Gaffer Tape said:

twooffour, your argument against dialects makes no sense to me. See, the thing is, EVERYBODY has a dialect of some sort. Even if you stuck everyone with the same "American" sound... guess what, that's still a dialect! The only people who refer to "American" as "no accent" are Americans! Everybody has to has to have some sort of speaking pattern. It's inevitable. And if you can accept that everyone in space can sound like an American, why can't you accept that they can sound like any other Earthly nationality? Why is it that space farers sounding like Americans is totally realistic, but space farers sounding Asian completely blows the suspension of disbelief? Either you can accept all of it, or you can't accept any of it, but it doesn't make any sense to criticize one and not the other because it's doing exactly the same thing either way: giving an Earth dialect to non-Earth people.

Then you probably haven't paid attention.

This has nothing to do with English being somehow more realistic than other languages. It's merely about USING THE AUDIENCE'S NATIVE LANGUAGE in order to facilitate a direct connection.
If the movie's in French, it'll obviously be in French - just so that people can understand everything that's going on without having to read subtitles, or stuff like that.

The native language mostly appears neutral to its native speaker, i.e. merely as "language". However, as soon as you start putting actual, foreign languages into it, they'll be immediately recognized as "ah, that one belongs to that ethnicity or nation", and suspension of disbelief is suddenly much more strained.
Worse, by having aliens identifiable as "Asian" or "Russian" or whatever, you immediately draw the viewer's attention to the fact that, well, our guys aren't just talking to each other, but they talk ENGLISH, and hence must be British or Americans. What had previously been an innocent adventure film with everyone talking in an understandable language, suddenly becomes some sort of cultural/political allegory.

I'd say this applies even more to foreign languages, and ACCENTS, than dialects. Dialects can still be easily perceived as "characterization" - southern drone for the down-to-earth hillbilly type, aristocratic BE for the fine cultured villain, King James' Olde Butcherede for the "ancient wizards from the ancient times, of wizardry".
But careful - the two "urban" robots in Transformers were just merely "dialecting" as well, and look where that got 'em.

However, as soon as you've got a sleazy French guy, he'll be a FRENCH, and directly perceived as such. The viewer will immediately start wondering whether this is some kind of allegory, satire, or maybe just the author's stereotypes played straight, and the glass house is immediately shattered.


So if you've ever wondered why everybody's complaining about the Neimoidians, but hardly anyone gets offended by Vader saying "thy bidding", the above might be the reason.

TV's Frink said:

timdiggerm said:

Come to think of it, maybe the (possible) racism of some of the accents in the PT isn't that they have certain accents - It's that the accents are played for humor?

Well then I'm really racist! ;-)

The fact that the VILLAINS are inept Asian caricatures, is the racist part.

Although, frankly, I do believe that using "racist" in application to these cartoon characters, is an insult to actual racism.
To pass for racism, these caricatures need to carry some sort of malicious undertones, and these inept toads are just way too innocent for that.

Caricature alone doesn't make racism, it only makes comedy (in the case of TPM, poor comedy).

Oh Boo Fucking Hoo, now you're offended at the "insulting" remark... should I lend you a towel?


"That and a completely localized mindset that sees itself as neutral and everything else as foreign."
If you quit playing "pretentious culture critic of primitive mindsets in our society" for one second, and just stop to wonder "how often, in everyday life, do I consciously realize that I'm speaking a particular language, rather than... just talking to people?", what conclusion do you reach?

I don't know how it's with you, but I speak Russian at home, German outside, and in both cases, I basically just... communicate. Of course, certain impressions / dialects / intonations are typical of one particular language and you kinda become more conscious of it in those moments, but normally, it's nothing I particularly register.

Similarly, if I watch a movie or lecture or sketch in any of those languages (or English, if the speaking isn't too fast) - I may realize that I'm watching a synchro right now, but generally, I perceive less of the "language" and more of the... "talk".

