Canuvea okay let me break this down for you.
No, technically scar was not British, he was a lion from Africa.
But he had a British accent. Which is my point.
Evil people sound English in movies, even if logically they should sound the same as everyone else.
Saying "Ah! But Grand Moff Tarkin is not English" seems a bit silly to me.
The point is that the bad guys could have any accent, but they sound English.
Why must my accent always be the default one for evil doers?
There is such a thing as allegory.
I could make a race in Harkovast who are all hugely over weight and stupid and live in a really big country where everyone wears a cowboy hat.
These guys re imperialist jerks who are always invading other countries to steal their oil.
"What? Nothing offensive there! They aren't Americans, they are just a fantasy race."
Obviously such a defence would be bullshit.
That is an overly simplified and exaggerated example, but it serves to make my point.
In Pocohontus the good characters sound American, the bad ones sound English.
The bad ones also constantly wave British flags and hark on about their Britishness, while the good ones do not.
All the negative traits of the settlers are associated with Britishness, we never see John Smith waving a British flag (only Ratcliffe….while he is being evil and imperialist.)
How come the hero did not sound British or show patriotism towards Britain? He had as much reason to do so as the villain. Yet strangely its only the bad guy who does so.
Frankly the film seemed less about critising imperialism and more about Americans deflecting their own imperial past onto Britain to alleviate their sense of guilt over killing the natives.
The movie was also about sucking…sucking a lot.
Cause it was shit.
Saying "oh they are just picking the best actor for the role." also seems weird.
Are British people just naturally suited to being evil?
When you think of evil?
Cause that would seem to support my case that something is wrong with this, if you accept those points of view!
I would think that being good at acting would mean you would good at a variety of roles, rather than only being suitable as evil doers.
I really don't think the point I am making is all that controversial.
British get portrayed as bad guys in movies far more then anyone else.
This is insulting to me.
The people who do this in films generally know very little about my culture beyond what they have learned from other Americans, and really have no idea about what they are criticising or insulting.
If you want I can go and write out a huge list of films for you with evil british/english people in to illustrate the point, but honestly, I think we should all be aware of this trend if we've watched many films.
I think people see Britain as a safe target to insult in Hollywood.
And I don't think thats okay.
Edit-
I feel I ought to just clarify, I am NOT saying I don't want evil English guys in movies. I am saying I want to see a mix of English characters who are not all painful stereotypes and evil bastards.
I am asking for a variety, rather than being Hollywood's whipping boy.
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Harkovast- the forum
How golta see themselves
You claimed that it was the fact that they were characters that were British and evil. So we should add to that the mere fact of an actor sounding British. I agree with you about making British people out to be evil, but I have some issues with this.
So, if there was no Alec Guinness playing Obi Wan, Peter Cushing, an amazing horror actor, should not have been allowed to play Grand Moff Tarkin? Or he should have forced to speak with a different accent? I think that would be more discriminatory against British people! The bad guys cannot have any accent, they have the accent of their actor, or it sounds stupid. Could you imagine Valkyrie with Tom Cruise running about speaking in a fake German accent? It would be (more) terrible! Sure, choosing an actor, voice or otherwise, to be a bad guy simply because of the accent/being British, is stupid (unless it makes logical sense for the villain to be British). Remember, Alan Rickman played a German while still sounding as he did and you said it was fine.
Second, there are probably hundreds of different British accents.
And an overly simplified and exaggerated example only really works if the reality of the matter is oversimplified and exaggerated. While there is a trend in US cinema that villanizes British people, this I am NOT denying, but I am not certain that the villanization goes quite that far.
Pocahontas is a case in point. Ratcliffe waves a British flag once. It is made clear that the British court hates his guts and he is obviously in it more for himself than Britain, far from patriotic. British colonialism was bad, no doubt about that. If colonialism is part of being British, then I don't like that part of being British. That is the message of the movie, intolerance and greed are bad. And what is that about deflecting imperialism from the Americans? Are you serious? Jamestown was founded by the British, an American identity would not be in the making for 100 years. The movie never had a chance to address American imperialism because there was nothing remotely in the subject matter about it! Furthermore, far from making the Powhatans tree hugging peace loving hippies, they end up just as intolerant as everyone else (minus Ratcliffe, who doesn't care so long as he gets gold). Making the victims of British imperialism just as bad as the British sounds very anti-British indeed.
