the game and they refer to the Great Plague that hit Gondor a thousand years earlier to a servant of Sauron and plans to release an improved version to destroy the Free Peoples when they least expect it.

The servant is a Merrevail, the infamous vampires from Tolkien myth and when the players finally storm the hideout to clear it out once and for all they have to fight several underlings which have "Boris and Natasha vampire accents" bantering about how bothersome this intrusion is and then bickering about which one of them will eat the players etc.

It's a bit jarring as this quest has tons of revards and getting through it means having to listen to their banter over and over …

dilettante Supporting Member of TMP12 Jan 2018 5:49 p.m. PST

Revards? Obviously a villain!-:^))

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