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Plourde, E.
The Dubbing of The Simpsons
Cultural Appropriation, Discursive Manipulation
and Divergences
Eric Plourde
Université de Montréal
Analysis of the dubbing of The Simpsons offers insights
into possible differences in discursive identity between
France and Québec, two cultures that share a common
language. Translations done in France and in Québec (a
province of Canada and enclave of the French-speaking
population in North America) for The Simpsons show various strategies of cultural appropriation, especially concerning elements considered intrusive by the target culture. The series is perceived as a children’s show and the
subversive discourse of the original is toned down accordingly. Dubbing stands as a buffer zone between two cultures and is also a potent tool for lingustic standardization.
“Lisa, hello! How are you doing in England? Remember, an elevator is called a ‘lift’, a mile is called a ‘kilometer,’ and botulism is
called ‘steak and kidney pie’.” Marge Simpson, Lisa’s Wedding,
Episode 2F15, 1995.
Translation is an act of re-writing; it is an act influenced both by
the translator’s ideology and by those receiving the translation. This
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influence is present in all forms of translation, written or oral.
Translation enters our homes by the largest window of them all: television. And through that medium, translation becomes a daily, commonplace phenomenon. On each side of the Atlantic, francophones
have been exposed to dubbing since the beginnings of television. In
France and Québec, French exists on television in part because of dubbing. The two nations have a televisual culture that cannot rival that of
the United States. As a result, some foreign-language cultural products
are broadcast in a dubbed version in France and Québec. Such is the
situation for the animated series The Simpsons, a phenomenal success
in the United States. The Simpsons is a case in point, a reference for
the 1990’s and a precursor of an entire generation of animated series
that influenced many aspects of the world of cartoons.
According to Brisset, “… la traduction n’est pas une zone neutre
entre deux cultures [translation is not a neutral zone between two cultures].” (1997:51). Translations are, in themselves, constructions of a
discourse and might in fact be evidence of what the target culture
“thinks” is appropriate to borrow or carry from the source culture.
Dubbing is the everyday reality of television viewers in Québec
and France. In that sense, dubbing represents mass consumption translation. The Simpsons was chosen for research because it remains one
of the very few programs dubbed both in Québec (Québécois French)
and in France1. More importantly, the series is a milestone in
American pop culture. It possesses a robust connotation system, complex intertextuality, and several layers of humor, elements at the center of our analysis.
Preliminary research and in vivo observations demonstrate that
Québécois and French dubbing techniques are exactly the same. For
this reason, this paper focuses on the cultural aspect of dubbing, as
pioneered by Delabastita (1989). Danan (1991) links dubbing and
nationalism, but her research is based on a compilation of broadcasters’ statistics. The work of Whitman-Linsen (1992) is of assistance
although her findings, albeit numerous, are tainted with orthonymy2.
Two other animated series have been dubbed in Quebec and France simultaneously :
The Flintstones and, more recently, King Of the Hill.
2
Orthonymy is the principle governing a subjective observation, where the guidelines
1
Texas Linguistic Forum 44(1): 114-131
Proceedings from the Eighth Annual Symposium about Language and Society—Austin
April 7-9, 2000
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Plourde, E.
For French dubbing exclusively, I refer to the works of Goris (1993).
Some credit to the orientation of my paper goes to Honkanen (1996)
and Büffel (1998), who did research on The Simpsons.
02 KSA:
In his tentative and experimental views, Robyns (1997) defines
four discursive stances he says can be observed in some discourses of
cultures. The discursive stances serve as a mainframe for our hypotheses. According to Robyns, (1) the imperialist stance, observed in
France, (and observable in the United States with the American
Translators Workshop) is an “attitude toward the Other characterized
by a paradoxical claim of, on the one hand, the irreducible specificity
of one’s own identity and, on the other hand, the universality of its
values”; (2) the defensive stance, observed in Québec, “enhances its
specificity by heavily emphasizing the otherness of the ‘alien’ discourse” (in Québec, including French from France); (3) the transdiscursive stance, observed in the Netherlands, “does not explicitly consider imported elements ‘other’ or ‘alien,’ let alone ‘threatening.’ Both
foreign discursive elements and those of ‘local production’ are seen as
equal contributions to a common goal”; and, finally, (4) the defective
stance, referring primarily to non-translation (60-72). Robyns emphasizes that these stances cannot apply to entire countries or cultures.
