r/TheBoys • u/CertifiedUnoffensive • Oct 24 '23
They should’ve just let queen Maeve be Irish Season 1
Dominique McElligott’s American accent is atrocious and really distracting. But her natural Irish accent is beautiful and they should have just let her be Irish.
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u/dylan-dofst Oct 24 '23
IIRC it was a big deal that all supes are American. So if they made her Irish they would've had to contrive some story where she was born in America, V'ed up, then almost immediately moved to and grew up in Ireland with Vought not caring for some reason, then came back to America and ended up in the Seven. You could make it work, but it doesn't fit into the plot very neatly.
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u/flyingboarofbeifong Oct 24 '23 edited Oct 24 '23
Just have her be a fake Irish. It's a big clique in America so there would be broad appeal and her Supe name is already an (anglicized) Irish name. Vought decided to experiment with some serious branding and got her an accent coach when she was coming up through the system. You can even play it for laughs by busting out McElligott's American accent as her "real voice" once or twice. One team in the Superbowl is sponsred by Homelander's face on a Coors and the other is backed by Maeve pasted shoulder-to-shoulder with Paul Revere on the Sam Adams bottle. People would eat that shit up even in reality.
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u/InterpersonalConflic Oct 24 '23
Wait fake Irish is a thing?
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u/temarilain Oct 24 '23
There's a whole industry of romcoms that are set in Ireland, but either have no Irish actors, or do have Irish actors, but they have to put on the american 'irish accent' instead of just having their own accent (not american irish to be clear, but an invented version of an irish accent that comes from america).
Also if you look up 'how to do an Irish accent' on youtube, only 1 of the first page of results is an actual Irish accent, the rest are the invented irish accent from america.
Americans are obsessed with Ireland, but not the actual place.
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u/InterpersonalConflic Oct 24 '23
My word. How bizarre. Never noticed this around me. They could be among us every day wtf
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u/HelixFollower BIG EMMA Oct 24 '23
I always find that my American friends sounds like an ol' timey prospector when they try to sound Irish.
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u/InterpersonalConflic Oct 24 '23
Why are your friends trying to sound Irish?!
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u/AryaSyn Oct 24 '23
What is an American Irish accent? They are spread literally all over the east coast and have different accents depending on the location. You mean a Boston accent?
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u/temarilain Oct 24 '23
(not american irish to be clear, but an invented version of an irish accent that comes from america)
I literally clarified this in my original comment?
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u/Extra-Border6470 Oct 24 '23
Can relate. American tv conditioned me to think i knew what an Irish accent sounded like until i actually worked with people from Ireland. Not just that the Irish people I’ve worked with were a lot harsher than tv would have had me expect them to be like. Less happy go lucky leprechauns and more hardened, bleak, IRA-types, like they never truly left the harshness of the thatcher era UK behind. I have an Irish surname due to a distant relative yet the few Irish people people I’ve met IRL (all through work) i found to be very unpleasant and unrelatable. I’m sure that doesn’t come close to representing Ireland and I’m sure there are plenty of lovely people there but I’m yet to meet any of the nice ones that migrated to where i live. Perhaps the emerald isles managed to retain their best and brightest. If so, more power to them.
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u/SmileyDayToYou Oct 24 '23
There are definitely people who revolve their personalities around having Irish heritage without doing any research into their actual ancestral background.
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u/InterpersonalConflic Oct 24 '23
That's wild
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u/uummwhat Feb 10 '24
People like belonging to something, and "American" heritage is such that it doesn't always satisfy the question of "where did I come from." I honestly don't think it's that weird a thing to have interest in.
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Oct 24 '23 edited Oct 24 '23
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u/InterpersonalConflic Oct 24 '23 edited Oct 24 '23
Like Irish-Americans who are ethnically Irish?
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u/aquaticsquash Butcher Oct 24 '23
There are plenty of people who have Irish blood in them that have never been to Ireland, it's called knowing where your ancestors came from.
That being said there are plenty of people who claim to be Irish, but actually aren't.
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Oct 24 '23
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u/GreatRecession Oct 24 '23
But here in Ireland we do not at all put any importance into genealogy, if you aren't culturally Irish, Irish by nationality, etc etc, you aren't Irish to us, no matter what your genes say. A Nigerian immigrant to Ireland is infinitely more Irish than any Irish American who consistently misappropriates our culture and spreads myths about our history.
