I was sitting watching Trainspotting earlier and this thought just came to me, and I thought, why not share it with the internet! What else would a teen blogger do?
This won’t be a very long post I hope. It’s as the title suggests, concerns accents, particularly Scottish ones in cinema.
With personal experience of people trying to understand my accent when I’ve gone on holiday can be a very frustrating time. The blank looks and constant asking of what can get grating. So, it got me thinking how we are perceived in cinema. As I mentioned above, Trainspotting is obviously set in Edinburgh, and the characters obviously have very strong accents. I recently learned that the first whole 20 minutes of it had to be re-dubbed for American audiences. The use of subtitles were apparently ruled out as it would be obviously spoiled by the use of it in the disco scene.
One of the worst accent offenders however, is Christopher Lambert in Highlander:
Seriously? I mean, I know Lambert is from France… but come on. He had Sean Connery RIGHT THERE. To be fair, Sean’s accent is quite odd as well, there is still no excuse as to why Lambert’s accent is that bad. The same I feel goes for Mel Gibson in Bravheart. I do wonder if they have ever heard a proper Scottish accent before filming.
I have rarely seen an actor be able to present an accent that is even remotely close to anything that sounds Scottish. And it is odd to think that Scottish actors can do other accents better (of course this isn’t the case for everyone, as there are some pretty dire ones out there too). It is fair to say that there is a serious problem when it comes to hearing our accents on the big screen. I know I cringe every time I hear a non-Scot attempt it!
I managed to find what I think is a pretty accurate video that I think all of the bad accent offenders should watch to teach them a thing or two about how to get over their bad accents!
Marr Media 