Sunday, May 13, 2018

about Wanda Maximoff's disappearing accent

Elizabeth Olsen portrays Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. Scarlet Witch, in the Avengers movies. Wanda is Eastern European—possibly Sokovian, but in the comics, she was born in Transia, a fictional country like Sokovia. When we first meet her, Wanda has a strong Eastern European accent, which she maintains through several movies. But sharp-eared fans have noted that, in "Avengers: Infinity War," Wanda's accent is barely noticeable, which has made some people grumble about what might have happened. Why did Wanda's accent disappear?

"Infinity War" takes place a few years after "Avengers: Age of Ultron" (2015) and "Captain America: Civil War" (2016), so I suspect that enough time has passed for Wanda, who is still young and impressionable, to have lost much of her original accent after having hung out with a group of superheroes who are, for the most part, speakers of American English. I just don't see this as a problem.

I re-watched "Infinity War" today and listened more carefully, this time around, for Wanda's accent. It's still there, but in muted form. She sounds more American (Elizabeth Olsen is American), but that's consistent with my theory that the young woman would have lost much of her accent after two years. This is not an issue as far as I'm concerned.



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