Posted by fústar in 
Yesterday afternoon the Christmas market in Clarenbridge (normally a haven of gentle family fun) found itself terrorised by the appearance of a violent, paralytic and terrifyingly intense Santa Claus. He smashed his "sleigh" into a stall selling fruit cake & pudding, urinated on the leg of an elderly man collecting for St. Vincent de Paul, and drunkenly told each & every distraught child who'd listen that all their hopes and dreams would go unfulfilled. All this before passing out in a hideous pool of his own sick.
That's how I imagine it went anyway. I wasn't actually there. But the Santa1 in question was one of my oldest pals and that's his standard routine come Yuletide.
The bearded, present-giving one has (unsurprisingly) been on my mind of late. This time next year we will (touch wood) be spending our first Christmas with a new family member so decisions need to be made on if/when we should expose her to beings of the imagination like Santa, the tooth fairy, and…er…God.
Like most children I'm sure, my attitude to Mr. Claus was once a pretty ambivalent one – mixing fascination and terror in equal measure. On the plus side he gave you presents and magically transported himself across the entire globe in but 24 hours. On the minus side he forcibly entered your house at night, employed a shambolic international army of department store impersonators, and oversaw a sweatshop powered by midget labour. A confusing and contrary figure to be sure.
He also seemed, like any cult-leader or quasi-deity, to be capable of producing zealots. My cousin was one such hard-core believer – telling me (on more than one occasion) that disbelief in Santa was no less a mortal sin than disbelief in Jesus. This, in fairness, would probably be seen as something of an extreme view by mainstream Santa worshippers, but it's still enough to make me question the wisdom of inflicting such a belief system on a child.
An unrelated part of the Claus enigma that's been recently bouncing around my fore-brain concerns his voice. Now while I'm by no means an expert on the languages, dialects and accents of Lapland, I'd be reasonably happy to wager that most of its inhabitants sound nothing like Irish Radio Advertising Santa (or IRAS).
In the vast majority of cases IRAS sounds like a cross between "George from Glenroe" and the fella who used to do the Mr. Kipling's (exceedingly good) pies ad.2 Think posh but chuckly, chumbly,3crumbly, doddery old darling. Like a jolly, ruddy-faced step-uncle whose jovially upturned mouth is stuffed so full of delicious Werther's Originals that he can hardly talk (but still manages to chuckle out charming sentences to delight one and all). It's not just Father X-Claus who sounds like this either. I heard Rudolph advertising mince pies the other day and it was the same deal. George from Glenroe. Mouth full of sucky sweets.
Why this has become the default (radio) Christmas voice is unclear. I suppose it's supposed to sound warm and cosy, with a whiff of nostalgia for a time you never experienced and jolly people you never knew (but still loved anyway). One might as well ask why faux-American accents are always used to advertise nightclubs in Ennis, or why breathy 'n' "seductive" female D4 tones draw our attentions to exclusive Spa Hotels.4
*Pops off to suck contemplatively on a Werther's Original while rubbing Jess's belly*
- Or "Santy" as we say around these parts. [back]
- In most cases, of course, this is due to the fact that it inevitably is George from Glenroe – a.k.a. Alan Stanford. [back]
- If this isn't a word it should be [back]
- There's a weighty thesis on Irish insecurities RE: a sense of self (and self worth) in there somewhere. [back]
The insistence on using fake foreign accents in Irish radio ads has always fascinated me. I suspect you’re correct in putting it down to a deep-seated national insecurity which associates an english accent with “classy” and an american one with “glamour”, denigrating our own natural tones as the braying of mucksavages.
But how does this explain the mid-atlantic accent much favoured by radio station idents? It’s not a fake accent as such – it doesn’t try to fool the listener into thinking he’s listening to an American. Rather it makes clear that it is a layer of affectation which modifies but never entirely obliterates the brogue below. What weird inchoate fears and prejudices can motivate such a thing? Just as kids (and adults too, gawd help us) sometimes prefer tv-advertised processed foods to the infinitely superior real thing, radio station managers think we’ll take a patently inauthentic american twang or upper-crust drawl over an honest to goodness local accent. God, we’re such rubes.
I should ad that no part of Ireland is more in thrall to the US than the wealthy and allegedly self-confident South County Dublin.
There’s a certain bored-sounding American drawl doing the radio rounds at the moment that seems intended to communicate indie hipness. Bulmer’s use it I believe, and it never fails to make me want to puke blood. Too cool for school.
The mid-atlantic DJ phenomenon isn’t, of course, confined to our braying, mucksavagey isle. The Beeb’s Radio 1 is a famous example and may even be where it was born. Still, even if it did, and even if it reflected British insecurities, we’re obviously even more plagued with self doubt since we nicked it 2nd hand (from the ould enemy no less).
Your point about the “layer of affectation which modifies but never entirely obliterates the brogue below” firmly batters the nail on the head I think. This is not supposed to be a wholly convincing impression or copy. It wears its fakeness openly and obviously. That makes the whole thing even weirder.
It reminds me vaguely of Country ‘n’ Irish music. On the one hand it addresses local rural concerns, while on the other it riffs on typically American motifs. In the process something entirely new is created…though I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing.
Trying to sound American and getting it all wrong is where much of the best popular music of the past 50 years has come from. Sadly, as made plain by Country’n'Irish, it has also been the source of some of the worst.
It is, of course, possible that the accent is authentic and we are hearing (but ignoring) proof that Atlantis actually once existed. Did Tony Fenton’s ancestors once roam that lost continent? Are he and his ilk the last of the immortal Atlantean refugees? Was there a DJs guild on Atlantis?
