"Lots of planet have a north" the Doctor told Rose way back then, but Eccleston (who returns to our TV screens in ITV's new thriller Safe House on Monday April 20th at 9pm) gives a rather different answer in this week's edition of Radio Times.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Doctor Who: Why did Christopher Eccleston make his Time Lord northern?
"Lots of planet have a north" the Doctor told Rose way back then, but Eccleston (who returns to our TV screens in ITV's new thriller Safe House on Monday April 20th at 9pm) gives a rather different answer in this week's edition of Radio Times.
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I never perceived the idea that the northern English accent is equivalent to the Southern American accent in that they are both seen as stereotypically unintelligent. I guess it’s cultural ignorance, but I never thought that the different areas of England and their accents could have possibly have the same prejudice that America assigns accents.
I also appreciate how Christopher Eccelston sees the fact that there is such a white male dominated world in the entertainment industry and wants it to change. The fact that all-male Shakespeare plays are so common and put women out of work is disgusting. Also, that most works are specifically written for white males is quite annoying. What difference would it make if a character was of a different race? Not much in my opinion… so why is it so uncommon?
Maybe one day the world will actually become “color-blind” as people have been saying, but I don’t think that we have reached that point yet.
I never perceived the idea that the northern English accent is equivalent to the Southern American accent in that they are both seen as stereotypically unintelligent. I guess it’s cultural ignorance, but I never thought that the different areas of England and their accents could have possibly have the same prejudice that America assigns accents.
I also appreciate how Christopher Eccelston sees the fact that there is such a white male dominated world in the entertainment industry and wants it to change. The fact that all-male Shakespeare plays are so common and put women out of work is disgusting. Also, that most works are specifically written for white males is quite annoying. What difference would it make if a character was of a different race? Not much in my opinion… so why is it so uncommon?
Maybe one day the world will actually become “color-blind” as people have been saying, but I don’t think that we have reached that point yet.
First question: Eccleston’s season premiered in 2005. Why are they only asking these questions ten years later? Second: David Tennant is Scottish, yet his Doctor spoke in the accent they had been moving away from. Why was that decision made, if what they said about trying to break that mold was true? I agree with Sasha in that an accent can carry a connotation in one country that is completely missed in another. It is interesting to me that I know more about the stereotypes in the UK than I do in the US. Maybe it’s because the difference in accents is much more pronounced across the pond, but I think it is interesting to consider the accents in the US that are considered “lower class” or unintelligent. Another interesting thing to consider is accents as an indicator of location: there was an NPR show about accents that posted a quiz that would tell you, based on your answers to rhyming questions, where your American speech patterns were from.
Accents are always something that have fascinated me. They carry strong connotations that are just as strongly tied to cultural assumptions as with any other subject for stereotype. The irony is of course that some accents that we associate with slow wittedness, such a American Southern, are just warped and slowed down versions of accents we associate with intelligence, such as British. When Brits colonized the US, they brought their accents with them, but when they left, the accent took on its own colloquial feel. Far from being markers of intelligence or anything else, accents are simply geographic markers of who has colonized where.
I don't know has much about variations within Britain, but I do know that accents play a huge part in discrimination wherever we go. If an accent is thick, people assume it means the person is uneducated. Really these assumptions are just xenophobic tendencies. I applaud Eccleston for making a point of proving these assumptions wrong.
I never thought about this in this way. I was aware that Christopher Eccelston's native accent is Northern, and I assumed he just wanted to keep it, but I never actively associated that accent with a lower socioeconomic area. Now that I think about it, it makes much more sense given the other characters I've heard with that accent. But Eccelston's reason is absolutely brilliant. I didn't watch British television until Doctor Who, and my first experience with at northern accent was the ninth doctor in doctor who, and from then on I had lots of trouble associating that accent with it's stereotype; which I assume was the goal. It's like if there were an american doctor who equivalent and they used an actor with a southern or boston accent. That would be interesting to see.
We’ve got to get out of the notion of judging people based on their accent that defines where they come from. I know I’ve done it a few times, and I know I’m not the only one guilty of doing it. I think having an idea of the accent distracts from a typical conversation, making you not pay attention to what they are saying, but how they are saying it. Of course actors are able to learn different types of accents, but I guess in the case of Doctor Who, he knew just what he wanted. As well as trying to stay away from the type casting that is often done in films and television. You’ve got to be willing to take a risk on someone, and forget about the criticism of others. We all make errors at some point due to judgements, and even though I don’t particularly watch Doctor Who, from what I hear, he plays a good doctor regardless of what he sounds like.
I like that Eccleston had an opinion on the subject, and stuck to it. While we all hear stories about how some older TV shows, The Original Series of Star Trek, MASH, and the old Doctor Whos to some extent were forces of social change, but it does not seem like they can be, and still be successful. It seems like in our current culture it is harder for professional organizations to take a (controversial, to someone) stand on a topic or issue. This is at least the case for major media companies at least, I think the more free proliferation of media content by places like the BBC and Netflix produced entertainment is a good place for changing ideas to have support from the entertainment world. Eccleston makes a good point that if we cast all of our entertainment from what we think is best for the present, we will be stuck in a stagnate state and end up with a “milky” culture.
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