A systematic analysis of “translation units” on several excerpts is
performed here by juxtaposing transcriptions of the original and the
two dubbed versions (Québécois and French) for three episodes:
Krusty Gets Busted (1990), The Crepes of Wrath (1990), and Homer
the Great (1995). The versions have been identified by the letters A,
F, and Q for Anglo-American (original version), French, and
Québécois, respectively. Four main elements were analyzed and compared: (i) titles and credits, (ii) voices (stereotypes), (iii) dialects, and
(iv) vocabulary.
(1) KRUSTY GETS FRAMED (1990)
Krusty the Clown (KC)
Bart, Lisa, and the audience of the Krusty Show (KSA)
01
KC:
(A) Hi, kids! Who do you love?
of the observer are based on the notion that analysis—of translation, in this case—
should serve a corrective goal.
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03
KC:
04 KSA:
05
KC:
06 KSA:
(F) Salut les enfants! Qui est-ce que vous aimez?
(Q) Hey, les enfants, qui est-ce que vous aimez le
plus?
(A) Krusty!
(F) Krusty
(Q) KRUSTY!
(A) How much do you love me?
(F) Mais comment vous m’aimez?
(Q) Combien fort vous m’aimez?
(A) With all our hearts!
(F) De tout not’ coeur!
(Q) DE TOUT NOTRE COEUR!
(A) What would you do if I went off the air?
(F) Qu’est-ce que vous feriez si j’passais plus à la
télé?
(Q) (cut)
(A) We’d kill ourselves!
(F) On s’tuerait!
(Q) (cut)
This excerpt is a very clear manifestation of how the target culture’s values can interfere with the original discourse. In the opening
of this episode, the Simpsons children gleefully shout out their loyalty to Krusty the Clown by answering that they would kill themselves
if good old Krusty went off the air. The French version keeps the same
joke (On s’tuerait [ We’d kill ourselves ] ), but in the Québécois version, the question and the answer have been edited out.
The episode was broadcast several times during my research and
this particular segment was repeatedly censored. I asked the executives
of the station, which broadcasts the episode on non-cable television, the
reason for this censorship and they replied, “Children need to be protected. It is in their interest that this segment was cut out from the scene.”
This answer was as predicted by our hypothesis. However, the context of
Québec society suggests a deeper reason for this type of censorship. The
suicide rate among teens and children in Québec is among the highest in
the world3. This phenomenon is among the greatest taboos in family circles and suicide is not mentioned in the presence of small children.
3
UNESCO Statistical Yearbook. 1997.
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(2) KRUSTY GETS FRAMED (1990)
Bart (B)
Lisa (L)
01
B: (A) What the hell are you doing, Lisa?
(F) Qu’est-ce que tu fous d’vant cette télé, Lisa?
(Q) Veux-tu ben m’dire c’que tu fais là Lisa?
02
L: (A) I’m watching Sideshow Bob. You know, he’s a
lot less patronizing than Krusty used to be.
(F) Je r’garde Tahiti Bob. Tu sais, il est beaucoup
moins démagogue que n’l’était Krusty.
(Q) J’écoute Sideshow Bob; tu sais, y’est beaucoup
plus civilisé que Krusty l’était.
03
B: (A) You back-stabber! You traitor! You...
(F) Espèce de traître, pourrie, vendue!
(Q) Espèce de traîtresse, espèce de jo-
nation. This type of cultural appropriation is an example of how translation works on even the intrinsic elements of the original (in this case,
the names) to integrate new discourse, even a new type of discourse,
into the original. Here the translator is reaffirming France’s sovereignty over a dependent territory in the Pacific.
