Everyone in this should have had a proper New Zealand accent, except for the Austrian guy. I realize that many of the actors were Australian, but I just don't get why their accents were so bad. Aussie actors come to America and do impeccable American accents all the time. Why couldn't these people pull off New Zealand accents?
And why was Matt Scottish? There was absolutely no explanation given for this.
Mel Gibson still can't do an American accent.
Why does there need to be a reason for Matt being Scottish ( not a put on accent, Peter Mullen is Scottish) and correct me if I'm wrong but is New Zealand and Australia not multi cultural and have a big Scottish ex-pat community??
shareWell, I'm not really sure. It just seemed strange that he was obviously Scottish in the middle of New Zealand and nobody mentioned it. I would have liked at least one throw-away line about it from somebody. He was obviously from there, and his mother was buried there, so I just feel it's worth one line to explain it away.
shareNothing strange about it. There are lots of Scots living in NZ. Dunedin is even the old Scots Gallic name for Edinburgh. Glenorchy, where the series is set is named after a place in Scotland also.
shareOkay, well that explains that part then. I had no idea and it just seemed so odd.
But it still doesn't explain all the Aussies that didn't bother to do NZ accents. I expected more from them, although I did think the acting was otherwise superb.
it still doesn't explain all the Aussies that didn't bother to do NZ accents
She wasn't supposed to have a New Zealand accent, it was Australian; her character was from Sydney
shareNo...her character was from THAT town. She was born there, and raised there. It's kind of all over the plot that that's her hometown. She had moved to Sydney, but you don't completely change accents after a handful of years.
I'm actually not great at placing accents but even I though she sounded American, and that's with me being unfamiliar with any of her other work.
What did you think of Elisabeth Moss's accent considering that she is American? From a British POV and someone who has lived in America for a very long time, I thought her accent was pretty good. (It's always best to do a light accent rather than laying it on thick, IMO.) I have no idea if she sounded authentically New Zealand, but she definitely didn't sound like an American.
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I agree with Stirchley about Moss's "light" accent. When Americans try a Brit or Aussie accent they usually lay it on thick and of course that doesn't work. In the industry they call that a Dick Van Dyke.
shareAs a kiwi I found Moss's accent pretty good. Probably the best attept I've heard at a kiwi accent from an American.
To be fair, I think anyone from NZ could tell that it wasn't authentic, but it wasn't distracting for me. Seems like she came at it from a british base which is smart, as out accent is much closer to british than it is to a US accent.
Matt being Scottish made sense, but wish Wenham's character had a kiwi accent.
When lightning strikes the sea, why don't all the fish die?
I was too caught up in the intricate plotting and tremendous acting to even notice the accents.
shareElizabeth Moss's accent could easily be that of a Kiwi who has lived in Australia for some years. Some Kiwis in Australia seem to keep their accent (or 'ekhsehnt' - nasal E - in the Kiwi) while others lose it for a sort of 'neutral' Australian accent.
Some Kiwis in Australia seem to keep their accent (or 'ekhsehnt' - nasal E - in the Kiwi) while others lose it for a sort of 'neutral' Australian accent.
The accent you're describing for Australians is not uniform throughout Australia and is a stereotype based on the predominantly New South Wales accent (although it is heard around Australia). It's also commonly considered a negatively stereotypical accent that many Australians would cringe from.
Kiwis not only clip the vowel 'i' but will often express the vowel 'a' as a nasal and clipped 'eh' rendering 'classic' and 'apple' as 'clehssuc' and 'ehpple'.
A neutral (or as I've heard it described here) 'catholic' accent is much less nasal and is the most likely mutated accent ex-pat Kiwis adopt in Australia (particularly the further west you go from the eastern seaboard), if they lose their kiwi accent at all.
I am Australian and have heard many ex-pat kiwis develop an accent as presented by Elizabeth Moss and, had I not known she was American, could have mistaken her for either Australian or ex-pat Kiwi... Except for perhaps the way she pronounced the word 'home'... The vowel 'o' was too rounded for either Australian or Kiwi accents.
