Blood Diamond

Leonardo DiCaprio is a quite accomplished actor, but can he pull of a South African English accent in front of a total South African audience?
Yesterday we went to see Blood Diamond, DiCaprio's recent movie in which he plays a South African diamond smuggler. For the part he left home his American accent and learned to talk like an Afrikaner who speaks English. I must admit that it was hard for me to concentrate on the story, because I knew that the whole audience was secretly grading his accent.

The first of many 'all right's went down south, literally; he sounded more like an aussie. A wave of laughter went through the audience because of so much ignorance. Shocking!
The second big roar was when DiCaprio called a soldier 'doos', which means 'cunt'. This time it was more a laughter of pride, as if everybody was thinking 'isn't that a great word we have?'
On the other hand; a shiver of shock went through the cinema when he shouted the K word (k*ffer) to he's his black companion. Maybe because its pretty much the worst thing one can say (like the American N word)? Maybe because they already feared the further stigmatising of white South Africans this movie could cause? Maybe because some of the whites present secretely liked to hear out loud again? Maybe....

But all in all he did a pretty good job pronouncing all the ja's, jaja's, all rights, bru's (brother) and apartheid's.
Well done, Leo. You past the test.