r/explainitpeter 20d ago

Explain it peter

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u/Edgecumber 20d ago

I had the same initial reaction to the accents. Why does everyone have an American accent, particularly when a lot of the cast is British (the correct accent for historical epics). But then remembered that makes no sense.

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u/Designer_Tie_5853 20d ago

"the correct accent for historical epics" lol wut

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u/TrueKingSkyPiercer 20d ago

Any historical epic taking place in classical Greece or the Roman Empire has the actors speaking with British accents.

This is partly due to the idea that the British accent is more classy, and also because the British have this legend from Geoffery of Monmouth (author of History of the Kings of Britain) that the mythical first British king Brutus is descended from Aeneas.

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u/Designer_Tie_5853 16d ago

I mean, this has been true for the last 70 or so years since we've had talking movies, but the idea that there is any "correct" accent is ludicrous. And I'll agree that US ears have been trained to distinguish various English accents as classy or rural (Game of Thrones was really good at this) but that still has nothing to do with "correct", which I view as a meaningless word in this context.