In Boston, we call it “cucum-BAH”.
This was my verifying response to Hilaria Baldwin’s drama that unfolded last week, an event that covers topics ranging from cultural appropriation to fake canned accents and language disparities – “How do you say in English … cucumber?” – old-fashioned begging.
Leaving aside the tedium of the pandemic blockade, it may seem pointless to unpack this social media novel more than we have already done collectively. And yet, there is much more mileage to be taken from this source of questionable Iberian lineage. Trust me, I know. I’m from Boston. Born and raised. I live in Los Angeles now, but I spent the first 18 years of my life in and around the metropolitan Boston area. And in Boston, these things are important. Especially where an accent is involved.
Not the Spanish accent – Boston.
Hilaria Baldwin was martyred for what some see as faking her Spanish accent, and she responded with statements essentially saying that she is exactly like that. She has a family in Massachusetts and a family living in Spain. Being “authentic” has been his constant line of defense. She is simply “living her life”. But here’s the key question: Hilaria Baldwin ever had a authentic Boston accent? And what did she mean when she said that she was “a different kind of Bostonian?” This is a Bostonian who was authentically were you born on the Mediterranean island of Majorca?
To be clear, the Boston accent is no small feat. It’s infamous. It’s legendary. It is ridiculed and imitated at every step. It is insulted, but also applauded. Because it’s so …A lot of. It is a vast expanse of pahked cahs and the abandoned Rs fell into the alphabetical abyss. It is the material from which comic releases are born, such as the trailer for the film “Boston Accent” by Seth Meyers and the parody of Dunkin ‘Donuts by Casey Affleck in “Saturday Night Live”. I have yet to meet a single Bostonian who has traveled to distant places from which, at some point and time, he was not ridiculed because of that accent, which is not even a specific accent, but varying regional accents depending on where he is from. It is the difference between John F. Kennedy and Mark Wahlberg.
Anyway, there is nothing subtle about the Boston accent. It’s noisy, it’s rubbish, it’s elegant with the right string of grandma’s heritage pearls. Like the accent, Boston itself is a juxtaposition of disparate universes. It’s MIT and Sylvia Plath, but it’s also your friend Sully, drunk face down at the bar. It’s Donna eating a Kelly roast beef while tanning on the beach “Reve-ah”. The Boston accent is messy, but it’s also bright and smooth where you least expect it.
It is also an accent that Hollywood rarely it gets right. Most of the time, in fact, Hollywood interprets the Boston accent in a strange and maddening way. The fact that the way Bostonians speak seems to escape the cinema business forever is so confusing that it has become its own classified sport. Some non-Bostonians have succeeded – Christian Bale in “The Fighter”, Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone” – but many others have failed disastrously, their attempts at a R– without a dialect that turns into a caricature. And if you’re from Boston, the Bad Boston Accent is virtually impossible to ignore. Some glaring examples from years past: Tom Hanks in “Catch Me If You Can”, Michelle Williams in “Manchester by the Sea”, Amy Adams in “The Fighter”. Alec Baldwin, a Long Island native, didn’t even bother to go straight to Boston in “The Departed”, opting to just speak at a slightly louder volume and adding arrogance to each step. I’m not sure what to do with Sacha Baron Cohen’s opinion on Abbie Hoffman’s accent in “The Trial of the Chicago 7”. Worcester through Dorchester? I’ve been analyzing this for months.
Which is not to say that not everyone is a brilliant actor. Because they it is. The fact that they are unable to do a Boston accent, notoriously difficult by theater standards, is not entirely their fault. They probably didn’t have the right training or maybe they’re thinking hard instead of feeling myself. I know a lot of Bostonians who moved a long time ago and are no longer able to do a proper Boston accent. I can’t even make one unless I’m in the company of my Boston city parents for six straight weeks. Matt Damon doesn’t even seem to be from Boston anymore. Neither does Ben Affleck. And yet, they do. Because the Boston accent is more than an accent – it is an energy, an attitude, a spirit.
The Boston accent is a vibration.
I don’t know if Hilaria Baldwin, who grew up in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, has a Boston accent under the cultivated Spanish, but I bet it’s there. Or there was one, at a certain time and time, long before she decided she was from Spain.
But I also understand the urge to feel that what you are is not interesting enough, it is not exotic enough. Boston is not exotic. Any city where adults wear wool shorts with lobster appliques cannot be exotic. There was a time, when I was a freshman at Cornell, when my strong Boston accent became a source of paralyzing embarrassment. I felt stupid, unable to be taken seriously. How to read De Sade aloud at Comp Lit 407 when you sounded like one of the clerks at Fenway Park? So, I made a careful effort to change that. I worked on it, I studied students and teachers on campus. I pronounced my Rwith intention. But it was all a lot of effort. And after a few weeks, I just stopped. And I realized that I just didn’t care. I liked my accent was good. The truth is that you are always better at being yourself than anyone else.
I cannot speak for Hilaria Baldwin. Maybe it was all part of a marketing scam. Maybe she just got bored. Perhaps Spain attracts Hilaria Baldwin in a way that the Boston Common never did. Who knows why people do what they do? But what I know to be true is this: once a Bostonian, always a Bostonian. And this is a medal of honor that we should be proud to wear forever.