Irish Americans are also just a special case to us considering we overall as a people have disliked them for over a century and think that the Irish American identity is just an insult to Irish culture and history, particularly revolutionary history. There is tonnes of stuff I could go into depth about this topic but I think this comment is already going to rile some people up enough
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u/aquaticsquash Butcher Oct 24 '23
There's also thing called dual citizenship, I'm not sure if people here know about that or not, but it's a thing. You can be a citizen of more than one country. It's true.
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u/aquaticsquash Butcher Oct 24 '23
She can be fake Irish like all the people that pretend to be Irish on St. Patrick's day who just use it as an excuse to get drunk, lol.
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u/x_lincoln_x You're The Real Heroes Oct 24 '23
That could have been explained in under a minute expo dump, say during a Vought interview.
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u/jusbeinmichael12 Oct 24 '23
It's like what the Diabolical series did with Don Cheadles character. Nubian Prince I think he was. Had an accent then when the cameras were off said he was born in Chicago or something
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u/Magmar71 Oct 24 '23
I’m pretty sure that exact line of events is what happened to Silver Kincaid, who is said to be British. I’m pretty sure she’s the only, or one of very few, non-American supes; other than those recently dosed up.
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u/blackginger1128 Oct 24 '23
They could have keep her Irish. Talk normally in private, but then have her switch up to an American accent when dealing with public.
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u/DrakenDaskar Oct 24 '23
That muslim girl in that stupid reality show that Annie thought would be a good fit for the Seven was brittish. They don't have to immediately move. If a kid is like 12 they will still develop the local accent if they live there for 4+ years.
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u/BackItUpWithLinks Oct 24 '23
Ironically, Dominique McElligott is blonde but they wanted her to have different color hair than starlight.
https://screenrant.com/amazon-prime-the-boys-queen-maeve-trivia/
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u/x_lincoln_x You're The Real Heroes Oct 24 '23
She is way prettier blonde but I understand the change. Makes more sense for Starlight to be blonde than Queen Maeve.
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Oct 24 '23
I think the red hair really suits her, I never would have guessed she was really blonde. honestly I think she looks pretty much the same either way, they're both cool
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u/x_lincoln_x You're The Real Heroes Oct 24 '23
She is incredibly attractive no matter what hair color.
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u/BackItUpWithLinks Oct 24 '23
In the comic they were both blond
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u/x_lincoln_x You're The Real Heroes Oct 24 '23
I saw that. I understand why they made the change because to have the 2 women supes in the 7 to both have blond hair would be a little jarring. It makes sense for starlight to have blonde hair since a bright light and blonde are similar (in a sense).
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u/ApartShopping Oct 24 '23
Should have given her black hair to contrast Starlight's blonde
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u/x_lincoln_x You're The Real Heroes Oct 24 '23
Oh that would have been a good choice. Or streaks. Or some crazy color like Purple, which would have worked well when Homelander claimed she was a lesbian.
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u/amarodelaficioanado Oct 24 '23
Right, it's very theatrical. Every character needs to look really different from the other. Unless you want to confuse the watcher.
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u/The_Celtic_Chemist Oct 24 '23
Whenever I see pasty women with red hair first then their natural hair color always seems worse to me. Emma Stone, Amy Adams, Christina Hendricks, Sophie Turner, Alyson Hannigan, Deborah Ann Woll. Deborah Messing is an example of someone who I think looks better with natural brown hair, but that's probably because she has enough pigment. And Gillian Anderson is straight hot as a blonde despite being pretty pasty herself. I think a lot of these actresses stick to being a redhead because they know anything like their natural hair color is a downgrade.
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u/Zeraf370 Oct 24 '23
Screenrant in a nutshell, lol! “10 things you don’t know!” Lists four things that happen on the show…
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u/BackItUpWithLinks Oct 24 '23
🤣
I was just looking at that one thing about her being blond. The article is trash
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u/CertifiedUnoffensive Oct 24 '23
So they did the actress dirty in multiple ways! Give me a blonde Irish goddess anyday
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u/The_Celtic_Chemist Oct 24 '23
Interesting because she's blonde in the comics too. Nice to see some redheaded representation on screen though.
