Old RP-speaking man: We need a hero, or evil will reign for two thousand generations!
Protagonist: I'm only a humble blacksmith with a Californian accent... How can I possibly rise up and conquer evil without a montage?
Languages are colourful and varied. Any linguist will agree with this summation.
This is why, in many works, a character's Funetik Aksent can play a big role in their characterisation, determining both their background (like with the Token Minority) and their archetypical disposition (like with the Brave Scot).
Notably, this almost never extends to the protagonist of such a setting. Depending on the place of origin of the work (or indeed its intended target audience), the main characters will speak in the most neutral, mainstream variation of the language dominating the locale (specifically the seat of the author or entertainment industry). Curiously, this tends to extend to the main antagonists as much as to the heroes (at least when Evil Brit is not in play). The rule of thumb is that the more central a character is to the plot, the more screentime they receive and the more development they experience, the less likely they are to speak in a (possibly distracting) distinct accent instead of a generic one.
American works therefore tend to have the main character speak in a "flat" Midwestern accent, even in a sea of deep-fried Southeners or Nu-Yoakers (older works, meanwhile, tended to gravitate much more to the refined Mid-Atlantic accent, which was widespread amongst Thespians and other stage actors). British works will have their character speak in some form of Received Pronunciation (in older works) or generic London/Essex (if the work is more recent), even if everyone else talks like they're from Mummerset or Ulster.
This is not limited to English either: German Media tends to have their leads speak Hochdeutsch ("High" German as tendentially spoken in Hanover) rather than regional dialects like Bairisch or Platt (which even extends to Swiss Media, where the neutral dialect is known as Schriftdeutsch); Japanese Media leads tend to speak Tokyo rather than, say, Nagoya or Kansai.
This might sometimes be a result of more famous/mainstream actors being more likely to play major characters (see Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize) and said mainstream actors are likely to be from the area where the entertainment industry is or, more likely, receive their theatrical education there. The omnipresence of this trope makes aversions even more notable, most often when an actor (with typical 'offenders' being the likes of Liam Neeson, Sean Connery, or Arnold Schwarzenegger) either accidentally or purposefully reverts to their natural (and very much non-neutral) accent.
Compare and contrast Not Even Bothering with the Accent. The Kids Are American is a Sister Trope.
See also Period Piece, Modern Language, Vanilla Protagonist, and Homegrown Hero.
Examples:
- In the manga Elden Ring: Road to the Erdtree, while most characters use Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe, the protagonist Aseo talks like a person from modern times, being a comedic adaptation of the game.
- Parodied in the Foil, Arms and Hog sketch Regional Accent Discrimination
, where a couple of stereotypes with various strong British Accents hire a professional accent coach speaking a soft, inoffensive and unplaceable RP-esque accent in order to help them break into mainstream media. The sketch ends with the coach becoming so annoyed with them that he slips back into his own native lower-class Dublin.
Scouser: Mates, mates, I did achting as a young lad in Liverpool: "Mister Frodo, Mister Frodo, I don't want ta go ta Maw-daw!"
Ulsterite: I'm a former member of the Belfast Amateur Dramatic Society: "To be or not to be, that is the pertinent question, Minister!"
Cornishman: "Moi name is James Bahnd." Arrr!
Northener: Ay-up! "Yippee ki-yay, muthafuckah."
- Aladdin takes place in a Middle Eastern country, but the three main characters — Aladdin, Jasmin and the Genie — speak in American accents, while Jafar and the Sultan have slight British accents, and Iago speaks like Gilbert Gottfried. All other characters speak in exaggerated Middle Eastern accents.
- An American Tail has the young protagonist (and Russian emigré) Fievel and his sister Tanya speaking Midwestern English, despite the fact that they have never been to America and even their own parents can only speak English with Russian accents. Those characters that actually are American overwhelmingly speak in thick New York accents instead.
- Finding Nemo is set in Australia, but the main characters Marlin, Nemo, and Dory sound American.
- How to Train Your Dragon: In the movies, the protagonist Hiccup sounds American even though all the adult vikings sound Scottish. Similarly, all the teenage characters sound American when their parents don't. This was apparently done deliberately to highlight the generational gap.
- In Disney's Pocahontas, John Smith speaks in Mel Gibson's American accent while the rest of the settlers sound English.
- Ratatouille is set in France, but the two most major characters Rémy and Linguini, plus Rémy's father, sound American.
- The Death of Stalin: The Politburo members all speak The Queen's Latin (well Russian), with most of the Anglo-American ensemble embracing their natural accents. That said, almost all the actors default to either RP or Midwestern English, with the notable exception of Stalin (who speaks Cockney and dies halfway through the first act) and Marshal Zhukov (who has a thick Yorkshire accent).
- Lord of the Rings: In Peter Jackson's trilogy, the protagonist Frodo (played by American Elijah Wood) speaks in a soft RP accent while other characters adapt more niche regional dialects (Samwise and much of the rest of the Shire speaks Somerset, Gandalf maintains upper-class Birmingham, Saruman speaks a posh heightened RP, Gimli speaks Welsh English, and Sean Bean as Boromir speaks Yorkshire).