They are not always just picking the best actor for the best role, obviously, but they sometimes are.
British get portrayed as bad guys more than everyone else? Yes, but I don't think to the extent you believe. Nor do I see some kind of vast conspiracy with people consciously deciding to pick on the British. There are individual cases, and there may be a subconscious trend, but a full fledged conspiracy? I don't think so, I could be wrong though. But there are also cases where having British as bad guys doesn't make it racist.
1) Fantasy/Sci-fi where there are no nations like England, USA, etc. This is okay for me because, unless the allegory is incredibly blunt (and accents don't count here for me), the characters are not British. Bad guys could be whomever
2) The subject matter involves something where the Bad Guy(s) should be British. Having an American bad guy in a movie about the evils of British imperialism makes no sense. Nor is it always necessary in these situations to have a token good British character. Why? Because I hate token characters when they are forced on a situation that it makes no sense to have them in. I like when groups of people are not shown as good or evil, so having variety appeals to me, but simply tossing a token character in there? No thanks. Sometimes realism demands lack of token characters.
3) The British guy simply is the best man for the job. This is particularly the case when it doesn't matter which nationality is picked. This can sometime extend to a specific nationality. This could mean that when it is generally important to have a group of people look like the main actor/protagonist/villain I have no problem with them casting all the people from one group as, say, Indian or English (so long as stereotypes are not the motivating factor, nor are played up to in the film).
I keep coming back to this point, so I will make it again.
Taken in isolation, having the bad guy in a movie be British or payed by a British actor is not bad, any more then having the bad guy come from any other part of the world is bad. The bad guy has to come from somewhere.
It only becomes bad when it becomes part of a trend, where an English accent is short hand for evil, which is the situation we are in today.
On a side note, Alan RIckman did do a German accent…perhaps not a very good one but he was doing one.
I'm surprised to see you defending Pocohontus so strongly.
It was, after all, pretty shitty.
You seem to also dodge around my key point.
The bad British guy sounds British, harks on about Britishness and waves a British flag while doing evil.
The good British guy never waves a flag or expresses a love for Britain…and sounds American.
If you cant see why this situation might come across as offensive, I don't really know where I can go with this conversation.
Saying "The bad guy was not really patriotic" is never implied in the movie. He was greedy and evil but this was never shown to conflict with his patriotism, so that is you adding something in that the movie never expresses. He is also really stereotypical, being posh, snooty, mincing and stuck up. The guy is a walking stereotype!
The movie actively down plays the Englishness of the hero to the point where if you didn't know you would think he was American (as that is how he sounds.)
So negative stereotype man who waves the flag and sounds English and harks on about being English is the bad guy…and the hero has his Englishness down played to the point that he is actually American?
But seriously, why are you defending such a shitty movie?
Even Disney has disowned that one (you never see Poco amongst the line up of Disney princesses, cause they like to pretend this one doesn't exist!)
Let me address your numbered points-
1) If the situation is fantastical but you make everyone bad sound a certain way and everyone good sounds another way then you are sending a message whether you mean to or not. This is especially bad if you do it so that two characters within the same culture have different accents to denote which of them is good and which is evil.
These leads on to point two.
2) There are plenty of examples in history where British people were in the wrong, but saying that you don't want the "token" good English guy? I would not call that token. I would call that making the film more realistic and more credible.
Despite what Mel Gibson believes, the English are not and never have been universally evil, any more than they have been universally good or universally anything else.
Showing a mix of characters from each side seems a pretty reasonable thing to expect from a movie, rather then giving a dumbed down and overly simplified version of events.
