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by eternalban 1131 days ago
Because Hollywood has been promoting* that accent.

* Review films made in the past 2 decades (that’s roughly when I began noticing the trend). Invariably, an English accent is used to imply authority or superiority (of some kind). Why this is happening in American movie industry is unknown to me but that it has been going on is clear for me.
2 comments
pjc50 1131 days ago
There used to be a trend to star Brits as villains in movies, of which Alan Rickman in Die Hard (doing a variety of accents) may be the peak example.
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bee_rider 1131 days ago
Some British accents have implied a sort of eliteness in the US for much more than a couple decades. See the transatlantic accent. By the late 19’th century it a widespread enough sentiment that we made up an accent to copy it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent

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eternalban 1131 days ago
Americans used to have an inferiority complex vis-a-vis Europe (in general) and English. WWII put an end to that. People the world over started aping Americans, including the English. It is (strangely) after US decides to officially be ‘an empire’ that our propaganda organs started speaking posh language. (No one :) affects a cockney accent, ey?)
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