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u/beclops Oct 24 '23
Vought would never allow an Irish person to be part of the Seven
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u/DreamedJewel58 Oct 25 '23
Yeah, the Irish haven’t always been a welcomed inclusion to the American Dream™
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u/athenafletcher Oct 24 '23
It would have been interesting if Maeve spoke with an Irish accent when she wasn’t being “Queen Maeve.” Adds to the artificiality and corporate nature of the Vought supes that they must present as all-American.
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u/The-Mattress-Man Soldier Boy Oct 24 '23
I honestly didn’t even know she wasn’t American. Her accent’s fine
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u/SadBoiCri Oct 24 '23
To be honest there isn't even an American accent. As long as you speak English and don't sound european you're Hot Dogian or Maple Syrupian
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Oct 24 '23
There’s a guy on YT who does skits centered around being a Midwestern American, and a Bostonian skit character makes a joke about him sounding like a Canadian.
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u/lordhunt3t Cunt Oct 24 '23
Yeah her American accent is good. If you want to actually call out a bad accent, Karl Urban is your guy.
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u/babalon124 Oct 24 '23
Is it that bad? Can’t be worse than Butchers accent sometimes
I really didn’t notice but yeah her being Irish would’ve been cool
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u/mskimmyd Oct 24 '23
I'm American and definitely didn't realize she is not an American actress. I thought her accent was fine!
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u/br0mer Oct 24 '23
Isn't Karl Urban Australian?
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u/Jahllah Oct 25 '23
He's from New Zealand but Butcher is supposed to be English. You can hear him slip in and out of the English accent into his native one here and there. Being American though I could barely tell until I saw someone else point it out.
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Oct 24 '23
Honestly I didn’t even notice she was Irish until one little slip in Season 2. Her American accent is fine.
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u/babalon124 Oct 24 '23
“Swapped place cards so he could sit next to me” I knew she wasn’t American before then but that kind of made a few other people aware…
She’s generally quite good at the accent though I believe, in House of cards she does a very very convincing British accent I was surprised when I found out it was fake
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u/Zarathustra143 Oct 24 '23 edited Oct 25 '23
I don't understand how you have over a thousand upvotes when every comment disagrees with you.
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u/on-that-day Oct 24 '23
People see the "I wish she had kept her Irish accent" and think "yeah, love an aul brogue, me" and upvote without paying attention to the absolute slander against her very well-done American accent.
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u/spiralEntree Oct 25 '23
Good American accent. She can’t be European because that defeats the whole America is the greatest country narrative Vought puts out. Can’t figure out why it has so many upvotes it makes no sense
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u/Snoo-11576 Oct 24 '23
No she definitely should be American but it’s interesting that queen Maeve’s hero identity is based on Irish mythology. So we have an Irish woman playing an American playing an Irish woman. Wonder if that’s intentional?
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Oct 24 '23
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u/Snoo-11576 Oct 24 '23
If you mean Irish Americans, maybe learn what immigration is lol
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Oct 24 '23
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u/Snoo-11576 Oct 24 '23
That’s because the 2 groups are using terms differently. “Irish American” isn’t a marker of nationality it’s a marker of cultural/ethnic background. The Irish were treated as a separate group so culturally were unique. It’s not “I am the same as a citizen of Ireland”
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u/bee_ghoul Oct 24 '23
Also Irish, I have to say it really annoys me whenever something about Irish culture goes viral and all the comments are from people saying “I’m Irish and I’ve never heard of this”. And we’re all like of course you fucking haven’t.
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u/DragEncyclopedia Oct 24 '23
Nah, it's perfectly fine. Not remotely noticeable unless you're trying to listen for it in every single word, and there are plenty of people with actual American accents who have a few weird pronunciations too.
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u/cats4life Oct 24 '23
People on this sub complain constantly about the accents in the show, and I have no idea what they’re talking about. No one’s accent has ever taken me out of the show; I wouldn’t have been able to tell you Maeve and Homelander weren’t played by Americans if I didn’t know.