If you are going ot do that, you might as well not make it historical and replace the two sides with elves and orcs. Then you can make it as cartoonishly one sided as you want.
3) Yes, if the English guy is perfect for the role then that makes sense. But I think its stretching credibility to say that every film the British guy just happened to be the best guy for that part.
I will go back to the example of the black guy dieing first in movies.
Having a black guy die in a film is not offensive. It may well have just fitted the story for that guy to die and the actor happened to be black. It only becomes bad when it becomes a trend in movies, where movie after movie repeats this pattern till it becomes predictable.
No one would want to put a blanket ban on any black character dieing, and I don't want a blanket ban on any English guy being evil, I just want to be on the same level of evil as everyone else. I don't like my culture , accent or nationality being used as short hand for evil.
Drawing on this example further, the people who write films where the black guy dies aren't going-
"Bwahah! Lets kill another black guy cause we are evil and racist!"
They are just going with subconcious stereotypes and lazy writing trends without thinking.
In the same way, I don't think American writers consciously want to have a go at England, they just do what other movies do without thinking about it. The bad guy gets made English because that just seems like the write accent for someone who is evil.
It is not a conspiracy, but that doesn't make it okay.
Now obviously it stands out way more to me than it does to people from other parts of the world, but I think everyone here would acknowledge that it is a trend.
I would just like people who make movies to be aware that this kind of thing sends out a negative message.
I don't see the English accent as shorthand for evil. Though I do conceed that the more stereotypical upper class accent has become a shorthand for… upper class arrogance.
Did Alan Rickman really do a German accent? I couldn't tell.
Sounds British does he? Ratcliff is played by David Ogden Stiers, an American from Illinois, who also voiced Ratcliff's assistant. I had assumed that he was voiced by a British Actor and so sounded British when you said he sounded British. I don't think he actually sounds British now after listening to his singing. I'm pretty sure that he wasn't doing some kind of funny accent. Here's the guy singing elsewhere, and it sounds similar to the Ratcliff role: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZlgUvk-wj0
Stiers also did the voice of the archdeacon in Disney's version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and several more. Just Wikipedia the guy. He isn't British and I don't really recognize his accent as such.
So I don't think he sounds British, certainly not in the same way that someone like Rowan Atkinson or Hugh Laurie does. I don't know my accents well, but I'd say he sounds some kind of American.
When does Ratcliff hark on about Britishness? He gives some kind of inspiring speech at the beginning then turns around and says to himself that he doesn't actually care so long as they dig up his gold. He's a greedy bastard, and it is made clear that everyone at the British Court hates his guts, except maybe the king… and the king is Scottish. I doubt that he qualifies as the ideal example of Britishness, even in the movie, as its made pretty obvious. As I said earlier, he obviously doesn't give two hoots about Britain or her ideals, as he is only interested in himself. He is not Patriotic. He waves the flag around when he claims land for Britain, while all the while more interested in making himself rich. This is an act of Colonialism, and tying that to the British flag makes a good deal of sense to me. Regardless, Ratcliff is shown as using everything to his own advantage to get gold.
It is true that Ratcliff is posh, snooty, mincing and stuck up though. And the Character is British. But how could it be otherwise? They couldn't have made Ratcliff Indian, despite the liberty taken with historical fact in the movie that would be going too far. He had to be British. But couldn't that be more of an attack on his class than his nationality? Ratcliff is the only wealthy (relatively) aristocrat (as he seems to be, but may not be) there.
Smith does seem the stereotypical American prototype though.
And there are also those two bumbling Scotsmen (which I gather due to one having red hair and both having the, er, accent… plus it kinda makes sense). But someone has to be the comic relief.
Again, I think you are overplaying the extent to which Ratcliff's Englishness is played up.
I kinda liked Pocahontas, in a weird twisted way.
But, Why is Pocahontas not a Disney Princess? Because she isn't. She is a historical figure. Disney couldn't have gotten away with it. Same with Esmerelda in the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Fairy tales are one thing, trademarked characters and people who actually lived (and have prominent descendants, Woodrow Wilson thought he was descended from Pocahontas) are an entirely different story. Disney got to make the movie and that is all.
