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0 Hollywood only has 1 accent for the whole of Africa
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Hollywood only has 1 accent for the whole of Africa
When random Americans were interviewed on the streets of the US, who assumed that Africa is a country, rather than a continent, people were genuinely shocked. People from all over the world leave all sorts of comments, criticising the individuals and their IQ. But no one flinches when an industry as big as Hollywood makes the same mistake.
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There are distinct accents for various parts of the world. When you hear a French man or woman speak, you instantly know he or she is French, even when they are not speaking French, but speaking English with their French accent, which is considered sexy by the Americans. The same goes for an Italian, a British and a Spanish.
No one randomly assigns an accent to a region, but rather identifies that region by the accent they have. If this is a well-known fact all around the world, why then, does Hollywood give very random accents to just about any part of Africa they are portraying at any given time? How hard is it to take time out to learn the difference between how a Nigerian and a South African, a Ghanian and a Ugandan, a Tanzanian and a Zambian?
The lazy narratives or notion that Hollywood portrays is that every country in Africa has the same accent and speech pattern. Africa is a continent with over 50 countries, mother tongues and languages. How can you expect that for some unnatural reason, we all sound alike? The idea that this same mistake or assumption can’t be done for other continents, but Africa, yet again, buttresses the point that when it comes to respecting people, Hollywood doesn’t always take out time to ensure that they are right about the way they portray Africa and Africans.
I certainly won’t have any movie show a Chinese person speaking his language or even speaking English with a Chinese accent, and call him a Mexican. If it is not okay for another continent, why is it okay for Africa? Hollywood is such a well-respected industry, it is heartbreaking to see that they are the ones doing the least to differentiate the accents of the different African countries, making the region happy, because they can tell you have put in enough work to come up with that very accurate accent of their people.
Some Hollywood scenes will tell you a person is from Nigeria, and they sound nothing like a Nigerian. This person and how he or she talks are an alien to the people that Hollywood claims they represent. It used to be funny a first, because we were grateful to be mentioned by Hollywood, but as time passes, we begin to expect more from the industry, because the first time they mentioned us, was many years ago, so it is offensive to know that after that many years, no extra research has been down to perfect the accent of each chosen African region, but the same old false narratives has been used over the years, even now that everyone is an armslength to immigrants, who will assist with the right teaching about any tribe that they choose.
So I ask again, why is not much work done to differentiate these country people and how they sound? Could it be laziness, could it be unwillingness to improve, could it be the carelessness syndrome, where you don’t care enough to do better, or continuing with the notion, rather than correct it, saves from money from bein spent, in a bid to confirm the accent that is parculair to the region. Hollywood is doing incredible, and out-of-this-world things; they certainly won’t encounter any challenges when it comes to confirming accents of people in Africa.
Even though the AI is out there to help, people are willing to devote time and space to teaching people about the peculiar language of a people. I hope more effort is put into these productions, so we don’t have to see a movie where a Nigerian sounds like an Ethiopian, a Kenyan, or a South African.
Conclusion
On a few occasions, some movies have made an impressive attempt to have the actors sound like the people from the region they are portraying. These numbers of times it has been heartwarming to watch that happen. Africans don’t all sound like when they speak English. Nigerians sound very different from South Africans and others. Not even the Hollywood reporters address this issue. The black Hollywood stars don’t even try to get this under control in their Hollywood studio before release. It is an intentional Hollywood sign that whatever they release will be consumed by the market.