It's often said the NZ accent (pron. 'uk-sunt' by typical Kiwis) is the result of our predominantly Scots heritage, and the Aussie's 'nasal' accent (pron. by them as 'eek-seent') is due to their predominantly Irish heritage.
One trait shared by both Aussies and Kiwis is the rising inflection on sentences, although I always thought it was a Kiwi thing only. But I've never heard it anywhere else except in some southern Californians! How odd is that?
Anyway, the ridiculously bad accents were only one of the many things Top of the Lake got completely wrong.
my main issue with the accents was elizabeth moss constantly letting her american accent slip in. happened quite often and i found it very distracting.
Australians would say "Thoys feeesh eend cheeeps or royly groyt",
Erika Ridpath mentioned something important, namely that people don't hear their own accents until they're among others with different ones, and the very 'nasal' accent of Australians is the first thing that hits non Australians when we hear you speaking.
shareI didn't finish the series, but the accents were really the worst part of the show, and I imagine it driving a bunch of Kiwi's, like myself, insane.
It felt like the vast majority of the people in the series weren't actually Kiwi, I don't mean the actors, I mean the characters. Sure NZ is multicultural, but it's kind of ridiculous to set this in a rural Kiwi town, and have that town inhabited almost exclusively by foreigners.
Totally agree. I've lived in NZ's biggest cities and some of its smallest towns and villages, and not one of them even came close to wherever Top of the Lake was supposed to be. It was just ridiculous, and impossible to suspend disbelief for any length of time.
shareApparently its true that Kiwis find the stereotypical Australian accent grating.
Australians find the stereotypical Kiwi accent hilarious. I remember when working in NSW, the staff would try to get a newly arrived Kiwi employee to say the word 'pissed' which to the Australian ear was rendered 'puhssed' sending everyone into fits of laughter.
It's not theAust ralian accent itself, I have no issue with the accent, no matter how stereotypical. It's just it's supposed to be a Kiwi accent, which it so clearly isn't, and it's not just the Aussie accent that was bothersome in the show.
shareThe Kiwi accent is decidedly odd, although I'm not sure it's particularly amusing. The Australian accent is horrific, like fingers down a blackboard! Australians in a crowd here in the UK always stand out from a mile away. It's like listening to a room full of dentists drills fighting each other. Honestly, it's really quite a painful sound.
shareAustralians in a crowd here in the UK always stand out from a mile away
It's not at all that they are "hamming up" your accent (I'm sure they're not), it's that it becomes much more noticeable when they are among people who don't share it.
Iow, most Australians have no idea just how strong their own accent is, because they are usually among people with the same one. However, to other people it sounds like someone has set fire to a hornets nest, or electric saws cutting through tin.
I'm not saying this to offend you. There are many bizarre UK accents that sound to me as if the speaker is re-enacting a Monty Python skit! But the extremely nasal and strident Australian accent is really quite unique.
No offence taken. Oh, to see ourselves as other people do!! Our former prime minister, Julia Gillard, sported an accent that sent a shiver down the spine of many here ("The Ostraaalian laayba paahdy") afflicting us with an acute attack of cultural cringe!
At least you can relax safe in the knowledge that real life never gets any where near as bad as this awful show!
shareThe Australian accent is horrific
I remember when working in NSW, the staff would try to get a newly arrived Kiwi employee to say the word 'pissed' which to the Australian ear was rendered 'puhssed' sending everyone into fits of laughter.
I would guess that the NZ accent is incredibly hard to pull off - it's so completely off the wall. It doesn't sound remotely close to the Aussie one, so it would be difficult even for Aussies. It doesn't excuse the production however - they should've at least tried.
I forgive Elisabeth because she is so amazing in the role and carries the show single-handedly. I would rather watch her butcher the accent than a NZ actress give a lesser performance but with a genuine accent. In many of Elisabeth's first scenes I almost feel sorry for her - you can sense her concentrating on the pronunciation so hard and still failing miserably.
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Look it's the accent police!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnQ4nz_5JSY
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