Why is the Boston accent so darned difficult?

[xiphias]

It's well-known that good Boston accents in films are few and far between. When you list actors who can do it, you've got Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Seth McFarland, Dennis Leary. Even Eliza Dukshu is only okay. And they're all FROM Boston. Heck, I can't do a good Boston accent, and I've lived here my entire life.

It's easy to list movies with terrible Boston accents -- but are there any actors who can do good Boston accents who aren't from Boston?

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's easy to caricature (incorrectly)?

And of course there are a dozen "Boston" accents all next to each other, separated by a block or two in some places.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Timothy Hutton does one sometimes on "Leverage", when Nate's pretending to be a character who has an accent, and it's not awful--I think because Hutton keeps it fairly subtle.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I'd love to hear Bob Hoskins take a shot at it. (He may have done and I'm either not remembering or didn't see it.)

[thespian.livejournal.com]

I do a decent Boston accent, and an excellent Kennedy/Cape one. and I am from Ontario, though I have been here off and on for about 13 years, total. I also do a really good Georgia one. These are, I note, places that I am not from but that I have lived in for extensive periods of time, and I have a pretty good ear.

The one I have NEVER been able to do is Minnesota. Cannot do it to save my life.

[spatch]

Wasn't a film role, but I saw David Hyde Pierce in "Curtains" on Broadway, which is set in the Colonial Theater in Boston. His character was a local police detective who gets caught up in a backstage murder investigation, and I was very impressed with his subdued Boston accent. He knew just how far to take a dropped R, he did not pahk his cah in Hahvahd Yahd, and--most importantly--he nailed the short A sound. "I'll call the chief" sounded like "I'll coll the chief". Nobody non-hacky remembers to do that. Point: Pierce.

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

What do you mean, Eliza Dushku is only OK. She's FROM Boston!

The problem with the Boston accent is that there ain't no such thing. As noted above, there are Boston accents, plural, a whole wicked lot of 'em.

Later this month, my enormous family will get together. My brothers speak Summuhville. I speak Barny. (Or as they put it, Baahney.) Charlestown is different, and Southie even more so.

Accents don't just mark where you're from, they mark social status. My brothers are blue-collar, I'm white-collar professional. Too many actors try for broad blue-collar accent when they're playing the role of educated people. Or worse, they go for the JFK Boston Brahmin accent that William Daniels had down so well, an accent that no longer exists in the wild.

Back seventy years ago, my aunts, daughters of a Somerville postman whose father had come over from Ireland as a young man, were given elocution lessons. One does not wish to sound vulgar, now does one?

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

This is silly. If you are FROM Boston, you talk with a Boston accent. It may not be the one you prefer, but it's a Boston accent.

[sproutntad.livejournal.com]

Kent always makes fun of me because I have one or two words that are distinctly Boston (I have NO Idea where the "r" goes in the word "drawer" is it "draw"? "Droorer"? No idea.. And I Never Knew that Irish Claddagh Rings didn't have an "r" at the end of it). But I don't have a "Boston" accent. I spent 7th - 12th grade west of the 128 ring and No accent there!! But living in Florida and working retail we take people's telephone numbers. I can spend 15 minutes talking to someone and it won't be until I take their phone number that I can tell they are from Boston. There's something about the number "4" that is so distinctly New England (not just Boston - it's New Hampshire, Lowell, North Shore & Conn)

[ellettra.livejournal.com]

Nothing to add, but super fascinating thread. I love talking about people's accents. I had no idea Boston accents could vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, but I guess that does make sense given the old-days segregation which probably contributed a great deal to the sounds and cadences of words now.