CSI:NY "Sanguine Love"

[fiat_knox]

I'm just watching the CSI:NY vampire episode.

Oh, boy.

I have a question to my fellow Brits. What's up with the casting of Brits as the villains by Yanks?

I mean, I'm all up for it. I'd love the idea of walking up to some passing American tourists and going "Hi. I'm a Brit," and watch them all scatter to the four winds screaming and peeing themselves in raw, naked fear ... but then where'd be the fun in that?

Also, the vampire stuff is making me cringe just watching it. It's like watching Tom Hanks' Mazes & Monsters for the very first time. They even had the obligatory scene where two of the series stalwarts stand around looking confused. "What happened to playing stickball?" one of them goes.

Seriously."H'mm, what shall we do today. Play stickball, or exsanguinate some pretty blonde? Stickball ... exsanguination ... oh, decisions, decisions ... there's only one way to find out which is better ..."

Comments

[jagash.livejournal.com]

The accents typically sound much more ... refined and educated to north American ears.

[fiat-knox.livejournal.com]

Believe me, nobody speaks with that accent over here. :)

Actually...

[wolf-heart9.livejournal.com]

If you were to come here and speak to people, no one would run. Most Americans I know of are drawn to people with European and some Asian accents. Really drawn. They'll want to hear you speak more. No villainy there. It's just a movie issue, and you Brits aren't alone in that typecasting. Russians, Germans and other Eastern Europeans are also generally villains, as are Japanese and now, of course, anyone of Middle Eastern descent. Americans are nationalistic and paranoid where their cinema is concerned, but they can't resist the lure of a sexy accent.

Mazes and Monsters is a great movie. I love it. I haven't seen it in yonks though. But I've known people who game who get that into their characters. One friend gets so upset if her characters die that she cries and is inconsolable for days.

Re: Actually...

[fiat-knox.livejournal.com]

LOL "Blackleaf NOOOO"! XD

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

I'd love the idea of walking up to some passing American tourists and going "Hi. I'm a Brit," and watch them all scatter to the four winds screaming and peeing themselves in raw, naked fear
ha you wish.

Notice that the Brits cast as bad guys in American media pretty much always have these plummy, aristocratic accents. It's because we're associating evil with the aristocracy, not with a specific country. (The other theory about this is because we think upper-class British accents sound gay without being overtly homosexual; cartoony, over-the-top villains have a long history of being coded as queer.)

[lyny-wolf.livejournal.com]

If you think that's bad, you should see the CSI Las Vegas furry episode. >.

[fiat-knox.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've seen it. All those mundanes standing around looking as culture shocked as the characters they portrayed - it would have been hilarious, had it not been so cringeworthy. And sad.