Does anyone else get annoyed by the fact that Elizabeth just has to be the well brought up,middle-class English woman who has a posh accent.I have nothing against Elizabeth or AK as I think that the character is a really lovely person I just hate it when all British people have to be stereo-typed when it comes to American T.V shows.

p.s I don't mean to offend anyone!!!!!

-- Steph (steph_y2k_01@hotmail.com), June 03, 2000

Answers

I agree! Although, "Lizzy" can be quite wild sometimes!

-- Stephanie (ERGirl22@aol.com), June 03, 2000.

i agree 100% with you steph!!!!liz rocks!just because she is english and very beautiful doesn't mean she's a stiff and rich.

-- rachel (thehilfigergirl@aol.com), June 03, 2000.

I totally agree with you, especially with Elizabeth's Mother she was even worse. It really annoys me because not all British people are like that, and the producers of the shows should relise this!!

And didn't you think the exact same thing about Friends, when Emily was on the show!!!

-- Faith (notsosnobby@england.com), June 03, 2000.

I hate the way British people are portrayed in American programs (No offence!!), take Emily in Friends - I cringed every scene she had - it was embaressing to watch! We aren't all tight laced, middle class people!! The writers should come to my school for a while - that'll scare them!! But, saying that - I think Elizabeth is great - she's my fave character!

-- Vicki Baker (ms_peachy_pie@hotmail.com), June 03, 2000.

That's one of the reasons I loved THE FULL MONTY so much (there were other reasons as well--LOL), because it showed a different side of English culture than we in America usually see.

-- Diana (dilynne@juno.com), June 04, 2000.

To me (a brit), Emily in Friends sounded like an American doing an english accent - or even worse, like Catherine Oxenberg in Dynasty! I know she isn't American, but I saw Helen Baxendale when she was in Cardiac Arrest (not shown in USA) and she didn't have the plum in her mouth then, so maybe it was the show's producers getting her to "sound English". She just sounded terribly stilted.

Alex Kingston sounds normal to me. Lizzie is not posh, she is a middle class home counties girl. Judy Parfitt, who played her mother, seems to specialise in upper middle-class types (she was the monstrous Mildred in "Jewel in the Crown") but at least as Lizzie's mother, she has a sense of humour.

Yes, American shows do tend to stereotype the English, but whatever they do they can't win. Daphne in "Frasier" does an awful northern accent - the actress is really From Sussex!

To me, Alex Kingston is the only Brit I can think of on an American tv show who talks like a normal person, but presumably she got the job because she is a good actress and the fact that she is British was a coincidence (or a bonus, I'd say).

-- liz williams (elizabeth.williams@aon.co.uk), June 08, 2000.

okay I too am British and I talk nothing like Elizabeth and neither do the rest of the working-class population of Britain.

p.s i'm Scottish so I sound nothing like any British person on American T.V as they're always English!

-- Steph (steph_y2k_01@hotmail.com), June 08, 2000.