Here we see several different types of manipulation of the original
discourse. In this excerpt from Krusty Gets Busted, Bart Simpson is
shocked by the fact that Lisa is watching Sideshow Bob, since Bart has an
unwavering allegiance to Krusty the Clown, the main comical character.
Bart blurts out the first sentence using rather coarse language (“What the
hell…”) and this is somewhat retained in the French dubbing “Qu’est-ce
que tu fous…?” (what the hell are you doing?). In the Québécois version,
however, this language disappears, although the roughness of the tone
remains similar. As I have mentioned before, the target audience is children, resulting in the toning down of the original language.
Another change is the name of Krusty’s sidekick, Sideshow Bob.
In the original, the name Sideshow conjures up the circus world and
describes the position of the character with respect to Krusty. In the
French version, the name is changed to Tahiti Bob, which conjures up
a very different cliché. The name focuses on the appearance of
Sideshow Bob. His straw skirt and teeth necklace allude to his character being originally from an island nation and now a citizen of
France. (Tahiti is the main island of French Polynesia, an Overseas
Territory famous now for French nuclear testing.) This kind of name
change typifies a reterritorialization process4 that seeks to move the
scene of the series to the boundaries of the target culture’s country or
4
This concept was coined by Brisset (1990: passim).
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The other element about Sideshow Bob modified in translation is
the fundamental difference in the way he hosts the show. Lisa sees him
as “less patronizing than Krusty” and is content with that. In the
French version, he becomes less of a demagogue than his clown superior. Bart snaps back at Lisa for her treacherous behavior and insults
her for turning her back on his idol. In the French version, he also tells
her she is a traitor (traître), rotten (pourrie), and a sell-out (vendue),
incorporating an additional insult to those existing in the original. The
Québécois version does the opposite. There is only one insult, the
other abruptly interrupted by Lisa’s hand. The word traitor (traîtresse),
moreover, is in the feminine gender, representing another mitigation of
the original discourse. Actually, the word ‘traitor’ can be rendered in
either the masculine or the feminine gender in French, and the choice
of the feminine denotes a switch to the politically correct discourse.
Lisa expresses to Bart that she is satisfied with the replacement
and explains why. But her message does not have the same moral
value in the three cultures; in the original, Lisa speaks of a Krusty
looking down on other people, in the French version, Lisa thinks
Krusty was taking himself too seriously, and in the Québécois version,
Lisa compares Sideshow Bob and Krusty on how they see culture. It
should not be forgotten that we can actually hear Sideshow Bob talking for the first time in this episode. He does not use the same vocabulary as Krusty and, in the Québécois version, he uses an international (standard) French, unlike Krusty, who pronounces and contracts the
words like most Franco-Americans do. Thus, the illiterate, uneducated, and populist Krusty and a Sideshow Bob ready to teach savoirvivre to children represent a dichotomy of education/lack of education
paralleling the standard French/regional French dichotomy. It is interesting to see the adjective “civilized” in books advocating the defense
of a pure French language (spoken and written) free of Québécois elements5. We are caught in a battle between culture and non-culture
5
“Students—and Québécois, generally speaking—have lost the notion of sin, of
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The Dubbing of The Simpsons
(which is also present in the original), superimposed on the battle
between the bon parler français and joual, the standard and the
Québécois French. This antagonism is in the same vein as the opposition between the familiar speech of the Simpsons family and the language of Springfield’s elite (Principal Skinner, Doctor Hibbert,
Reverend Lovejoy, Kent Brockman, and Montgomery Burns), exacerbating the linguistic gap further.
Nevertheless, the real nature of Sideshow Bob is revealed in this
episode:
Plourde, E.
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(3) Sideshow Bob (SB)
01
SB:
(A) Ow! You lousy, stupid clumsy...
(F) Oh! Oh! Mon pied, andouille, abruti, espèce
d’empoté!
(Q) Ayoye mon pied, espèce de moron de twit de
p’tit imbécile toé!
