THIS week’s subject is a corpulent, flatulent, red-haired, bad-tempered, violent, sweaty individual, with massive moobs, a vulgar outlook on life, and a peculiar diet. Sound like anyone you know? No? Surely, he couldn’t be a Scotsman? Alas, in a surprise development, he is just that, hailing from Clydebank indeed. Sometimes, he even wears a Glengarry cap (very impractical in Scotland; as a piper once told me, they collect rainwater).
But bear in mind that he’s fictional. Artistic licence and all that. Fat Bastard is the creation of Mike Myers, a Canadian who also plays him with a Scottish accent in two of his Austin Powers films about a 1960s-style British spy.
For the avoidance of doubt, these are comedies. Fantastically funny ones too. Myers based the accent on the way some of his relations spoke.
He used a similar one for his other Caledonian character, Shrek (a previous Icon in this intellectually ambitious series). Mike Myers is a Canadian (Image: free) Time magazine put it among the “Top 10 Worst Fake British Accents”, saying of Myers: “Sadly for him and us, his odious Fat Bastard character from his Austin Powers franchise seems to employ Liverpudlian and a slight Canadian lilt along with the supposedly Scottish twang that he’s meant to be portraying.” However, particularly bearing in mind that there are dozens of different Scottish accents in Scotland , and noting Scottish sensitivity about the subject, I think it’s pretty spot-on (with lapses).
No on.
