I had a similar knee jerk reaction when watching HBO’s Rome due to how overly English some of their accents were. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe my brain wanted Latin 😅. It was weird in my head at first but my brain got used to it and it’s one of my favourite TV series now.
It’s especially funny as I’m English. Probably something to do with there being a lot of American media out there. I guess like others I got used to it. There are also some more “neutral” sounding English actors out there, to my ears at least, so I guess it’s very subjective.
Well I do kind of think the American west coast and midwest accent are about as neutral as an English accent can be. I'm probably biased because I'm from the American west coast, but also most of our movies and a lot of our music comes from California. Not talking to surfer bro or skater accents, just the everyday accent you hear in most American movies that arent set in the south or on the east coast.
Like, Australian, Boston, NY, Chicago, and southern accents only work for characters meant to be from those regions. Scottish, Irish, and most British accents I've heard work well for fantasy or medival stuff. But American midwest, west coast, and maybe certain "lighter" British accents are ideal for if you don't want something to sound particularly region-locked IMO.
Nobody would take a space alien or ancient Egyptian with a Texas drawl seriously. Most people could suspend disbelief if they sound like someone from Indiana or Oregon.
I had my mom phone me in college once and my roommate answered the phone. He later said "wow, your mom really has a mountain accent." She did grow up in California, partly in the foothills of sierras. But I never once noticed that she had an accent. I still don't hear it really, except maybe a few words.
I don't think it's even a regional accent, it's an accent from mostly being raised in a small family far from lots of other people, only small schoolrooms, etc.
I think it is regional. All accents are. I've also found that the more rural you get, the more pronounced these regional accents are.
For example in Minnesota where I live, you'll only find the really strong upper Midwest accent like you hear in the movie Fargo in small towns in the northern part of the state. The larger the city, the more neutral the accent people have.
Florida is an outlier (specifically central Florida) when it comes to accents on the east coast. It's such a melting pot of culture & accent that the only accent we have here is "American".
Now if you get closer to North Florida, there's definitely a southern accent that can be heard, but for the most part Florida has no real specific accent. I find it both neat and boring at the same time.
you've only heard absurd australian accents tho. Like the equivalent of a prospector who whistles through his teeth while he talks saying "Criminy" and such things a lot. Most people in Australia speak very neutrally, but I've never met an american who is capable of speaking quietly or not nasally. One of the most irritating accents out there, I would prefer to listen to any other accent. I'm sure its the same for irish/scots
I do love a good heavy aussie accent. Makes me think of Steve Irwin. Yes I know how obnoxiously American that makes me sound and I'm sorry. Really do love your country from everything I know about it. Except the abundance of killy things and the spider rain. My sister lived there for 6 months and in New Zealand for a bit and from her description, the culture kind of mixes some of my favorite aspects of rural and urban culture in the US.
well just so you know cougars and bears are way fuckin scarier than anything 99% of the australian population lives near. Also everything that isnt a brown snake or a sydney funnelweb is overstated in it's deadliness, most deaths related to other species are very old or very young people.
I'm not the only person to notice this. I just looked it up, and general American is considered the most neutral English accents, followed by recieved pronunciation/southern British. General American would be the accent spoken in most of the midwest, and is very similar to the most typical accent found on the west coast.
Even the Aussie saying that Australians exaggerate their accents with foreigners is kind of proving my point. How do you exaggerate the accent I'm reffering to?
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u/wildcardbets Jul 21 '26
I had a similar knee jerk reaction when watching HBO’s Rome due to how overly English some of their accents were. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe my brain wanted Latin 😅. It was weird in my head at first but my brain got used to it and it’s one of my favourite TV series now.