Dear Mr Spielberg,
(Can I call you Steven? I think I will)
First off, congratulations for securing the rights to the Wikileaks movie – internet-related movies are so in right now.
Forget an introverted computer geek getting billions but not the girl, wikileaks has it all. It’s a fascinating mix of idealism and anti-establishment anger followed by the inevitable government backlash you get when faced with the unthinkable: Highly effective hippies.
Say what you like about the good or bad of the wikileaks phenomena – it got press and lots of it by actually doing what they threatened.
From humble beginnings to super-stardom, as a conflicted young soldier allegedly leaked classified documents to an eccentric computer whiz of many hairdos. A man who guards his sources like a Swiss banker and yet promotes his holdings more widely than a Charlie Sheen tweet. Nowhere was this more clearly demonstrated as the hundreds of thousands of diplomatic and military cables that were released on the net and in conjuction with major newspapers.
But there is a delicate matter here to be handled. A movie about wikileaks is going to be fraught with controversy and debate. The good versus harm, the freedom of information versus the protection of state secrets and the lives that depend on them. This divide has seen ski-mask wearing protesters hurling themselves at police in Assange’s defence. Then on the other side have been virtually apoplectic politicians, unconsciously spitting with rage as they call on the death penalty for such espionage.
But I’m confident you’ll approach these issues well. You are no stranger to divisive subject matter such as Munich, but there is one thing that concerns me greatly about this potential movie. It’s something that no one else may pay attention to but has the potential to bring the whole thing down.
The accents.
In particular, the Australian accents.
It’s a movie largely about an Australian, his rebellious teen life in Australia and his subsequent travels around the world. I just want to make sure that this doesn’t degenerate into a Kath and Kim special.
But having invoked the cult of “lookatmoi” I have to admit, we Aussies deserve some of the blame for this. This is a stereotype that perhaps we haven’t fought as hard as we should, having even encouraged it in some instances.
Damn you Paul Hogan, you set us down a terrible path. Admittedly one we have been coasting on.
Hollywood has a patchy record in some areas, but nowhere is it worse than it’s treatment of the Australian accent. Why? What is it about our nasal twang that is so hard to replicate? Why do Americans say Australia! Then immediately produce something that sounds like an 18th Century English cockney that spent the last decade in South Africa?
With a concussion.
Bad accents are something that have always permeated movies. From the wildly racist (Mickey Rooney’s Japanese man in Breakfast At Tiffany’s), to the close but confusing (James Coburn Aussie in The Great Escape), then the times where they just didn’t try (Tony Curtis and his Arab character with the bronx accent: “yonda lies da castle of my fadda da Caliph”).
But my aussicentric view is fixed on our own accent and some of the major howlers. Infamous examples include the Simpsons Down Under episode. A show that caused such an outcry that after some reflection, caused Matt Groenig to publicly apologise. I don’t think the problem was that we were made fun of, lampooned or humiliated – it’s that they did it with so little accuracy! Australians do (or should) have a sense of humour about themselves. But if you’re going to mock us, then please do your research.
Bad Australian accents that litter American TV as well, but out of the pantheon available I’ll have to nominate Lost.
Yes, I watched Lost for as long as I could. I struggled with the plot to the best of my ability, then something popped in my brain and I found it hard to concentrate on whateverthehell when I had no sense of balance and my left eye filled with blood. I’ve heard other dedicated fans came away with much worse…
But what’s that I hear you cry? Am I abusing Emilie de Ravin? She was an Aussie actress wasn’t she? Yes she was and she did a good job. What bothered me were the other efforts at Australians. TV series don’t necessarily tape everything in order. Sometimes when they’re on a location shoot they get great swathes of footage for the series as a whole. What I noticed about Lost was every time they did an ‘exterior’ scene (with Sydney landmarks prominently featuring), they got real Australians to act. When they did ‘interior’ scenes (such as allegedly at Sydney Airport, but most likely an LA studio), suddenly we had a grating attempt at channelling Steve Irwin with a nasal infection. Sometimes we had the two clash in the same episode.
Then some smoke spoke to people or a primary school teacher turned out to be Hitler in disguise or something.
But I digress, I suppose I’m just confused that one of the best representations of an Australian accent by an American actor was done by Ron Perlman in ‘Enemy at the Gates.’
- Where he played a Russian.
But enough finger pointing at Hollywood, a few other things furthered this problem.
- We pander to it.
It’s true. From Kath and Kim to Croc Dundee to numerous advertising campaigns that crashed to earth, we’ve helped mould the easy-going, inarticulate image ourselves. You know it.
- There is no standard Aussie accent.
I’m not going to stand here and claim no one says ‘sheilas’ ‘strewth’ ‘bloke’ or ‘crikey’. Some of us always do. Some of us rarely do and others not at all. We’ve been wrestling with this since Federation and it’s not going to go away soon. The accent varies from state to state and territory to territory. Steven, you’ll never get it perfect but you can get a lot closer. Just remember we’ve never represented your President or senior leaders as sounding like Cletus The Slack-Jawed Yokel from The Simpsons.
In finishing just remember this about Julian Assange. Hero of free speech or post-modern terrorist, I leave to you.
But he isn’t Alf from Home and Away.
