I’m sure a
lot of people around the world watch original movies dubbed in their own language.
I’m sure you must have done so too. Come on, you can’t deny having watched at
least one beautiful English movie torn to shreds in Hindi just for the fun of
it. You were just bored on a Sunday and had nothing to do. You had a good movie
but only the dubbed version which you are too good to watch because you are a
true connoisseur of cinema. But what the hell might as well get a laugh or two
out of it.
So you saw
it.
You sat
through the entire film and were laughing the whole time because you’d seen the
one in English. But you’re also disgusted because you’ve degraded yourself by
watching a ‘dubbed’ version, have you not? Aah! That short smile of guilt and
regret tells me you’ve gone and done it… Tch tch tch… poor you.
Image Courtesy: Google Images. |
But. If you
haven’t or you regularly watch English films dubbed in Hindi because of reasons
like the Americans don’t speak British English or speak it too fast or speak
Americanese because they think that’s English… it’s ok. I can understand.
In that
case, be aware that what you’re hearing being spoken in the film isn’t actually
what the dialogues are. You might as well be watching a Hindi film with
American actors.
To put it
straight – What you’re watching isn’t exactly the literal translation of what
is being spoken by the characters in the film.
If you
didn’t know that then it is my unfortunate duty to inform you that thou hast
been made what we in India call a ‘Bakra’. In other words, ‘a damn fool’.
Oh you
already knew that? Damn. Then you read all the above for nothing. However, if you
can still bear with me for a moment, I’ll explain myself.
You see,
Hindi is as of now the third most spoken language in the world, Mandarin
Chinese and English being at first and second places respectively. So when a
widely popular film is dubbed into Hindi and is seen by the Hindi speaking
audience of the world, can you imagine how many people only hear the bullshit
that the dubbing artists spew out? I’m not saying that all movies are dubbed badly
but in my experience, most of them are and when this happens, a lot of people
less smart than you actually believe that load of nonsense.
Films, I
believe, are the mirror of society, not wholly representative, but a foggy
mirror nonetheless. People actually do connect with movies and believe what is
shown therein to be a reflection of the civilization they come from. So when
and if you watch a movie that has been dubbed in Hindi, let it be Japanese,
Chinese, Korean, Arabic, French, Spanish, Austrian, German, Australian, British
or American, there may be discrepancies in the translation and since you may or
may not know all these languages, you may not realize the differences between
the original and dubbed dialogues.
This is
dangerous.
It is not
always apparent but we do understand different cultures only by watching the
films made there unless you are a globe-trotting multi-millionaire intellectual
who understands culture only by going to different countries and observing them
closely. So our thinking is affected largely by what we see in films. This
effect is unimaginable if viewed from a global perspective of the number of
films dubbed wrongly and viewed by the Hindi populace of the world. Try to
think about that. I’ll wait.
…
…
Ok, now
what one generation thinks about another culture is bound to affect the next
generation because that is how one gains preliminary knowledge about the world.
So the effect of dumb dubbing is not restricted to space alone, it also has an
effect over time.
Whoa!
Right? I thought so too.
So you see
how dummies dubbing our films can be dangerous? If not, then please do watch
the film ‘Men in Black II’ in English and in Hindi. My team and I found 74
discrepancies in dialogues ranging from geographical to cultural to racial to
language based errors.
But damn is
it hilarious!
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