The original version includes the words used by Sideshow Bob
when he is perpetrating a robbery under the guise of Krusty and
Homer inadvertently crushes his feet. The French version uses the
same words as well and, logically, those uttered on the incriminating
Kwik-E-Mart video. The Québécois version, on the other hand, attributes to Sideshow Bob a vocabulary he would normally not use in front
of the children. More strikingly, the words “twit” and “toé” (more conventionally pronounced [twa]) are used toward Bart. Sideshow Bob is
thus identified with the Québécois side, implying that his intelligence
and civilized character were just an illusion. Thus, with a quick switch
from standard to Québécois French the savior of children becomes a
real criminal. His crime is doubled; he not only framed Krusty but also
pretended to provide an example of appropriate language for children.
(4) THE CREPES OF WRATH (1990)
Ugolin (Ug)
Bart Simpson (B)
impurity and such, but they have not yet found the notion of convenient and understandable speech. I was going to write : civilized.” (Dor 1996:42)
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01
Ug:
02
B:
(A) Okay, kid, let’s go
(F) D’accord, alors, en route.
(Q) Bon, grouilles-toi qu’on se tire, j’ai ma
lessiveuse-e!
(A) Hey! A little breeze/ Jolie Louise/ Birds and the
trees/ La la la la/ La la la la/ La la (whistles)
Ooh là là! How much longer, sir? This is where
we’re going, right? Sha-teww Mah-sann?
(F) Ouais! A little breeze/ Jolie Louise/ Birds and
the trees/ La la la la/ La la la la/ La la (whistles)
Ouh là là! (with a vaguely French accent) La la
la la, lala laa, ouh là là! C’est encore loin,
m’sieu? C’est là qu’on va, hein? C’est ça? Au
château-maison? Ah, elle est super la baraque!
(Q) Han? Elle avait de tout petits petits petons/ Valen-ti-ne/ Va-len-ti-ne/ Elle aim-e de petit petits
tetons / Que je ton- ouh! C’t’encore loin, monsieur? C’est là qu’on s’en và, hein? Château
maison!
The interventions here are interesting because this is the point in
the episode where Bart Simpson arrives in France. In the original, there
is no real culture shock until Bart realizes the “château” is in fact a
shack. Until César is seen talking to Maurice the donkey, the episode is
a series of clichés about France (e.g., images of Toulouse-Lautrec
paintings in the background while Bart and Ugolin are speeding to
Château-Maison). In addition, Bart sings a Maurice Chevalier song, the
only one the French singer performed in English. This is a musical
intertextuality referring to the prototype of the French singer-seducer
incarnated by Chevalier. The same song is sung in the French version,
with the same accent. The humor is diluted, however, and it seems the
French dubbers either did not see the irony or simply chose to leave it
untouched, as this kind of culture-specific humor is very difficult to
transfer6. In the Québécois version, the song is changed and shifts to
another cliché, that of the French singer popular in Québec. The stereotype is also represented by Maurice Chevalier, but the song, Valentine,
is somewhat “risqué”, since it refers to tetons, the French word for
Goris (1993) claims that this kind of humor is either ignored or changed completely
in the dubbing process.
6
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“tits.” The discourse is also changed, but here there is a parallel drawn
with the Anglo-American culture stereotype, especially for the (supposedly liberal and promiscuous) behavior of French men.
(5) THE CREPES OF WRATH (1990)
Bart Simpson (B)
French policeman (Po)
English subtitles of the original version (ST)
01
B:
02
Po:
03
Po:
04
B:
(A) Oh. (shivers) You’re a policeman aren’t you?
(F) Oh, Ah, Eh, Eh, monsieur, vous êtes bien un
policier, c’est ça?
(Q) Oh, oh (shivers) Ah, monsieur la police, vite, ça
marche pas pantoute là.
(A) Excusez-moi, je ne parle pas anglais.
(F) Oui, mais, dis-moi, qu’est-ce que tu fais dehors
par ce temps?
(Q) Désolé petit mais je pige que dalle!
