The Practice of Dubbing
or: Yes, indeed we think you are either lazy or stupid hence we dub movies and tv shows.
Why are movies and tv shows dubbed? Because obviously someone feels that people are too stupid or too lazy to read subtitles. And while people are certainly not too stupid or too lazy, being spoon fed by an overabundance of dubs makes them stupid or lazy.
Harsh judgement? What else am I supposed to think when I hear comments like "German Dubbing is top standard", "reading subtitles is way to distracting", "subtitles make me dizzy", "I can't follow the movie if it is not in German" and so on an on. All proof that people are being deliberately stupid and lazy.
First of all: Dubbing might be good on occasion. But that takes effort and dedication and good, talented speakers. Maybe it even has its place with comedies where the subtitles won't help to bring across the jokes conveyed by word games. However, the fact always remains that dubbing always falsifies the Original. That might be deliberate to bring in new jokes or by mistake when the translation is just plain wrong. In either case, it takes something away from the audience and sells them short.
Fact is: An actor's voice is unique and as much part of the acting as his gestures and mimic. The personality of the characters they portray is tied to all of these things and also to the way they express him- or herself.
When dubbed several things happen:
- Dialect and Accents are lost, they might be replaced by another accent in the target language but it won't be the same.
- Meaning is falsified. This can happen for several reason:
- To tone down the language
- The translator thinks he is funnier
- The translator is overworked, underpaid and under so much pressure that mistakes just pile in
- The translator sucks and needs to go back studying the language
- The language barrier makes it impossible to convey the meaning correctly
- The voices are not fitting - usually because:
- There is no one avaible that comes close
- A "cooler" voice is typecast to fit the expectations of the viewers (usually generated by dumb dubs)
- The voice is made more male or female sounding (deeper or more high pitched)
- Sometimes in Animes a female voice is chosen for a male character or vice versa
- Characters are robbed of their emotions:
- Especially in German Dubs, everyone speaks as clearly as if they were reading the news, thus making the characters sound like arrogant fucks
- Characters mumble, eat, laugh, breath heavy after being chased by a psychopath through the house and then sound scared
- The people who dub have no acting talent at all
- The people who dub might be able to mimic the emotions but are not giving the option or chose not to believing they can do it better.*
- There is more but I am hungry and will continue this some other day.
* Thanks to a few series being more popular in Germany than anywhere else, Germans think their dubs are the ultimate gift to the world and that nobody could possibly be funnier than some usually underpaid lame ass who rewrites a script.