Scarlet Witch

With ‘Avengers: Infinity War‘ still destroying the box office with the ease of one snapping their fingers together, some questions have been popping up around the movie. Some fans and linguists have specifically taken note of the fact that Elizabeth Olsen no longer had an accent when playing Wanda Maximoff in the film. Yes, the native-born Sokovian who goes by Scarlet Witch has completely lost her accent when it comes to being on the run in the most recent film.

It was something you could easily hear in both ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ and ‘Captain America: Civil War‘ so having it so profoundly gone is a bit of a surprise.

Here is what Joe and Anthony Russo had to say on the matter:

“We have intentionally tried to strip that accent away for a couple of reasons. One is you’ll notice at the beginning of Civil War that Black Widow is training her to be a spy, and two is she’s been on the run, and one of the most distinguishing characteristics that she has is her accent. So if you’re gonna try to disguise yourself or hide yourself or not be caught, you’re going to try to limit those trigger warnings that would make it easy for someone to identify you, which would be inclusive of her accent. Clearly, Black Widow as a redhead is an incredibly distinguishing characteristic for her, which is why she has blonde hair. Cap, we’ve seen Chris Evans walk around in public with a beard and no one recognizes him. There are simple things you can do to your appearance that take about 90% of your visibility away, and for us, it was very intentional that we would just keep stripping that accent down to show her acclimating and hiding.”

While the idea that Natasha has been helping Wanda lose her accent to fit in seems like solid reasoning, it feels out of place with how much of her time was spent on screen in either private with Vision or fighting Thanos and his minions.

Working on an accent or no, you would feel that in the heat of battle while trying to keep her own that staying this persona that she would usually be wearing to hide and not while going around as a superhero would be the last thing on her mind.

Did Elizabeth Olsen no longer having to provide an accent for Wanda Maximoff annoy you or was it not even noticeable? Are you glad that they made this change or was so much going on that this barely hit your radar? Share your thoughts below, True Believers!

Source: Happy Sad Confused podcast