Well, yes, of course it is. We shouldn’t judge someone simply on the basis of the way they speak. In any event, we cauliflower-eared Americans can’t tell the difference between an English, Irish, Scottish, Australian, or even South African accent in the first place, so we are, in all likelihood, often “rejecting” people who hate English accents even more than we do. And yet.
And yet! We are, in the final, in the deepest analysis, driven to this ignorant, vicious and unprincipled bias by forces entirely beyond our control—the unplanned confluence of a series of box-office behemoths, viz, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter, plus, I guess (with the greatest possible reluctance), the entirely unfortunate and regrettable recrudescence of American interest in the British “royal” family, engineered very largely by the entirely regrettable not to say lamentable Diana Spencer1—whereby an “English” accent is associated with “class”.2
Once the ball started rolling, it rolled with ever doubled and redoubled force, thanks in significant part to such small screen horrors like Game of Thrones and, of course, Downton Abbey, but it’s also spread, like a corrupting mold, into a new genres, like the musclebound Marvel Comics “Thor” series, where the Norse gods are transformed into 18th century county families.3 And, naturally, ads for anything “posh” these days gets a Mayfair voiceover.4 Doesn’t anyone talk American these days?
The result, of course, has been a boon for anyone who talk British. And they come here in droves! And people buy it! And I find myself, entirely unwilling and blameless, infected with a most disagreeable and irrational prejudice!
Afterwords
I have gone on record ridiculing The Lord of the Rings in “Queer for the Rings: Frodo and Sam Find Fellowship”, while expressing enthusiasm for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban5 in “Harry Potter and the Valley of the Mysterious Female”, which proved in retrospect to be easily the best of the Harry films. I’ve bashed Downton Abbey with vindictive pleasure on two occasions.
As you might have gathered, I really hate the British royal family, or rather the cult around them, pummeling Netflix’s execrable The Crown on two occasions, while praising the BBC’s putdown of the current crowd, “The Windsors”.
- I believe I have gone on record several times as saying that the orgiastic display of self-indulgent “grief” following poor Diana’s death made me ashamed of being a member of the human race. We can do better, people. ↩︎
- In the original Star Wars trilogy, it was Alec Guinness (“Sir Alec) alone who raised the banner of implicit snobbery, “interesting” because, 25 years before, Guinness established himself (usually) as a James Thurberish “little man” in films like The Lavender Hill Mob, rather than a “gentleman”. ↩︎
- Thanks to Lord of the Rings, virtually any “fantasy” gets transformed into something vaguely resembling someone’s idea of medieval Britain. Since I can’t stand fantasy and can’t stand British accents, my enthusiasm for this shit approaches zero. ↩︎
- According to Wikipedia, although Mayfair is now “one of the most expensive districts in London and the world,” such was not always the case. Back in the eighteenth century, the area was known, appropriately enough, for an annual “May Fair”, which most unfortunately “attracted an unpleasant, downmarket element and gradually became a public nuisance.” Drat those downmarket types! They ruin everything! ↩︎
- Word can spell “Azkaban”, which of course not a real place. All hail the power of Potter. ↩︎
