The problem I have is with American television producers shoving British flavoured announcers at us, and with myself, for when I hear an English accent I usually interpret it as a qualification of authority and/or knowledge.
It simply is not so.
Take auto racing as an example. I turned on the 24 Hours of Daytona on Saturday afternoon, and there was a regular old American talking head, blathering away about the challenges of 24 hours of racing, and transferring the talking head responsibility to other regular old American talking head racing guy/gal announcers ("Let's go to Ellie in the pits, who has some information about a lugnut controversy, Ellie?"), and they did interviews and wasted time and did what racing announcers do during the pre-race, that being killing time between commercials and pestering the racers before they get into the cars.
So, since the 24 Hours of Daytona is a 24 hour race (that's why they call it the "24 Hours of Daytona"), I dropped back in on the racing coverage on Saturday evening as I channel surfed, and there, at the Great American Speedway, at the opening event of the year, was a pair of English accents talking me through the evening activities. I immediately perked up my ears to properly receive the pearls of wisdom that I inferred were about to come my way.
These two English announcer guys were less than stellar, less than entertaining, less than...aw, hell, they were dumb as a box of doorknobs. Because they had English accents, I had assumed I would be getting superior intellectual broadcasting. Turns out that they were less informative than the good old boys who do the B-list midseason races. These guys sucked, but with an accent.
Same deal with golf. Why do we need an English accented announcer to tell us that one of the Florida-based millionaires of the PGA has struck a poor shot on an Arizona golf course as we watch in awe (or in danger of falling asleep) across America?
What is it about that English accent that makes us confer validity unto its owner? Further, if you listen to what they say, instead of the flavour with which they say it, you will realize that you are frequently getting less than banal input.
There's other examples. Simon on American Idol, if he didn't have that English spin on his venom, I'm guessing he'd have long since gotten 100% of his smarmy ass kicked for that mean spirited, uppity attitude he's always sporting. Take old war movies, why were the English accents acceptable to portray Germans, Americans, Englishmen, Russians, pretty much every ethnicity at one time or another? They just did.
We need to prevent Anglo-announcer proliferation across other lines. For example, remove the Hawk's voice ringing up a strike out victim with the signature "He gone!", and insert a breathy, tea and crumpet flavored "I say, another unsuccessful effort".
Don't like it.
Or take John Madden out and insert Nigel Announcerchap. Instead of the on-the-edge outpouring of energy and emotion that is Madden, we'd receive a proper account of the disagreement out on the pitch. Don't like it, hurts my head to imagine it.
England and the USA, two peoples, separated by a common language.
As it should be. He gone.
