|
People keep telling me that American TV viewers have "problems" with accents on TV shows, and will turn off a program made in England, Australia, etc. So they feel they must "remake" the show with American actors (or actors that can do American accents, which happens to include actors from the aforementioned countries, and others besides) to sell to American audiences.
I find that to be either sad, far-fetched or preposterous (depending on the time of day), especially as popular accented characters abound on American shows, and I find it hard to believe there's a "critical mass" of accent that suddenly makes a show unwatchable to some viewers. And it hardly explains the popular British TV shows like The Avengers, Upstairs-Downstairs, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, etc, that enjoy a healthy American following, and never needed to be "Americanized" to do it.
I suspect there's a lot of contract issues going on under the radar that have something to do with it... not to mention influence by promoters, studios and marketers to provide work to local talent... that are the real culprits here.
|