The real us, how far away from stereotypes?
Britain and America are two countries separated by a common language
George Bernard Shaw’s famous quip that may still hold true.
Both, accent on class and class matters in society: real uk is ok
Cultural NOTE: In the British theatre eager to gain representation of the real country in the late 1950's they gave footnotes to directors, sort of : “All the characters in the play except John have broad accents.
[Broad in England is usually a euphemism for the working class.]
Let's see a couple of Darwinist survival of the fittest artists:
1. Connery. ACCENT: Northerner's acceptation
Though it's impossible to think of James Bond without thinking of Connery, technically Connery's Scottish accent was an odd fit for English secret agent 007 when he was cast in the first Bond film.
A rough, gruff Scotsman with a sometimes disconcertingly direct manner and no time for fools, Connery was unlike the Bond of the books in almost every significant respect. Where Bond had an upper-class English accent, Connery growled in a rich Scots brogue; and where Bond had attended Eton and Fettes, Connery had left Darroch secondary school in a working-class enclave of Edinburgh a few weeks before his 14th birthday.
Sean Connery’s voice is very distinctive, but not typical of Edinburgh. The rather strange “shh-ing” lisp is also peculiarly his own.
A couple of examples
- in 1965 Connery took part in the cast of a realistic British movie bu Sidney Lumet: The Hill.
One problem: The British dialects in the first 20 minutes are so thick that an American viewer practically needs subtitles (British accents, Army slang, and poor sound quality)
- 2. The Untouchables - Sean Connery plays an Irishman living in 1920s and 30s Chicago. It's an incredibly cool film about how a select group of men strive to bring down the regime of notorious mobster Al Capone, and it's arguably one of the best performances in the entire career of Connery.
- So he had to have gotten the accent even sort of right...right? Not even a little. You'd have thought that a man born and raised in Scotland, ancestral love-hate brother of Ireland would have at least been able to give a good crack at the accent, but no, what happened instead was an accent which was voted by Empire magazine as the worst in movie history. It can only be referred to as Blarney Twang
2. Michael Caine's cockney accent: Londoner's acceptation
British actor Michael Caine is a true gentleman, yet he is also renowned for performances with his Cockney accent. ... link
"I kept my cockney accent in order to let other working class boys know that if I made it, they could do it too,"
Cockney is an english dialect spoken be East Londoners. It is traditionally associated with the working class
Michael Caine was persistent ihn his humble begiinings and did not step on the stage until after a number of small parts, he auditioned for the film Cockney Soldier. He did not get the part but the production company were about to start filming Zulu (1964) and they had noticed the tall, attractive young man. He was given the role of lieutenant Bromhead – a snobbish, upper-class aristocratic infantry officer who was awarded the highest medal of honour in the British Army.
Over the years, Caine has made a point of calling out class prejudice
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