Important questions all.
Fergal,
Perhaps rather than stemming from societal insecurity the use of the mid-Atlantic accent may have more to do with personal insecurities. Who can honestly say they like hearing their voice on recorded medium? Perhaps even DJ’s cringe at hearing their own lilt so choose to adopt a different more generic radio voice.
I also think the term mid-Atlantic accent is over used. Personally I can’t hear any American aspect to the accent of someone like Tony Fenton. Rather, the Irish / English radio voice is something unknown to linguistics. Strangely geographically unspecific. When I think of mid-athletic accents I think of people like say Carry Grant or Vincent Price.
Or perhaps I am wrong and in fact radio DJs suffer from the rare, but highly amusing, medical condition of Foreign Accent Syndrome (whereby peoples’ accents inexplicably change as a result of brain trauma).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/5144300.stm
Definitely up there in my top 10 most amusing medical conditions (sandwiched somewhere between Tourette’s syndrome and narcolepsy).
Quite right, DJs don’t actually sound American, they sound like idiots. There’s a special subset accent reserved for late night phone in shows. While breakfast DJs are insufferable, and daytime ones mostly elicit no stronger feeling than pity, the late night phone show host (I am convinced they’re all the same guy, syndicating the same show on all stations under different names) has a particularly offensive tone that makes one sure that he would be the worlds most morally repulsive man, were he not kept down by his own stupidity.
You don’t get the full mid-atlantic until the breaks, when the station idents and “stings” expose you to a growling voice somewhere between an action movie trailer voice-over and the dude who did that ad for Night Owls in Ranelagh: “Late Night…On Two…Eff! Emm!”
Funny. Here in America, we have plenty of people with fake British accents. People seem to think it sounds more “refined.” Here’s a thought – why not just talk like yourself and let people take you or leave you the way you are?
I think the term “mid-atlantic” is still legit! It describes and defines a placeless accent that mixes and mashes together elements from both sides of the pond. Fits most old-school “Two…Eff! Emm!” DJs like a big filthy glove.
On a vaguely related theme, I heard a rural, Munster midwife use the word “bling” recently. Nearly fell off my birthing ball.
Oh and Barbara, you’re entirely right. Sadly (and amusingly) people are nuts so this is never going to happen.
I think that the mid-atlantic or ‘radio voice’ usually refers to the use of a ‘d’ sound instead of a ‘t’- often with hilarious results! (I believe Alan Partridge drew attention to this…”shid” anyone?). I wonder why our DJs don’t opt for a mid-channel or mid-Bay of Biscay voice? Imagine the pull of an affected French, Dutch or Spanish accent? Better still, why not a mild German accent like the ones we used to hear on Eurosport and other, often dodgier, channels? Which brings me to Santa and his accent: while I’m almost certain Santa is not a native of the Sami people, I think I always thought he’d have a continental accent of some kind: almost certainly Germanic. Not, I hasten to add, like the aforementioned accent advertising mail-order products in the wee-small hours but something more homely. I think I always thought he’d speak with an accent like Heidi’s grandfather or even that bizarre Flemish accent (only a bit deeper and jollier) attempted by Anthony Hopkins in Dracula. Am I wrong to imagine Claus speak in non-anlgophone accent?
Cnuimh
It reminds me vaguely of Country ‘n’ Irish music. On the one hand it addresses local rural concerns, while on the other it riffs on typically American motifs. In the process something entirely new is created…though I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing.
A great and terrible beauty is like… fuckiiin’… born, man!
In the US, “Mid-Atlantic” refers to New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but your interpretation describes that phenomenon perfectly.
‘Mid Atlantic’ would also include Maryland and Virginia.Quite a range of accents there from NYC to Norfolk.None of which sound a bit like the audioffal heard on the radio in Ireland.
Blame has to laid at the feet of the Beeb for this one.’Kid’Jensen leaps to mind.
Hangar Queen – that’s old skool. The Census Bureau defines the region as three states; VA, MD and DE were considered Mid-Atlantic when I was a kid, so who knows when that changed.
Mid-Atlantic evolved in the US, in the classical theater, for American actors performing Shakespeare, etc. It’s also very good for reaching the back of the auditorium without amplification, because it’s whiny and you get the drop the Rs at the ends of words.
It became the default dialect to use in theater if no regional dialect was specified. Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater were the first American actors to abandon it (although if you listen to old episodes of The Shadow radio show, Welles was a master of the mid-Atlantic dialect). Although I really think it was WWII — where we Yanks sat on our asses for two years while Europe and Asia burned, and then showed up like the fucking cavalry — that killed it as far as America goes. The weird part is how this fake accent got adopted by actors in all sorts of places (think Australia, South Africa) as a model for “how Americans talk.”
Americans, OTOH, have no frikkin idea what an Irish accent sounds like, unless they seek them out, because we still think the Irish sound like Vaudeville characters from the 1900s. The odd thing is, once you start listening to contemporary Irish speakers, it’s probably the closest European analogue to American and Canadian English. Y’all sound more like us, naturally, than the Brits and Antipodeans could hope to.
– Oh, holy crap! This thread is over a month old. I found this blog today, and I’ve been reading through the archives, and lost all track of time. Into the feed reader it goes. Okay, speaking of Santa, and Mid-Atlantic, and theater, here’s something special for you, since no one else is reading: Santa Claus Hides in Your Phonograph (1922) (mp3), a supremely creepy example of a) Santa’s voice, b) authentic Vaudeville mid-Atlantic stage dialect, c) childhood trauma.