Okay, this is totally random, but it irritates me to no end.
Why is it that in almost every mainstream, France-based period film, the filmmakers always see fit to make the cast speak with British accents? Seriously, is there some explanation for this? Was there some point in entertainment history where a movie featuring French accents just did so badly that everyone thereafter decided to give French characters English accents? Is there something I'm missing?
I watched that movie Hugo the other week. I'm not a huge Scorcese fan, but I was interested in this particular flick because it seemed like he actually did something interesting with the visuals and the style of it. And indeed, it's a great movie on a technical level. But for the love of fuck, why does everyone have to sound English? For that matter, why is almost every actor in the movie English in origin? Even background characters with almost no speaking parts were cast with Brit actors, even though they could have had anyone in the same roles and the results would be the same, since their parts are completely visual. Hell, you've even got Chloe Grace Moretz in the movie -- an American actress -- faking an amazing English accent. Seriously, she doesn't a brilliant job of it for such a young girl. But if she's so good at faking an accent... why didn't they just have her fake a French one, and add at least some bit of authenticity to it? It makes no sense whatsoever to have an American actress play a French character while faking an English accent.
And that's not the only example. I have no interest in it since it's based on a shitty Broadway musical, but I was flipping through the channels and found the most recent version of Les Miserables the other day, and it was the same case exactly. It's awfully distracting to see a bunch of French revolutionaries standing off against soldiers while a little kid sings a song in front of them in the absolute Cockney-est Cockney accent he can possibly pull off. Of course, every single other cast member is trying their damnedest to sound anything other than French as well, with even Hugh Jackman fighting against his natural Aussie accent to sound like an aristocratic Brit.
In France.
During the French Revolution.
At a time when England and France had recently been fighting wars against each other, making the presence of these accents seem absolutely retarded.
And of course the list goes on. Practically any version of the Three Musketeers you find will be replete with British accents, as will any version of the Count of Monte Cristo. I absolutely love the early-2000s version of the latter, but that's always been a point of distraction for me.
And yeah, sure, if one were so concerned with "authenticity," then actually having them speak French would be the way to go. But I understand that foreign-language films don't fly so well in the mainstream, so I wouldn't expect that. However, in lieu of the language itself, why does everyone always avoid the accent?
And that brings me to the instance that bothers me the most: Assassin's Creed Unity.
The more I see of it, the more I'm coming around to it and wanting to get excited for it. It looks like a brilliant game. But why did they insist on giving everyone in the French Revolution a British accent? This is a series that already has a great reputation for maintaining some level of authenticity in its vocal performances. Aside from Altair, most people in the first game actually did have some kind of Middle Eastern accent, while obviously everyone in the Ezio games spoke with the proper accent depending on their characters; Italians sounded Italian, Spaniards sounded Spanish, Turks sound Turkish, etc. Hell, there are even French characters in Brotherhood who speak with the proper accents... so why was that not carried over to Unity? I mean, shit, there's even an inherent level of charm that comes from giving a character the accent of one of the Romantic Languages; Ezio himself wouldn't have been quite as compelling if Roger Craig Smith hadn't done such an amazing job with the Italian accent. To an American set of ears, an accent like that makes a character seem even more roguish, even more charismatic. So why skip that potential for this game? They've essentially stripped Arno of an aspect that could have made him one of the more popular protagonists in the series, alongside Ezio.
All things considered I'm sure I'll enjoy the game anyway, but the accents are going to be distracting as fuck. They make no sense. And ever since I realized that this is such a widespread thing, I just can't help the fact that it gets under my skin so bad.
It's even worse when you consider the fact that these games are primarily made in Canada, where French is the fucking national language right alongside English. There is no excuse after you think of it like that.
Seriously, what the eff.