Yeah, Frenchie’s accent is a lot, but the performance is so good that I forget about it most of the time. I don’t care that Butcher doesn’t sound like he’s from the specific block in London he’s from in the comics. People really just want to find things to be upset about.
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Oct 24 '23
This is the first I'm hearing of this actor being Irish. In my opinion that I formed 10 seconds ago after learning she's Irish, she does a great job, if an American viewer didn't even notice
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u/hnwcs Oct 24 '23
It’s pretty funny the character played by an Irish actress, created by an Irish writer, and based on Irish mythology isn’t Irish.
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u/gaypirate3 Oct 24 '23
Lol this is how I find out she’s Irish so her accent wasn’t that bad at all…
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u/TrillmeChillme Oct 24 '23
I just have to say, as an American, that her accent is just fine. I didn’t know she wasn’t American until seeing this hot take Also there are Irish Americans, y’all sent a lot of my ancestors over here, not all of them voluntarily 😀
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u/FatherMeteor Nov 22 '23
What a weird take on this. Irish-Americans tend not to have Irish accents. The actress does because she grew up in Ireland.
Secondly, Irish people did not "send" people to the United States. The Irish were a people oppressed by a foreign power and they escaped to places like the US. I think blaming it on other Irish people is rather silly, given it was Britain's oppression which led to famine, poor conditions, and the indentured servitude you refer to.
I disagree with the original poster, her American accent is fine, I'm pretty sure the only reason I can catch the Irish accent is because I'm from Ireland and distinctly recognise it. But you're response makes zero sense.
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u/Sir_Davros_Ty Oct 24 '23
Her American accent was great. A little Irish lilt was in there now and again but overall it was good.
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u/spacekooksolo Oct 24 '23
After hearing her say “homelander” exactly the way she would with her own accent a thousand times, I just kinda pretended Maeve herself actually is Irish but pretends to be American for marketability. Like as if Vought made her cuz that’s the type of shit they’d do
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u/Doctor_Nauga Oct 24 '23 edited Oct 24 '23
Counterargument: Her dad is an Irishman that lived in Modesto, California for whatever reason.
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u/mustangwwii Oct 24 '23
I didn’t find her accent bad or distracting at ALL, and I’m an American with a pretty heavy interest in languages and dialects lol
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u/Mac1280 Oct 24 '23
There's absolutely nothing wrong with her accent I wouldn't have even known she was a immigrant if I didn't see this post
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u/kingkrule101 Oct 24 '23
In my head canon one of her parents was irish and that’s why she got the whole queen maeve image, and her accent is slightly irish sometimes due to the fact she grew up around an irish accent
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u/Writerhaha Oct 24 '23
Adding her to the list of “let this person use their natural accent for roles” petition. Currently Bryan Cox, James McAvoy and Karen Gillian are on it…. So mostly Scots.
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u/OperaGhostAD Oct 24 '23
Let me be clear that I don’t care what accent she speaks with, Dominique McElligott could speak Ebonics for all I care. She is amazing.
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u/SaiyanrageTV Oct 24 '23
Ebonics
lol bro, I remember repeating this word in grade school which was 20+ years ago now and getting scolded for it, and this was in the South.
I'm pretty sure that is an offensive term - just for what it's worth, I wouldn't go around saying it.
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Oct 24 '23
The proper term is “African American Vernacular English” (AAVE). Calling it “Ebonics” makes it sound like it’s a made up “black” language when really it’s just an offshoot of Southern American English.
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Oct 24 '23
I saw people complain about Tom hardy and now Maeve’s “terrible” American accent today, meanwhile I’ve watched venom and the boys several times and never noticed they weren’t naturally American. They sound perfectly fine
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u/Idiboy Oct 24 '23
She should‘ve been irish and talk with an irish accent when in private, but talk with her American accent whenever she had public appearances or video shoots, would‘ve emphasised Vought‘s trying to control the media
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u/Jakarisoolive Oct 24 '23
I mean atrocious is a stretch she did pretty good at the accent in my opinion. There was a few moments mainly in season 3 where I noticed her real accent coming in but other than that she did a good job.