I don't need to possess some kind of "limited scope" or "primitive localized mindset" in order to think like that - it's just how the human mind works when working in a familiar environment (in this case, language), and I bet yours does, too.


Again, for the slow ones (if you've already got it by this point, this obviously isn't addressed at you, so no need to be offended :p), it's not about national identity, it's about feeling so much at ease with a language (the native one, mostly) that you lose the need to concentrate on it, and can easily blend out in your mind that right now, you're listening to ENGLISH, or FRENCH.
It's just... talking. Direct communication.

As soon as OTHER LANGUAGES (even hints at such, in the form of accents) come into play, your attention is immediately drawn to the identity of those languages, and the illusion is broken.
Or, I dunno, can you listen to an alien inexplicably talking in a French accent, and just accept it as "kinda foreign" without particularly caring for the fact that it's, well, French? I certainly can get distracted from that, but the fact that the aliens are FRENCH still remains on the surface all the time.


You're saying:
"At that point, the burden is on your (generally speaking) limited scope, not on the work."
... which just serves as a demonstration that replying through the lens of pretentious snobism probably ain't the way to go.

What, now my limited scope is at fault? Hold on a second, we're talking about a movie... in which ALIENS... speak an Asian accent, while the HUMANS... speak English.
In a movie where all the main characters are human, that is made for a human audience, who do you think would be "us", and who the "foreign" races? Well, the aliens would be the foreign race.
So if they talk in an accent, who's enforcing the "my language is us, others are foreign" mentality, the movie, or "my limited scope"?

Please THINK for a second before replying.



"Accents and dialects are the same thing."

Sort of, but an accent is distinctively "foreign" to the respective language, while a dialect is just a version of the same language, and not even necessarily localized (unless there's something wrong with my definitions).

Dialects, or manners of speech, can belong both to specific locations, as well as social classes and the like.
Youths may stereotypically speak in a different manner than snobby old professors, but this has nothing to do with localized dialects anymore, it's now 100% characterization.

My point is, it's all about suspension of disbelief, and while I can imagine accepting a Texan droning alien as a "rural hillbilly type" without feeling any connection to "the South", somewhat, a French alien is where my mind draws the line, and from that moment on, it's 0% characterization and 100% ethnic caricature.




"It's whether it's supposedly "jarring" to not sound American. "
I already said above that this hasn't anything in particular to do with being "American", so I don't see any need to go on with this reply.

At any rate, I'm not talking about offensive racism, in terms of "negative" depictions, but merely about suspension of disbelief.
I can easily accept a space movie with English (or German, or Russian) talking humans, and Aliens talking some invented gibberish. It's just humans, and aliens. So then the humans just happen to be from the country where I understand the language, I can relate to that, and I don't feel any urge to wonder "where all the Russians and Hispanics, aren't they also on Earth?". If there ARE ethnic humans in the team, the better - they do that a lot, too.
But I can't accept alien races suddenly talking in ethnic accents, just to appear foreign - that just screams satire / parody / lazy slop / primitive mindset of the author, and it's hard to get over that.


;)

TV's Frink said:

Gaffer Tape said:

twooffour said:

Then you probably haven't paid attention.

And now I roll my eyes at you.  I was tempted not even to read the rest of your post after that insulting of a start...  So thanks...

I see you've met twooffour.  He should just make his avatar a big eye roll to save us all time.

I like how (and this seems to be already the third time this day) you keep dancing around and replying to my posts dropping all these snarky, condescending remarks, while proudly admitting how you don't read any of them.

Let me let you in on a little secret: no one cares about your lack of interest. If you don't have anything to contribute, then, well, you don't, and you're not interesting - and boldly asserting how you "can't be bothered", or "stopped reading", or "just keep rolling your eyes without even looking", doesn't make up for that.

I herebeye past this still image:

TV's Frink said:

I see you've at least learned one lesson from your temp ban.  Well done.

I suppose the question is WHY did Lucas give the Nemoidians Asian accents?  Did he think they sounded cool?  Menacing?  Did one of his kids suggest it?*

Or did one of the actors do it as a joke and he made them reshoot all their scenes because he liked it so much?

