Bo Cushing is the actor, a 16-year-old from Raynham who was hoping to scrub the last traces of Boston out of his voice before he heads to Los Angeles for the summer.
And then there was Lydon, a 49-year-old mother of three originally from Dorchester who thinks her accent makes her sound dumb, or at least uneducated. It is, she acknowledged, an idea that offends many of her friends. But she has a degree from “Nawtheastin’’ and is convinced her accent has held her back in job interviews.
The Boston dialect is perhaps the most identifiable trait of this region and its people, but Whittaker and other speech coaches are seeing a demand from people seeking to lose it. Much of that demand has to do with Hollywood’s recent fascination with all things Boston.
Cushing and Lydon were studying with Whittaker in a course offered through Boston Casting in Allston, a company that found work for many actors in Boston-set movies specifically because they sounded like a Southie bartender. But they are now seeing those same actors complain that when they audition for other roles, they’re told they sound too much like a Southie bartender.
Others looking to learn their r’s believe the pop culture portrayal of that accent has tainted it as the province of street-corner thugs (a la “The Departed’’) or the comically uncultured (see: Julianne Moore’s recent hatchet job as a Waltham housewife and Bruins fan on “30 Rock’’).
Still, as Lydon’s friends have made clear, seeking to rid oneself of that accent is not without controversy.
“I think it’s stupid,’’ said M.J. Connolly, a professor of linguistics at Boston College who specializes in regional accents. “You’re reducing diversity and flavor.’’
Rachel Dratch, a Lexington native who famously parodied the accent for years with Jimmy Fallon in the “Sully and Denise’’ skits on “Saturday Night Live,’’ said she never understood the impulse to label the accent as dumb.
