“I’m not even sure how I feel about actors adopting different accents for roles in movies"
A mother has been criticised after calling her kids out for imitating “fake Asian accents”.
According to News.Au.Com, a mother who called out her children for imitating Asian accents has been slammed by the internet.
Last week, Canadian mother Janice Quirt had written a piece for CBC titled ‘I Don’t Think It’s Funny When My Kids Do Fake Accents’. As the title suggests, Quirt delved into the issue of disciplining her children for mocking other people’s accents.
Recalling one anecdote where her 13-year-old stepdaughter had imitated a fake accent, Quirt wrote, “as a string of unintelligible syllables spoken with a heavy, fake Asian accent, eliciting giggles from around the table”.
Quirk immediately tried to deal with the situation, “I tried to explain how imitating another country’s language and accent wasn’t the coolest thing to do,” she wrote.
However, her own 9-year-old son did the same thing a few weeks later. Nonetheless, when she addressed the issue with him, he seemed to understand.
“He got it, because appreciation of different cultures and avoiding even the slightest racial slur is something I’ve drilled into my kids from the very beginning,” she wrote.
“I’m not even sure how I feel about actors adopting different accents for roles in movies,” she continued. “There are so many other ways we can communicate, such a variety of things to talk about and an abundance of ways to tickle our funny bones.”
“I simply don’t think we should ever stoop to imitating another culture for laughs, just because it is different than how we speak or sound or look.”
In response, some commenters slammed the author. “Does anyone have any other reaction to these types of article other than shaking their head in disagreement?” one person wrote.
“Would have loved to have watched Braveheart, Fargo, or any number of other movies with the actors speaking in their normal accents. *facepalm*” added another.
One commenter emphasised the importance of intent in terms of racism. “Getting real tired of people that cannot tell the difference between the intention and the tool used to convey that intention,” the commenter wrote. “Using this woman’s reasoning, we should ban hockey sticks because, occasionally, they’re used to do violence.”
However, some supported Quirt. “What a lovely article,” one person wrote. “Thank you for this piece that illuminates what/how mixed-race/heritage people feel. “
“People making fun of foreign accents makes me uncomfortable as well,” wrote another. “I can see there’s a lot of grey on the topic … when is it OK, when is it not, etc. But I clicked on this article because I’ve squirmed watching someone encourage their children to ‘do an accent’ that I doubt they would have done if people of that background had been present.”
Someone even suggested other methods Quirt could implement to teach her children about accents, “You should tell the kids that Canadians have accents too. And how would they feel if they were mimicked?”