I was banned for indirectly calling M3mma a "dunce", if you recall. You've seen me posting stupid images with worthless excuse commentaries already in the first days of my time here, so what lesson have I "learned", exactly?


At any rate, it could be any of the above - all I know is, I can somewhat chuckle at the goofiness of it, but ultimately, I find the Neimoidians with their inept botox faces and silly accents much more annoying than amusing, and that's what counts for me.

It might've been a homage to some old camp movie Lucas enjoyed, that had sleazy Asian villains in it. Anything.

They speak in French accent in the German version, which fits just as "well" (now they're sleazy Euro trash, and their pissy, prissy attitude fits the stereotype, too), but I prefer SpongeBob.

Gaffer Tape said:

twooffour said:

At any rate, it could be any of the above - all I know is, I can somewhat chuckle at the goofiness of it, but ultimately, I find the Neimoidians with their inept botox faces and silly accents much more annoying than amusing, and that's what counts for me.

And there you go.  After all the condescending and pretentious arguing from you, we finally get to the real reason:  you find the effect to be annoying.  There.  Why was that so hard to say?  Why couldn't you have just said that instead of posturing behind a whole bunch of crap about the jarring effects of dialects?

(Oh, and by the way, Nien Nunb speaks an actual African language.  Has that ever pulled you out of the movie?  Have you ever spent serious time contemplating why there are Africans in space?  Or did you just accept it?)

No idea who Nien Nunb is - but obviously, nothing I said applies if the viewer isn't familiar with the language in question.
If someone gave me a sample of Elvish and told me that it's an actual archaic language, do you think I'd not buy it?

I like how you call MY arguing pretentious, while you were the one philosophizing about the "limited scope" of viewers considering their own ethnicity the center of the universe (completey understanding everything I'd written) without realizing that the actual movie was at fault, doing exactly this.

At any rate, no, the fact that I find the Neimoidians lame and annoying, has nothing to do with what I'd said earlier.
The fact that having an alien from another planet posing in a CLEARLY RECOGNIZEABLE ETHNIC GUISE breaks suspension of disbelief and suggests allusion and allegory, doesn't say anything about whether it's well-made and intentional, or unfunny and "offensive".

Clearly, you once again haven't read anything I've written, or paid any attention, otherwise you wouldn't have posted what you just did ;)
If you don't like me pointing this out, then, well, that's too bad.

Gaffer Tape said:

EDIT: You know what? Nevermind. You're just not worth it.

But, by the way, Nien Nunb speaks an actual African language.  Has that ever pulled you out of the movie?  Have you ever spent serious time contemplating why there are Africans in space?  Or did you just accept it?

Hehe - too late!
Next time, read the post you're replying to, then maybe you won't have to get embarassed and delete your comment.


EDIT:
Ah, the vagina face guy... well, the question is, did they try to pass him for an African in space, or were they just too lazy to make up another gibberish alien language like the "Huttish", so they just pieced together words from an actual African language in hope no one would notice?

Or was it maybe some kind of inside gag? Like, a linguistic bonus?

I mean, very obviously, someone who maybe knows 2-3 European languages, and is otherwise familiar with the "sound" of other languages, or language groups, as well as popular ethnic stereotypes, will perceive Vagina Face Guy way differently from a linguistics expert, or a native... African... just watching their own native language (whatever it is) getting raped into pieces in order to be sold as "foreign, lol" to the dumb Cola drinking Americans?
There might be some annoyance involved (some offense, if you're dense), or maybe some amusment, but the average person will just perceive it as: foreign gibberish. Which was the main intent from the get go.


The Neimoidians, on the other hand, were given immediately recognizeable "Asian" accents that the vast majority of the audiences would easily identify as... "Asian".

The two examples aren't even comparable.

Tobar said:

twooffour's favorite Star Wars character.

...wwhat, i don't even