- Oliver! has the eponymous protagonist orphan-turned-street-urchin speak in a schoolboy's RP while everyone else around is essentially monolingual in Cockney.
- Famously (or infamously) Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves features Kevin Costner playing Robin Hood in his own American accent while everyone else sounds English. Even his fellow American Christian Slater, playing Will Scarlet, attempts an English accent with mixed success. This has been mocked in the Mel Brooks parody
- Babylon Berlin features a vast swathe of German dialects. While the deuteragonist Charlotte is practically bilingual in Berlinerisch, the protagonist Gereon Rath (despite being born and raised in Cologne) speaks neutral Hochdeutsch rather than Kölsch (much unlike his pharmacist, whose Kölsch is comically impenetrable). Other characters, mostly Wicked Cultured antagonists like Major General Seegers, Colonel Wendt, Alfred Nüssen (all of whom are members of the Prussian aristocracy), as well as Edgar Kasabian (a gangster of Armenian heritage) also stick to Hochdeutsch.
- Doctor Who: In his first appearance as Jamie, Frazer Hines used a Highland Scots accent. Once he'd learned that Jamie was to become a regular, he retooled the accent as a more generic 'TV Scots'.
- Farscape was filmed in Australia and most of the cast are Australian and speak with their natural accents, with the exception of lead character (and Token Human) John Crichton, played by the American Ben Browder. Though even then, it's not entirely played straight, since Browder speaks with a touch of his natural Southern accent, especially when he's upset.
- Oktoberfest 1900, which is set entirely in turn-of-the-century Bavaria, is notable for its absence of Bavarian or Franconian German amongst the regular cast, all of whom exclusively stick to unaccented Hochdeutsch. Bairisch is relegated to a handful of minor and background characters.
- In Son of a Critch, set in Newfoundland, most of the characters have the distinct Newfoundland accent, but several of the main characters, including Mark, Fox, Ritchie, and Pop use either a neutral accent or, in the case of Pop, a vaguely Irish accent
- The Wire has a lot of actors who are Baltimore natives and speak with the local accent, but many major characters are played by actors from other backgrounds, like Jimmy McNulty and Stringer Bell with mostly a generic East Coast US accents. The biggest aversion is Proposition Joe, whose actor Robert Chew was from Baltimore.
- In The Man Born to Be King, the decision was made to voice Jesus in a "standard" RP accent, though as the notes point out it would have been more authentic to use a broad regional accent.
- Bravely Default II: This trope is zig-zagged in regards to the game's English dub, where unlike the first two games, was picked from a pool of European talent instead of being recorded in North America. The first playable character and the character who's often referred to as the main protagonist, Seth, has a mainstream almost American-like accent, while the other party members have more distinct regional accents. Gloria and Adelle have English accents, while Elvis speaks with an extremely thick Scottish brogue. The antagonistic Asterisk users and other minor characters also have accents that are all over the place, from German to Australian.
- The main protagonists of Alone in the Dark (2024) both speak using a Midwestern accent whilst the rest of Derceto's inhabitants speak using a Deep South accent. Grace subverts this in the joke ending where she adopts the same kind of accent as the protagonists.
- Starcraft and Starcraft II: The Confederacy is basically the Deep South Recycled In Space, so while most units and characters have some kind of accent (not always Southern, like the German Valkyrie, vaguely-Russian Battlecruiser, profoundly Scottish Hercules, or the Jamaican Gabriel Tosh), The Hero Jim Raynor's accent is much softer than, say, that of Arcturus Mengsk or Tychus Findlay.
- Assassin's Creed protagonist Altaïr speaks with an American accent, which is inferred to be due to limitations of Abstergo's animus, notably, in his appearence in Assassin's Creed: Revelations he speaks with a more accurate Middle-Eastern accent.
- The Animated Hero Classics episode on Florence Nightingale has Florence speak with an inexplicable mid-Atlantic accent while all the other characters speak in different variants of English accents.
- The Dragon Prince: Every race and nation speaks in their own English dialect (Moonshadow Elves speak Scottish, Earthblood Elves speak Australian, Sunfire Elves have faux-Hebrew accents, etc), but the human Kingdom of Katolis, which supplies the overwhelming majority of the main cast, exclusively speaks neutral Midwestern American.
- Although My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic knows Southern, Appalachian and RP English, the main cast and major recurring side characters speak Midwestern English (with the odd unintentional Canadian intonation). It is no coincidence that Applejack and Rarity (who sport a Texan and a Mid-Atlantic accent respectively) are often considered to be the least developed characters of the "Mane Six".
- Redwall, the animated adaptation of the British book series, retains a wide variety of British accents (Moles speak in earthy Summerset, hares speak in a posh Sandringham, "vermin" speak in nautical Bristol, etc), while more central characters like Matthias, Cornflower, and Abbot Mortimer (mice) and Cluny the Scourge (the Big Bad) speak in much more neutral RP.
- Winnie the Pooh: While it's implied that the franchise takes place in England, and Christopher Robin does have the accent to match (with a few exceptions), most of the Living Toysnote (who are more prominent than Christopher Robin) sound American in the animated versions. However, in Christopher Robin, most of them (except for Pooh, Eeyore, and Tigger) do sound British.