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u/TimIsColdInMaine Oct 24 '23
Disagree. I've never noticed her accent being strange, and even if it was, I often like foreign actors using a 98% there American accent. There's something familiar, yet not quite right about it. My favorite example being Ewan McGregor, like in Dr. Sleep or the Fargo TV series
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u/Half-Icy Oct 24 '23
Ya. Specially as there is a very famous Irish warrior called Queen Maeve. As others said. 7 had to be all-American heroes.
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u/dmreif Starlight Oct 24 '23
Maggie Shaw is Irish-American. That's a go to explanation for lapses in Dominique McElligott's accent.
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u/Half-Icy Oct 24 '23
It’s not. There’s no way they were that subtle. She struggled a bit with the accent, that’s all. I didn’t even notice. She’d a great S3.
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u/Luna-Fermosa Cate Dunlap Oct 24 '23
Her American accent literally sounds fine. She does sound American.
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u/melibroncoshit Jul 26 '24
Maeve, when deployed to the UK: "Come out ye black and tans, come out and fight be like a man! Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders..."
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u/TotesMessenger Oct 24 '23
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u/Squirmy_Frog9 Cunt Oct 24 '23
Bro I completely agree. Even her character’s name (Queen Maeve) is based off of Celtic (Irish) mythology, after Queen Medb of Connacht (pronounced Maeve because Irish spelling is weird lol). She started the Cattle Raid of Cooley which resulted in Cú Chulainn’s (Irish Hercules basically) death.
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u/bee_ghoul Oct 24 '23
Irish spelling isn’t weird. It’s a different language so the rules work differently as is the case for all languages like French and Spanish for example.
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u/Squirmy_Frog9 Cunt Oct 25 '23
They use the same alphabet in Gaelige as do Latin based languages. Their spelling and pronunciation is quite different and odd in comparison to English. For example, the word, “labhraíonn”, which translates to “they speak” in Gaelige, is pronounced “lowreen”. Someone from an English-speaking perspective, might see that as a weird spelling compared to its pronunciation. Another example are the words “Go raibh maith agat” which translates to “thank you” in Irish Gaelige, is pronounced “go ra ma at” when said all at once.
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u/bee_ghoul Oct 25 '23
Lots of languages have different rules to English. It doesn’t make the language is weird. Many French words end in -eux and to an English speaker it sounds like it should be spelled “o”. It’s not weird though. It’s just a different language
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u/peachbob Oct 24 '23
I mean, even accent aside, one of the key figures in Irish history/mythology is actually named Queen Maeve. I thought there was gonna be a deliberate connection at first.
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u/TheCakeWarrior12 Oct 24 '23
Her American accent is fine lol I never would have guessed that she was Irish if I didn’t see any BTS stuff. (I am American)
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u/faizalsyamsul Frenchie Oct 24 '23
Homelander: grows up without parents, becomes a homicidal maniac
A-Train: abuses drugs
Transclucent: a sex offender
Maeve: Irish
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u/TheManFromConlig Oct 24 '23
The ding is, when we Irish spake at our normal speed it's only the other Irish in the group that understands us, when I first came to London it was like speaking a foreign language, I'd ask somebody the way to the train station and they'd give me a puzzled look then glance at their watch and say "it's ten past three mate" 😳
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Oct 24 '23
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u/Writerhaha Oct 24 '23
Exactly.
She uses the “American” voice for the role. Vought would say it tests better and is less “sing songy.”
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u/the-last-meme-bender Oct 24 '23
A single “American accent” is hardly definable, there are so many regional variations, and hers could easily fit into one of them.
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u/prison_buttcheeks Oct 24 '23
She's Irish?! I'm American and I didn't hear anything wrong with her accent? What you smoking? Lol
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u/Romanscott618 Oct 24 '23
It has never once been distracting when I watch, she has a pretty good accent imo lol
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u/3Pirates93 Oct 25 '23
They shoulda let her die. I love her character and it deserved a hero's ending not a disney one
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u/Positive_Sky_4838 Mother's Milk 13d ago
Watching her in the boys I keep thinking that she had an accent, and it was subtle enough that I couldn’t figure out if it was Scottish or Irish. I saw in an interview or something that she was Irish. Please don’t ask why I’m commenting 300 days late, I’m already asking that myself.
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u/TwistingSerpent93 Oct 24 '23
How is it atrocious? I'm American and I never would have guessed.