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Hollywood "Southern" accents

So, The Legend of Bagger Vance is on TV and I'm marveling at Matt Damon's terrible Southern accent. Do actors really think that people sound like that in the South? I'm suddenly reminded of all the other horribly fake "Atlanta by way of Hollywood" accents of recent years. Here are my picks:

Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear
Harvey Keitel in Thelma and Louise
Jude Law in Cold Mountain
Christian Bale in Public Enemies
Tom Hanks in Ladykillers
George Clooney in O Brother Where art Thou
Val Kilmer in Tombstone
Nicolas Cage in Con Air
Kevin Spacey in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Dan Akroyd in Driving Miss Daisy


Did I miss any?
 
Well terrible fake accents period aren't all that unusual. Case in point, Sean Connery in anything. Irish-American in thein The Untouchables? Spanish in Highlander? Russian in The Hunt for Red October? Nope, all sounds Scottish to me.

Where were we? Oh yes, bad fake Southern accents! Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line and Sweet Home Alabama. I may be a Michigander born and raised, but I've known enough Southerns to know a bad Southern accent when I here it.
 

garyg

B&B membership has its percs
There's only 1 Southern accent? I have heard at least 4 or 5 different ones & never lived south of the Ahia River, actually
 

Legion

Staff member
Quite liked Val Kilmer in Tombstone. "Ah have not yet begun to defile mahself" :biggrin:

You want to hear accents that really hurt your ears? Try being Australian and watching Hollywood actors play Aussies. "A dingo stole my baybee!" :tongue_sm
 
So, The Legend of Bagger Vance is on TV and I'm marveling at Matt Damon's terrible Southern accent. Do actors really think that people sound like that in the South? I'm suddenly reminded of all the other horribly fake "Atlanta by way of Hollywood" accents of recent years. Here are my picks:

Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear
Harvey Keitel in Thelma and Louise
Jude Law in Cold Mountain
Christian Bale in Public Enemies
Tom Hanks in Ladykillers
George Clooney in O Brother Where art Thou
Val Kilmer in Tombstone
Nicolas Cage in Con Air
Kevin Spacey in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Dan Akroyd in Driving Miss Daisy


Did I miss any?

Of those on your list, Nicolas Cage and Clooney were the worst. Kevin Spacey was certainly the most irritating.

But let's not forget the gals. Rene Zellweger's and Nicole Kidman's accents in Cold Mountain were horrible as well. And please don't respond with Rene is a Texan, that automatically disqualifies her accent. :biggrin:
 
Brad Pitt in Inglourios Basterds

Yeah, it was pretty lousy, but I think it was supposed to be lousy. :biggrin:


There's only 1 Southern accent? I have heard at least 4 or 5 different ones & never lived south of the Ahia River, actually

Of course not. There are many, many different types of Southern accent. This thread is about the fake ones.


So did Vivien Leigh do OK as Scarlett O'hara?

No, and neither did Clark Gable.
 

garyg

B&B membership has its percs
No sir, there are many!

I don't know why Hollywood cannot get any Southern accent right. But they cannot even come close.

Mebbe it is because it it Hollywood, run & populated by the less than, shall we say, gifted? But most watch it anyway
 
There are numerous examples of poor accents of all types in movies. Tom Cruise didn't even attempt a German accent in ”Valkyrie".
 
Don't forget the fake Southern accents from Southerners themselves. I went to college with several guys who, although they were local, decided to put on a much more aristocratic Southern accent and walk with their noses a little higher in the air. (They tended to be in student government and frats.)

I noticed that after a couple of weeks in Charleston, I took on a slight "Charlestonese" that could have been considered manufactured, I suppose. It went away when I came back upstate.
 
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Well, they do the best that they can. The only people who will pass the regional accent test will be natives, anyway.

As a Minnesotan, "Fargo" is a deliciously painful movie to watch. They did capture the regional lingo and lilt pretty well, but they pushed it WAY over the top.

Don
 
So, The Legend of Bagger Vance is on TV and I'm marveling at Matt Damon's terrible Southern accent. Do actors really think that people sound like that in the South? I'm suddenly reminded of all the other horribly fake "Atlanta by way of Hollywood" accents of recent years. Here are my picks:

Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear
Harvey Keitel in Thelma and Louise
Jude Law in Cold Mountain
Christian Bale in Public Enemies
Tom Hanks in Ladykillers
George Clooney in O Brother Where art Thou
Val Kilmer in Tombstone
Nicolas Cage in Con Air
Kevin Spacey in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Dan Akroyd in Driving Miss Daisy


Did I miss any?

Yep. The little girl in "Gods and Generals". She was cute, but that accent makes me want to punch kittens.
 
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