My mother just sent me this link to a quiz in the Baltimore Sun about fictional Baltimore.
This is a perfect segue for one of my most recent gripes. I watched the long gone Baltimore based show, Homicide: Life on the Street for the first time a few weeks ago. Then, while Greg and I were in NY, I tuned into a newer B-more based show on HBO called The Wire.
Here is what annoys me. These shows take place in Baltimore but there doesn't seem to be a realistic portrayal of Baltimoreans. My biggest problem is the way the people on these shows talk. I know that the Wire has to do with The Baltimore drug scene, but why would you make middle-lower class white folk in Baltimore talk with NY accents? And most of the cops in homicide had heavy Brooklyn accents as well. As a Baltimorean it is hard to hear people who are supposed to be natives of the city talk without any sort of Baltiomore accent. It loses all credibility in my mind. These guys are supposed to be actors. Couldn't someone have done research into the dialect of Bawlmerese and used some of it for his/her role? If they won't put on the Bawlmer drawl, at least don't have any accent, but a New York accent coming from a native Baltimorean is just too much, IMO.
Posted by peninah at July 16, 2004 07:24 AM