shadowkat | (no subject)

1. Hee Hee. Twitter Flabbergasted that Christian Bale has a Welsh Accent During Acceptance Speech.

One of my favorite exchanges?

Poster: Since when was Christian Bale British?
Response: Pretty much since birth.
Poster: Isn't he American, that's clearly a fake accent.
Response: He's welsh. It's his real accent.

LOL!

Proof that most of the people on Twitter wouldn't know an actual Welsh accent if they heard one. They accused him of doing a fake Cockney accent, it's a Welsh accent. The Welsh sound different -- I know, I spent time them. Also North Wales and South Wales is different. Not all Brits sound the same. Their accents are as varied as US, also there's a standard British accent that you hear more often, just like there is a standard American accent that you hear more often.

Also...apparently some folks took exception to Bale calling Cheney - Satan. (They took him seriously and got all offended the poor little dears.)

Twitter Responder: He lost half his fans, including me with the Satan Reference.
Me: While weirdly, he made me even more enamored of him. (Eh, most of us have been calling Cheney - Satan and/or Darth Cheney or Darth Vadar or Lord of the Sith for years now. Where have you been? ) Also I doubt Bale cares -- he's like Daniel Day Lewis, he doesn't give a shit what people think of him. He just likes to act. Been acting since he was 6. Least narcissistic actor in the biz. And possibly the best actor of his generation. He just disappears into his roles -- a lot like Daniel Day Lewis does (also a Brit). Honestly, I don't know why the Brits are better at acting than the Americans. Maybe it's all that theater training?

[I didn't watch the Globes. ]

2. In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts. Maybe someone will grant a wish.

* Scott Summers (aka Cyclops from the X-men) fanfic -- any pairing, although prefer Jean Grey, Emma, Storm, Wolverine, Beast, and Angel...platonic or otherwise. Also father/son - Cable/Scott, or father/daughter - Rachel/Scott, or Corsair/Scott or Xavier/Scott or Magneto/Scott.

* Icons -- Killing Eve, The Good Place, Lucifer (preferably Maze), Black Widow, Angela Bassett (from either Mission Impossible, 9-1-1 or Black Panther), Jean Grey, Kitty Pryde.

I can't think of anything else.

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LOL! Cockney and Welsh are nothing like each other!!

Exactly. Most Americans think a British accent that isn't the standard one is Cockney. It's akin to comparing the Texas accent to a Californian or New Jersey accent. Also, a lot of Americans are oblivious to how the world hears their accents....honestly, nothing sounds more fake than a Brooklyn accent.

No, wait, a Texas accent sounds really fake. ;-)

I thought the remark was hilarious, especially since he won it for playing Dick Cheney.

I did too. Particularly since the role was written as a satirical take on Cheney -- or Cheney as Satan. The joke was on point.

Pity he didn't accept in Welsh! that would really have thrown them.

Yeah, it would have. They'd have thought he was speaking a fake language.

And think what it would have done to the subtitles for accessibility.

I don't think they would have been able to translate it -- which is silly, since it's an old language and they've worked hard to keep it alive.

Did you see that story I saw posted I think on Facebook, more than once, about the woman in a hijab who was told by a man on the bus she should learn to speak the language now she was over here, and said 'Sir, we are in Wales and I was speaking Welsh'?

Yeah, thought it was hilarious. And what a lot of people don't know is Welsh predates English by several years. It's an older language, which the Welsh have fought hard to keep alive. It's actually a beautiful language, very lyrical.

Not only is Bale Welsh, but he got his start playing Shakespeare. He's in Branagh's Henry V as the little boy.

I decided to look him up finally...

Bale studied the work of actor Gary Oldman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Oldman, citing him as "the reason I'm acting".[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Bale#cite_note-11 His first role was a commercial for the fabric softener Lenor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenor in 1982. A year later, he appeared in a Pac-Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man cereal commercial, playing a child rock star. In 1984, he made his stage debut in The Nerd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nerd on London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London's West End https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_End_theatre with Rowan Atkinson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_Atkinson

Oh, Liz Cheney said he missed the chance to play a real superhero, her father. Odd, how the biggest jerks and worst people on the planet see themselves as heroes.

Supervillains always do. Thanos is the perfect example, but there are many others.

It's interesting...I remember Whedon telling Seth Green in his commentary to Wild at Heart that it was important to write villains as heroes -- or to realize that the villain sees themselves as the hero or protagonist of the story. They don't see themselves as the villain.

James Marsters said the same thing when he was interviewed on Runways...that he always played his villains as heroes or that in his point of view as the villain, he was really the hero -- he was doing what was necessary to make things better.
And how Vincent D'Ornitho's choices doing Daredevil influenced him...he said, D'Ornitho played Fiske as a hero, as seeing himself as heroic. And being vulnerable, crying, caring...not an evil sociopath.

Smart move -- because it makes the character more human and compelling.

Thanos is a great villain, because he sees himself as the hero.

Wilson Fisk was going to be my other example. I didn't know that was an intentional choice by the actor (could have been the writers, as Whedon suggested). Spike's a pretty good example too, and I hadn't heard that comment from Marsters.

Another good example would be Satan in Paradise Lost.

Or all the anti-heroes ...Angel is a good example, he saw himself and his friends as champions, but if you examine the series closely, they really are the opposite. Same with Breaking Bad - Walter White views himself as a hero.

I didn't know that was an intentional choice by the actor (could have been the writers, as Whedon suggested). Spike's a pretty good example too, and I hadn't heard that comment from Marsters.

It's not clear -- but you're right it could have been the writing and direction. Although D'Ornitho stated he made those choices in interviews. And I know Marsters often went counter to how it was written and played up the vulnerability of the role to keep on the show. Which annoyed Whedon, but he couldn't tell him not too -- since it was working. Theater trained actors are a bit harder for television writers to reign in and from everything I've seen TV writers can be complete assholes. But then so can actors. We really have no way of knowing.