Evil British in Hollywood

What about Star Trek? In the Second Generation, the lead was a well known British actor, with a lovely British accent, well known for a series of classical roles. He was cast as a Frenchman. Why?

Many British actors had various roles in the later Star Trek series but the only "British character" in the whole franchise was Malcolm in Star Trek (Enterprise).
 
It's not something I get angry about... more interested/amused. Like the examples people have given where an English family has various accents, it'd be like you watching an English film with a family of Americans who supposedly grew up together, but one sounRAB Texan, another is from Beverly Hills and maybe a New Yorker thrown in too.

I can understand most British accents, but sometimes struggle with some strong Scottish or the fast, high pitched Northern English ones.

My accent is more like Hugh Grant, but a bit more 'normal' and without the bumbling.
 
argument based on selective evidence is as weak as yours. i'm surprised he gets a column in that rag. using the old examples that get repeated so much because frankly there aren't that many examples to use. if hollywood did portray brits as evil as much as claimed, the same handfull of films wouldn't have to be used over and over by the folks claiming such nonsense. yet here it is again, the same few films always brought up as examples:P all that column is doing is perpetrating the myth of brits being hollywood baddies. basically some people are touchy, and they only care about their group so they only remember when their group is mentioned, everything else is conveniently forgotten. its why some folks can watch a dozen films with american baddies in it then one more with a brit baddie and then turn around and claim hollywood is all brit baddies.





you are making my point. you have to reach back to 1997 for your example where as i rattled off a bunch of films with american baddies just from the last year. you are simply showing that you only want to see what you want to. the list of american baddies in films is as long if not longer than that of brits. just from this years sampling alone your view of the world doesn't hold up.
 
So what? I'm from Seattle area, yet I've had people here in the UK think I was Scottish or Northern Irish. Then, usually when I tell them I'm from Washington State in the U.S. they think I'm referring to DC, having no clue that the state of Washington even exists.
 
Disagree. Most British people can at least tell the difference between the 'strong' regional US accents. Notably Southern accents, Noo Yawk or Noo Joysey, Bostonian, 'Valley Girl' Californian. Even British people who have never been to the US can tell an Alabaman redneck from a Noo Joysey wiseguy...
 
I am a big fan of Frasier and they had one nice, attractive British character so they made sure the rest of her family were rotten to the core !
 
even the arab claims are questionable. for a while there the go to bad guys were white south africans;) and well even germans, hans gruber from die hard was supposed to be a german terrorist. die hard 2 = american mercenaries, die hard 3 = german die hard 4 = american. lethal weapon 1=american, lethal weapon 2= south african, lethal weapon 3=american, lethal weapon 4=chinese

so basically some people with an axe to grind only remember what they choose to remember. their memories of course have no bearing on reality.
 
East Coasters sound like Marge Simpson.
West Coasters sound like Homer.
Southerners sound like Dolly Parton (or T-Bag in Prison break)
That's me done!!!:cool:
 
When I was at drama school we had a talk by an actor (not a very well known one) who talked about why Hollywood casts a lot of British actors as villains. His assessment was down to the kind of performance they wanted. A lot of villains require a theatrical performance that many producers/directors feel they will get from a British stage actor.

When you think about it, does it matter? If a British actor is getting high profile work and getting paid for it then its great. There are so many out of work British actors, I don't think we should complain that they are getting cast as villains in Hollywood movies. After all, the villains are usually the best characters to play.

If you look at a lot of major US TV shows these days the primary characters are played by British (or Australian) actors and these roles are not just villains but heroes too. I asked an American friend of mine who used to work in US TV why so many Brits are cast as leaRAB these days and he said its because they are deemed to be better actors, more loyal and more likely to stick with a show because they are not getting the same attention or longevity in the UK.
 
Calm down, Dear, they're just movies. ;) And maybe you need to watch some more films because there are PLENTY of Americans portrayed as baddies, as well as Germans, Middle Eastern Folks, etc... Methinks you are being way too sensitive.
 
well we can tell.
but it seems the differences in accent in the uk are more down to a tribalism and class system. americans moved around far more so accents are not as extreme. i know brits like to complain about american flag waving, but they don't seem to realize they have their own counterpart in tribalism.
 
if you exaggerate the numbers it doesn't lead anywhere good. you listed cherry picked films from over a decade, doing that you can make a case for anything. i'm not sure how you don't under stand that yet. as i said, its amazing how you simply don't even want to consider any other films that came out those years. never mind recent films. just how many british villians were in comic book/hero films and action films recently. i rattled off the big ones, and most were AMERICAN. if reality doesn't match your argument you have to fold. the lengthy list of all inclusive films doesnt support your view. if you choose to believe regardless of reality that comes from something deeper like an anti american bias.



to make in interesting i guess. star trek is very hippy ... you know..they have no money in the future either:P americans don't like the french much so it wasn't a bonus.
 
As an American in the UK i probably have a unique viewpoint on this subject. Apart from the fact that some posters including at least one who has responded to this are known to have a dislike for Americans there are a number of silly reasons for this trend in movies.

I think that two principle reasons are that the British are one of the few nations that don't generally get huffy and offended to be portrayed as villains in movies.

If an arab nation were portrayed as the bad guys it would be seen as something bad on a wider scale. Back in the cold war days it was nearly always the Soviets who were the villains.

The other reason is that so many fine actors are British. Think of the likes of Sir Anthony Hopkins, Charles Dance, Alan Rickman, Jeremy Irons, Joss Ackland and many others over the years. These are quality actors and they make the bad guy in a movie just ooze menace.

By the way, in Spooks the CIA are often made to be the bad guys up against MI5. What's the difference?
 
I love the idea that English actors are used a lot as villains...simply because it appeals to my inner meglomaniac and makes me feel a bit better when we're probably thought of as posh snobs/ superior idiots to the rest of the world. :o

Then again, I have no idea how the rest of the world see us...but if it's as a race of evil criminal masterminRAB, then we're halfway to world domination simply due to the threat of unleashing us all! :eek: :D
 
It's worth all the anti British sentiment just to see Alan Rickman mercilessly chewing the scenery....

Hans Gruber: Nice suit. John Phillips, London. I have two myself. Rumor has it Arafat buys his there.

(incorrect spelling of "rumor" courtesy of imdb.com")
 
I was trying to think of the last US made film where the main and heroic character was British (especially English ) take away Bond and I can't think of one at all :mad:
 
To be fair, accents don't equal intelligence levels, IMO. And it's well known that some of the royal family haven't exactly been blessed in the brains department, for example, :D. Anyway, apart from maybe Liverpool and Newcastle accents, most other English accents probably do sound similar to outsiders. Also, the English accent used by baddies in movies is probably used because it can sound cold.
 
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