Deliver us, O Lord, from Brad Pitt's bad English accent. Wolfgang Petersen's $170 million dollar Bronze Age blockbuster Troy is out in theaters today, and although I haven't decided how I feel about the movie itself (especially not having seen it), I am as hopping mad as a hoplite that Petersen has decided to kowtow to the ludicrous tradition of making everyone in the Graeco-Roman world speak as if he or she were from Derbyshire. There is no reason whatsoever why American actors in movies about Ancient Rome or Greece should have to speak in a British accent; in fact, it would probably be more authentic if everyone stuck to their native way of speaking English in an historical epic. Think about it: in the Iliad, Agamemnon leads against the Trojans a pan-Hellenic alliance, including warriors and heros from all over the Greek-speaking world. To this day Greeks speak with discernable regional accents - why shouldn't that diversity be represented in an English-language film with a variety of English accents?
I'm forming a committee. Classicists Against Bad British Accents in Graeco-Roman Epics, aka C.A.B.B.A.G.E.!
Feel my wroth, Wolfgang Petersen...
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