Why the hell dub?

It’s beyond me how anyone can enjoy watching films dubbed or with voice-overs. It’s an absolute travesty, as far as I’m concerned. Whether you understand the language of the film or not, isn’t there something pleasant and endearing about watching a foreign film in its original language? Of course, I say this from the perspective of an English-speaker, so by foreign film I mean anything not originally in English. From the perspective of a non-native speaker, I don’t know if The Dark Knight or the Avengers constitute ‘foreign’ films (I would say no), but let’s just say any film in a language not your own for the purposes of this little rant.

The other day I went to a local cinema – Zhovten for my local readers – which sometimes shows films in the original language. We were there to see ‘Future Shorts’, 6 short films totaling 81 minutes, from 6 different countries: Poland, Brazil, South Korea, Denmark/Sweden (1 film) and 2 from America. It was advertised as being in the original language with Ukrainian subtitles. But it wasn’t. The shorts were subjected to the dreaded voice-overs, which may be even worse than dubbing: ‘actors’ talking over the original voices, the original being barely discernible. Even worse, in Ukraine it tends to be just one male voice and one female voice to cover all the voices, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. Imagine the chaos when a mixed-gender group of people are arguing. It’s downright tedious and emotionless to listen to.

From what I gather, it’s more in Eastern Europe that voice-overs are used on TV. Cinemas all feature films dubbed in Ukrainian, without the original voices. Although just as deplorable, this is at least somewhat better than voice-overs. It’s less annoying, anyway.

In other parts of Europe dubbing is used everywhere, in cinemas and on television. In Spain, they featured three different voices: your standard male, your standard female and then a special one for Sean Connery. I kid you not.

When I lived in Lviv in 2005-6, I had only four channels – none in English – and no internet access. I also had no films on my laptop, nor could I find any DVDs anywhere in English anywhere in the city. The result? I read a prodigious amount of books and had a great social life, full of shenanigans. Had this blog existed then, I could have packed it full of tales of sordid hijinks and all sorts of mischief.

But at times I was so desperate for something to watch, something new that I could understand that I resorted to some truly awful choices in entertainment. There would sometimes be films on – old, familiar favourites – that I could watch because I’d seen them over and over. I remember one night staying up till the wee hours watching a Police Academy marathon. I could just about tolerate the voice-overs, but I couldn’t hear any of the original English. But then I discovered – gulp – Sex and the City and Nip/Tuck. Both were shown late at night, back to back, over a period of a few weeks (until every episode had been shown), and they were the only shows where you could still easily and clearly hear the English underneath the voice-overs. Yes, I was that desperate, and I do believe this was around February, when it was cold and I’d been there for 6 months. I needed it!

(I came away from Nip/Tuck – not at all a bad show, and very addictive – with the thought that Jessalyn Gilsig is one of the more underrated hot actresses out there – go on, if you don’t know her, do a quick a Google search.)

Anyway, I could tolerate voice-overs and dubbing in my desperation many years ago, but not anymore. Riga was great for cinema – all films (except cartoons, which is understandable) were in the original with Latvian and Russian subtitles. The locals – by this, I mean my students – loved it. 

Have a look at this map, from Wikipedia:

What do you notice? Countries that show films in the original (in blue) tend to have better English speakers than those who don’t. I know this isn’t a direct cause and effect factor, but there has to be some correlation here. (A further analysis might be interesting, and I’m sure studies have been done, but I won’t comment further on this.) 

I’ve asked numerous students about this in Ukraine, and the vast majority say they prefer dubbing because it’s easier and they don’t like reading subtitles. Seriously? This irritates me to no end. How can anyone in their right mind prefer dubbing over the original? It’s ghastly! I’m not sure if I can attribute this to laziness, but I have had one or two students pout and act like babies when we’ve got into a serious discuss about the merits of dubbing. ‘But it’s not interesting to watch films with subtitles, it’s difficult to read the words, I just want to relax and watch…’ or words to this effect.

So perhaps one reason why dubbing persists is popular demand. A second, I’m told, could be cost. Apparently dubbing is cheaper than coming up with subtitles. And in Spain, I was told that the dubbing lobby was fairly powerful and resisted attempts at eliminating dubbing and introducing subtitles. This dubbing lobby, by the way, consists of three people. 

When it comes to big-ticket Hollywood blockbusters, dubbing isn’t so bad, I suppose. My good pal Mark goes to the cinema quite often in Kyiv to see action-adventures when he knows the story and just goes for the visuals. I enjoyed the Great Gatsby dubbed because I knew the story and I was there for the visuals. I think my recent experience at Zhovten is more down to the fact that the films were less action-adventure, and they were advertised as being in the original language. 

Perhaps I should be taking out my ire at Zhovten: false advertising is a major pet hate (shouldn’t it be everyone’s?) and is downright duplicitous. Sadly, it’s a bit too prevalent in Ukraine. Here are two more examples:

1.   Every summer, Kyiv residents lose hot water for 2-3 weeks while the pipes are being cleaned (or something to that effect, I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing). Some lucky stiffs have water boilers or gas or electric heaters. Suckers like me have to make do with cold showers or boiling water in the kettle. This year, a sign showed up saying my hot water would be off from 11-25 June. As I write this, on the 6^th of August, I’m still without hot water. The sign was taken down long ago.

2.   My local supermarket, Fourshet, is a particularly egregious offender. They frequently advertise special discounts, only for them not to be taken off at the till. I’ve tried to argue my case a few times, but my Russian is horrible and they don’t seem to care. At least this only seems to happen at this supermarket, but it’s the closest to my flat and thus the most convenient.  

As for the films, people have also told me that I should learn Ukrainian and I won’t have any problems. First, they’re missing the point. Whether I know Ukrainian or not, I want to watch films sans dubbing. And second, for the time being I’m concentrating on Russian, which doesn’t do me any good in Ukraine’s cinemas, unless I find one showing Russian-dubbed films.

So for now, I’m stuck with lousy dubbing and even lousier voice-overs, with the occasional film festival showcasing movies in the original. 

At least these days I can download any film or TV show I want, in English, illegally from the internet, without fear of being caught or prosecuted.

Ain’t Ukraine great?