Thursday, July 24, 2008

Ta-dah! (and a question)

That's it. I did it. I was incredibly nervous but I acquitted myself respectably and satisfied my committee's expectations. Now all that is left is BS paperwork (getting page numbers in the proper corners on text AND tables, a new abstract (summary type thing) since I combined my two chapters into one big paper, nothing major or stressful.

And then I came home and had a nap and watched a cute movie. Which brings me to my question...

Why would you cast an actor with an accent if you didn't want his accent? I know, it's acting, but this was just a cute romantic comedy and it made NO difference that the lead had an American accent rather than Scottish, that the dad had an American accent instead of English, that two random minor characters were American instead of their natural some-kind-of-Cockney-ish state. It was totally irrelevant to the plot and I think they did it with at least five characters. AND they still had characters with accents, so it wasn't like everyone had an American accent. Seriously, can anyone tell me why they would take the time to do something like that? It really bugged me.

Although, points for sticking in a bunch of minor characters just to be kooky and British. Lenny Henry is awesome and whoever this crazy Russell Brand guy is, he's totally growing on me (very Captain Jack Sparrow).

6 comments:

Alana in Canada said...

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Balloons, hugs, spiked coffee, the works! Hooray!

About the accents--I'm not sure I followed all that, but maybe they didn't have the money for an accent coach?

Does this mean we have to call you Master, now? ;)

drwende said...

Congratulations!

Do the page numbering while you're still moderately excited, as meeting the exact standards for the library thesis copy is a b*i*t*c*h.

Lord Peter Wimsey always uses the Latin "domina," a term of academic endearment I think we should start agitating for broader use of. It has a ring that "Ms." just plain lacks.

Alana in Canada said...

We just finished watching "Rome" Season 1 and 2 (from the library, of course) a few weeks ago. Love the "Domina" idea--there were some great ones in that!

(And it was a shock to realise McBride was Irish--what a thick brogue! Not a trace of it while he was acting, though, of course!)

Mella DP said...

yes, Congrats! Celebrate!

And re: the movie - since the aesthetic of film is (basically) realism, when the director pulls something like that it just confuses and distracts the audience. I'm sure it's the topic of some great cultural dialog within the film community.

I recently read something Graham Greene wrote about The Third Man - in the original screenplay and source material, all the central characters were British, but when they cast Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles, they changed those parts to American. I'm sure Orson Welles could have passed as Mongolian if he'd needed to, but I guess that's how they did things then - though, of course, the Russian characters in the same film weren't played by actual Russians.

And yes, Lenny Henry is *fabulous*.

Anne At Large said...

Ha, I was thinking about making Matt call me Mistress, but Domina is even more entertaining...

I like the idea of balloons and spiked coffee, thanks!

And Mella, the film was Penelope with Christina Ricci - realism was hardly relevant. The villains were a midget with an eyepatch and an upper-crust blue-blood with a British accent. I am now starting to wonder if they just wanted the "foreign" association to be only for bad guys and minor characters. But I still don't understand why they let half of the minor British characters be British and made the other half faux-American.

But other than that, the movie was adorable. Not a hip ironic fairy tale in the least. Just a fairy tale. And an excellent one, at that.

lsaspacey said...

Of course you now have to tell me which movie this is, please? It's killing me.

I'll wait till you get back but please let me know!