Like many regional accents throughout the United States, the Philadelphia accent is in serious jeopardy of fading from the landscape, smothered by a generic voice characteristic of news anchors on television. It's a product of our pop culture.
But in a Sunday New York Times op-ed, Daniel Nester focuses on Hollywood's treatment of the Philadelphia accent as a redheaded stepchild, shown no love, with no effort made by actors to impart any linguistic authenticity when playing characters from the region.
Case in point: Silver Linings Playbook takes place entirely in Philadelphia--and stars Bradley Cooper, born and raised in the area--without a hint of regional accent cropping up, and that irks Nester, a local boy from the City of Brotherly Love.
"[N]ot a trace of Philadelphia-ese can be heard throughout the film. Not one mention of the Iggles, of gewing downnashewr (going down to the shore) or tew the Acca-me to get hewgies (to the Acme grocery store to get hoagies). [...] But Mr. Cooper, native of Jenkintown, a Philadelphia suburb, and self-described “Philly boy through and through,” should’ve known better."
Yeah, but is it worse to have no accent at all, or to have an accent absolutely knifed and butchered like it lost a fight in a back alley? Because Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, Diane Lane, Amy Adams, Willem Defoe, Sean Penn, Kevin Costner, Blake Lively, Jack Nicholson, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, and Mel Gibson have all done their damndest to strangle a Boston accent to death in movies.
To this day, six million people in the metro Boston area are still traumatized by Tom Hanks' accent in Catch Me If You Can. There's a damage that can't be undone.