1) Yes, I actually said that. So long as the analogy is not insanely obvious, as making the people from the same culture divided between a bad guy and good guy based on obvious accents would be. And doing that for the sake of that accent division is a no-no of course.
2) Sometimes its a good thing to have characters like that, it adds realism and make things better. In that case it is fine. But just tossing a token character in for the sake of it or to appease an audience? No thank you. If they aren't required they are a token character. There are some situations where a mix of characters simply cannot be expected.
3) Oh, of course it wasn't always the case, I'm just saying if the guy is perfect, then hire him!
Okay, so long as there isn't some kind of vast conspiracy against British people in the works. Talk of conspiracies worry me. Sometimes they are right, most times… no. And if it is often more subconscious than not, we can't attack individuals for it, we have to expose and attack the trend. Make people think: "Does it really make sense to have such and such happen? Why or why not?"
Still, I am not entirely sold on the accent thing.
I go by what the character is supposed to be, rather than the actor.
If they got the American playing Ratcliff to fake an accent…why didn't they get mel to do one?
Seems a bit contradictory.
If you kept pochontus the same but made John Smith sound English, that would pretty much fix it in terms of insulting the English, as then we would have a good example of Britishness and a bad example (which obviously no one could be offended by) rather than the overtly british villain and the anachronistically american sounding John Smith.
We need to be careful of conspiracies, they could distract us from the truth that the US government was behind 9/11!
They killed Osama Bin Laden! That proves it!
They killed him to keep him quiet so he cant reveal the truth!
Those bastards are cunning!
If they got the actor to do a fake accent that is stupid and proves your point.
But I don't think it was a fake accent. I think it was actually the actor's regular accent. That is what he sounds like. If everyone was simply talking normally, your whole point about the accents kinda disappears. I linked to the guy singing a non-Pocahontas related song and he sounds pretty similar.
And Smith does talk about how great London is. Only for a bit before he insults Pocahontas by suggesting the British were better than the Powhatans because he thought they were savages and the English were civilized. That seems even worse, kinda, except that is what most English people would have thought at the time.
Wait, the Ratcliff guy must have been doing an accent, cause he sounds English and you said he was American.
The funniest thing in that movie is the moral at the end that implies they are going to all live in peace now, when we all know the white men are going to totally kill them all and steal their land.
Nope. Youtube the guy. There is one where he sings a non-Pocahontas related song. Sounds pretty darn similar. I'm pretty sure he was using his regular voice. Maybe they chose him because he sounded English? But just hearing him does not scream English to me, even in Pocahontas. I dunno. I provided a link to youtube that has him singing in a non-Disney thing a little while back.
And, well, if he does an English accent… it sounds quite good! Most attempts at an accent turn into pathetic mockeries of the actual accent. I would think that would be picked up rather quickly, so I'm leaning to him not doing a forced English accent.
Yeah, things didn't end well for the Powhatans. Can we say 1622? Yes we can… it just kinda deteriorates from there on out. By 1646 the Powhatans had no power left. Oh, and in reality Pocahontas was kinda sorta kidnapped… Eventually, and then she married John Rolfe, had a kid, went to England, and died.
Oh and that whole saving John Smith? Sorta happened, but not really. It was probably a staged adoption ceremony that Smith misinterpreted. It also would have put Smith as a subordinate kind of vassal to Wahunsunacawh. Ah, culture clashes, I love them to death.
I saw the Lion King as Disney's best for a long time. But thinking back, I think it was possibly the Hunchback of Notre Dame… if you dropped the stupid talking gargoyles… actually, drop everything and keep Tony Jay as Frollo. Dear gods, I think he was the best Disney villain I have ever seen.
I didn't hear much good about The Princess and the Frog, but I did like the bad guy's song. Haven't seen it though, so it's on my to watch list.
Loved Tangled. Great film. Can't recall the accent of the evil lady… Just kidding, kidding…
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