(…)
(A) Je suis désolé. J’aimerais vraiment pouvoir
vous aider.
(F) Je n’peux rien pour toi, mais n’t’en fais pas,
deux mois, c’est vite passé!
(Q) Je suis désolé, je ne pige pas un mot de ce que
vous racontez!
(A) Aoh, forget it. I’m so stupid. Anybody could’ve
learned this dumb language by now. Here, I’ve
listened to nothing but French for the past deux
mois, (ST: two months) et je ne sais pas un
mot.(ST: And I haven’t learned a word.) Eh!
Mais, je parle français maintenant! (ST: Wait!
I’m talking French now!) Incroyable! (ST:
Incredible!) Hey, Monsieur, aidez-moi! Ces
deux types me font travailler jour et nuit. Ils ne
me donnent pas à manger, ils me font dormir par
terre, ils mettent de l’antifreeze dans le vin, et ils
ont donné mon chapeau rouge à l’âne.(ST: You
gotta help me. These two guys work me night
and day. They don’t feed me. They make me
sleep on the floor. They put anti-freeze in the
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wine, and they gave my red hat to the donkey.)
(F) Bah, oh, bon, ça fait rien. C’est pas vrai, il est
nul, ce type. Il a même pas voulu m’écouter;
tout c’qu’il a fait, c’est m’donner un bonbon.
Oh, et puis, c’est d’ma faute, quelle idée d’lui
parler d’mon école. J’aurais mieux fait d’lui
dire tout d’suite que j’étais maltraité. Oh! Et
surtout j’aurais dû lui parler du poison dans
l’vin.. Mais oui! Eh, monsieur, écoutez-moi, les
deux types chez qui j’habite me font travailler
jour et nuit et ils me donnent rien à manger, et
ils m’obligent à dormir par terre! Ils mettent de
l’antigel dans l’vin et en plus, ils ont donné ma
casquette rouge à l’âne.
(Q) Ah, laissez donc faire. Pourquoi i comprennent
pas? J’pensais qui comprenaient l’français en
France. Si i parlaient pas a’ec c’t’accent là i
pourraient piger, non? Je pige bien moi, quand
ils-e causent! Heille! Ouin, c’est ça, j’ai trouvé
l’accent qui faut! I vont enfin m’comprendre!
Monsieur le gendarme! Y a ces deux mecs qui
me font ramer jour et nuit et ils me donnent rien
à claper, et, pour c’qui est du plumard, alors là,
que dalle, hein? En plus ils computent le pinard
avec de l’antigel! Ils ont même refilé ma cambette rouge à leur âne!
In the preceding excerpt, the underlined intervention confirms
unequivocally the defensive stance of Québec. Bart presumed that in
France people spoke French and that he would thus be understood.
The Québécois dubbing of the French characters, while capturing the
connotative device to some degree by attributing a Provençal (South
of France) accent to the two winemakers, uses vocabulary taken from
Parisian argot and popular language, and is a purely ideological construction of an incomprehensible French. In dubbing Bart’s voice, the
target culture is not threatened by the main antagonist, the AngloAmerican world. Bart becomes the ‘local kid.’
By presenting his character in a puzzled state when confronted
with characters of French nationality, the cultural pride of France con123
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cerning the rest of the francophone world is unveiled. Bart now exemplifies through his monologue the uncomfortable position of the
Québécois concerning the paradox of being able to understand the
French (Je pige bien moi quand ils causent [I get it when they chitchat]), while not being understood unless speaking a French different
from the one he uses. The misunderstanding in the original is distorted to fit the needs of the target culture. Even the policeman is puzzled
in the original; je ne parle pas anglais [ I don’t speak English ]
becomes je pige que dalle [I can’t understand], and the cultural gap is
extended to the entire French people.
