Abstract: This article responds to calls for more detailed analyses of localization around the world (E. Castelló, 2009; E. Levine, 2009; S. Waisbord & S. Jalfin, 2009) by examining a Mexican dubbing company and its translation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) characters for Latin American audiences. Gay, lesbian, and transgender characters’ identities are alternately maintained and mitigated because of industrial norms and technical constraints. While LGBT content has been censored in other national contexts, the current study demonstrates the confluence of factors that result in non-censorial manipulation of these marginalized identities in Latin America. This grounded analysis pulls from ethnographic research at the Mexican dubbing studio New Art Dub and discusses dubbing in terms of industrial practices and decision-making processes to articulate the ways local and global elements intersect. Dubbing professionals offer a point of entry to understand localization dynamics by highlighting to role of cultural mediators whose decisions can reinforce or challenge cultural expectations of LGBT people.
Topic: dubbing
Media Imports and the One-Inch Barrier: Translation Debates in the Pose-Parasite Era
Abstract: This chapter aims to explore popular discourses surrounding Parasite and other media imports in the U.S. vis-à-vis translation practices like dubbing and subtitling. I use Parasite as an entry point to critically examine how the public, be it in the form of online articles or tweets, makes sense of translation practices through the privileged lens of U.S. culture in which dubbing and subtitling can be easily avoided. For example, the day after Parasite won its many Oscars, Twitter threads debated the relative merits of dubbing and subtitling in ways that revealed a troublingly and often racist perception of why people might prefer one or the other. Paradoxically, these texts also offered a critique of ethnocentric U.S. exceptionalism as a country that expects to be catered to.
(De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters in Latin America: The Implications of Mexican Dubbing for Translating Marginalized Identities
Abstract: This article responds to calls for more detailed analyses of localization around the world (Castelló, 2009; Levine, 2009) by examining a Mexican dubbing company and its translation of LGBT characters for Latin American audiences. Gay, lesbian, and transgender characters’ identities are alternately maintained and mitigated because of industrial norms and technical constraints. While LGBT content has been censored in other national contexts, the current study demonstrates the confluence of factors that result in non-censorial manipulation of these marginalized identities in Latin America. This grounded analysis pulls from ethnographic research at the Mexican dubbing studio New Art Dub and discusses dubbing in terms of industrial practices and decision-making processes to articulate the ways local and global elements intersect. Dubbing professionals offer a point of entry to understand localization dynamics by highlighting to role of cultural mediators whose decisions can reinforce or challenge cultural expectations of LGBT people.