I had a question...
I know they're all New Zealand-born actors in the show, but for some reason, it sounds like they're all - for the most part - putting on faux american accents to me.
Am I the only one? Maybe it's because I'm not used to the accent..
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The show doesn't really tell us where the premise takes place, I think they were trying to keep a neutral accent.
I get it up, I get it up in the dark, I make her feel I'm not a holy man
I think Sarah Major (Patsy), Jaimee (Cloe), Caleb Ross (Lex), Michael Wesley Smith (Jack) sounded most like NZ born actors, the others (as far as I remember) sounded pretty neutral.
KYRUMPTION!!!
All I remember is that they always had an "idear" instead of an "idea".
sharehahahahha me and my husband always get such a kick whenever we hear "Siver" and "Javar" hehehhe oh and everytime Lex says "Eeeeboneee" its the best!!!! I love kiwi accent now!!
~~Mugatu says..."I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS!!!"~~
After watching some behind-the-scenes interviews with castmembers whose accents are stronger there than on the actual show... I figure they were told to tone down those accents whenever possible. (But sometimes they just couldn't, like the "idear" example.) Probably out of a concern that it would be difficult to understand what they're saying (I admit, sometimes I had to struggle to catch everything Jack said) - and I bet the producers were hoping to appeal more to an international audience, maybe trying to create the illusion that it was an international cast? So we could better believe the virus/apocalypse affected the whole planet?
shareI think the problem with Jack wasn't his accent but his voice and manner of speaking. I dunno.
shareHe also had an insane lisp that (even in the later seasons) overpowered a lot of his speaking. I think I remember hearing in an interview somewhere that they asked him not to tone it down as much as the others because he was already hard to understand.
shareAlso the way that they said ADULTS was also a major sign.
As a kid I was confused on where the origins of the show took place but now it makes sense. I'm re-watching Season 1 right now and to me the pseudo-american accents I view are:
Best Pseudo-american accents:
- KC
- Zandra
- Trudy
- Amber
- Bray (Sometimes)
Strongest NZ Accents:
- Jack
- Lex
- Dal
- Patsy
- Chloe
The rest were neutral to me.
Further evidence of an American setting are the very American names: no one calls their children KC, Zandra, Trudy, Amber or Bray except in Hollywood or bad movies.
shareWell, Amber is pretty common in the US, I know a few of them myself.
shareI've known a couple Ambers and I've known one Trudy, I've never met a Zandra or a Bray. KC is just initials.
shareBray seems to be more common in Ireland, but mostly as a surname, Trudy used to be pretty common in Germany, as a nickname for Gertrude, but the name is a bit out of fashion nowadays (I heard it a few times when my grandparents talked about their friends). Zandra is extremely uncommon, might have been a take on Zandra Rhodes (even the hairstyle of the character is fitting).
I always found the name Tai-San a little offensive, kind of a cliché Asian girl name. And Dal is some sort of Indian or Pakistan food.
On TV Tropes it was suggested they'd gone through some American accent training and it was a deliberate choice to try and make the setting ambiguous. Not that it worked for me.
share