Millions Like Us? Accented Language and the “Ordinary” in British Films of the Second World War

Abstract

Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. T o the British mind, accent has long been an indicator of social status and individual or collective identities. During the Second World War, it came to play a significant role in defining the new social positioning resultant from the cultural construct of the "people's war." At a time when British propagandists concentrated on the image of the "ordinary" man and woman and, in particular, their integration within the organic whole, the problem of social identity was brought into sharp focus, representing the nation reconfigured. In attempting to connect the wider populace with the war effort and the drive for unity, propagandists knew that representations of the "ordinary" had to be realistic, creating an individualized, personal identification with the role of the "everyman" and foregrounding "his" experience. Naturally, accent and language played a key role in this process, featuring prominently in appeals set within the "people's Jo Fox is a senior lecturer in modern history at the University of Durham. This article was completed with the financial assistance of the British Academy. The author also gratefully acknowledges the input of Lawrence Black, Jonathan Pearson, the anonymous readers, and the various archivists whose papers are referred to in this work. Wartime BBC, 1939-45 (Manchester, 1996, 239. This article seeks to redress this omission by analyzing some of the ways in which cinema explored the ordinary, seizing upon the importance of accent and language in attempting to create a realistic portrait of Britain at war. Rather than testing the authenticity of the images presented to the British public, it analyzes the motives of the filmmakers, examining the ways in which dialogue was used in documentary and fictional film productions. It also explores how filmmakers used linguistic methods in cinema portraits of the "average hero" and the problems that producers encountered in trying to do so. The study reveals the development of the image of the ordinary within the master narrative of the people's war and highlights the innate connection between the cinematic documentary movement and its commercial counterpart.Some studies contend that both the nontheatrical and theatrical documentary and the fictional feature operated within parallel contexts but on separate paths. However, by viewing the two forms of cinema as interconnected, this article seeks to challenge the view that "the real propaganda war was carried out in the commercial cinema [...

‘Send us more arms!’ Bringing British women into war production through films in World War Two

“…Paul Rotha was a leading practitioner of the industrial documentary. He did not shy away from using pronounced working class and regional accents (Fox, 2006). Critical of the MOI's philosophy, he emphasised the need to 'educate' all film sponsors to his views' utility (Petrie & Kruger, 1999, p. 40).…”

Soundings : documentary film and the listening experience

“…from condemnation of the commentary as suggestive of 'smugness, insensitivity and unwitting class arrogance' (Jackson, 2004, p. 305) to derision of the role of the commentator as 'a mealy-mouthed schoolmaster' (Thomson, 1993, p. 59); from some mild bemusement about the commentary's 'kindly' 'condescension' (Hunter, 2010, p. 90) to an interpretation of its 'dominant tone' as 'ruminative, reflective and questioning' (Beattie, 2010, p. 110). While the functions of accent, dialect, and language in constructing identity and demarcating boundaries between communities in wartime films have recently attracted critical attention (Fox, 2006), what the various responses to Michael Redgrave's voicing of the commentary demonstrates is the irreducible mediation of subjectivity in a viewing and listening experience. In the end, it is one's own background -and the way in which one perceives the historical moment within which the film is placed -that determines how he or she will perceive Redgrave's voice.…”

War memorial: The Calling Blighty films and remembrance

“…It was the case that the Northern and especially the Lancastrian voice was seen up until the 1940s and beyond as something essentially comic, as exemplified by George Formby, Jimmy Clitheroe and Frank Randle. Jo Fox (2006: 820) asserts that in wartime it was the documentary movement that ‘gave cinematic identity to the popular conception of class, regional, and gender constructs’, and that the use of accents and language was one of the key devices in this construction. The regional voice was reserved for non-serious subjects, and the metropolitan upper-class accent was still consistently invoked for documentary voice-overs, newsreels, or anything requiring critical depth.…”