Tuesday 17 November 2009

Racism In TV-Land..?

**This is just a bit of fun but perhaps there might be a grain of truth somewhere here?**

Really loving Flashforward on Five, screening only a few days behind the US premier but am I the only one concerned by blatant anti British undertones?

Joseph Fiennes is an excellent British actor in the lead role as our "everyday" FBI agent, thrown into the drama and trying to solve the riddle of the Flashforward. Only trouble is Fiennes tries to put on a ridiculous American accent and in my view fails spectacularly.

Opposite him (perhaps in more ways than one, we'll see) is Jack Davenport another Brit. However, he plays a bad guy or at least a shady character who has more than a passing involvement in the cause of the future visions. Guess what? Jack gets to use his native English accent.

Has 'British' become something of a dirty word in US TV-land? Will those of us from The Old Country forever be portrayed as suspicious and as a nation not to be trusted? LOL


A much younger looking Jack Davenport with the cast of Steven "Dr Who" Moffat's BBC comedy series Coupling.





Consider this. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, although using something like his natural speaking voice renown actor Patrick Stewart had to play the role of a Frenchman! The heroic Tracey brothers in Jerry Anderson's Thunderbirds were all American and the bad guys were definitely non American. Even though this was a British production it was playing with an eye to an American audience and had to conform to the set standard.

And while we're about it, how often are the British "sports stars" portrayed in an unfavourable light, as untrustworthy monarchy loving cads on the WWE and similar? LOL

Now don't even get me started on The Fantastic Mr Fox, where all the heroes have American accents and take part in American pastimes (like baseball), while the naughty people are... you've guessed it... LOL

2 comments:

Oranjepan said...

Isn't it the old 'bad guy' syndrome (ie who you feel most threatened by is who you cast in that role)?

Best example is all the Bond films - euro-villains everywhere!

Ceramix said...

Hmmm... never really thought about it in those terms.

I always thought we British were too frightfully polite to be threatening: "I say would you mind awfully waiting while I hatch my diabolical plan?" LOL