This song is interesting in several respects. Overall, it represents
an introduction of multiple intertextualities evoking numerous associations for the average American viewer. The tongue-in-cheek humor
referring to secret organizations controlling (or wanting to control) the
country is the main thread here. It refers to the paranoia that has infiltrated the political discourse of the United States, especially in the disappearing middle class disenchanted by the political scandals of
Watergate in 1973, Irangate in 1984, and the Whitewater “scandal” in
1994-1995. This paranoia is referred to in the lyrics by direct allusions
to “modern myths,” like Area 51 in Roswell, New Mexico, which is
said to hide the remnants of an alien ship and its occupants (“Who
keeps Martians under wraps?”), and to pet peeves of Joe Normal in
America (“Who keeps the metric system down?”; “Who rigs every
Oscar night?”) that are best explained by a conspiracy.
(6) HOMER THE GREAT (1995)
Homer Simpson (H)
01
H:
(A) Who controls the British crown?/ Who keeps
the metric system down?/ We do! We do!
Who leaves Atlantis off the maps?/ Who keeps
the Martians under wraps?/ We do! We do!
Who holds back the electric car?/ Who makes
Steve Guttenberg a star?/ We do! We do!
Who robs the cave fish of their sight?/ Who rigs
every Oscar night?/ We do! We do!
(F) Qui contrôle la politique/ Qui combat l’système
métrique/ C’est nous, c’est nous
Qui sait où s’trouve l’Atlantide/ Qui cache les
humanoïdes/ C’est nous, c’est nous
Qui traite les écolos d’ringards/ Qui fait d’Steve
Guttenberg une star!/ C’est nous, c’est nous
Qui tient les femmes à l’écart/ Qui truque les
remises d’oscars/ C’est nous, c’est nous
(Q) Qui blaire pas les Catholiques?/ Qui s’oppose
au système métrique?/ C’est nous, c’est nous
Qui dit qu’l’Atlantide c’est rien?/ Qui nie l’existence des Martiens?/ C’est nous, C’est nous
On veut pas d’voiture électrique/ On trouve
Jean-Marc Parent magnifique!/ C’est nous, oui
nous
Qui aime bien les grosses voitures/ Qui trouve
qu’les Oscars carburent?/C’est nous, c’est
nous!
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In the French version, we observe an exception to the general rule
transforming culture-specific jokes into binational jokes7. In the original, the “cave fish” are said to be blind because of the “Stonecutters.”
However, the cultural context of the target culture provides a better subject for laughter with “Qui tient les femmes à l’écart? [Who keeps the
women on the sidelines?]”. This comment becomes intelligible when
one understands that five percent of the French government is female,
the lowest rate in the European Union8. As is the case when using
accents and dialects to index sociological differences, in this example
the subversive discourse of the original is maintained while the norms
of the target culture determine the way the discourse will be articulated.
In the original and French versions, the name Steve Guttenberg
(an American actor) appears. Guttenberg continues to appeal to an
audience that enjoys canned laughter and corny humor. The phrase
“who makes Steve Guttenberg a star?” indexes a Hollywood star system in which the success of an actor often depends more on exposure
than on talent9 and the popularity of the movie or series in which
he/she appears. It is possible that in the French version the name Steve
Guttenberg was retained because the French audience has access to
The terms are coined from Zabalbeascoa (1996).
Source: Helsingin Sanomat [Helsinki Journal], March 8, 1999:4.
9
The popularity of the actor is imputable to a lesser degree to a phenomenon common
to Hollywood stars, the phenomenon of roles made for an actor.
7
8
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dubbed versions of Police Academy, but the name loses much of its
connotation and the humor is not translated. The Québécois version
offers substitution that goes much further. Jean-Marc Parent, monologuist and stand-up comic who had his own television show (L’Heure
J.M.P.) focusing on various subjects of daily life, is typical of a certain
category of men—Canadian, French-speaking, age 25 to 40—whose
main interests in life are progressive rock and cars. This man has been
vilified by French-Canadian intellectuals for his ideas10. As much
loved as he is hated, the name Jean-Marc Parent is notable for his
tremendous popularity and the fact that he remains the favorite target
of comics, who emphasize his physical shortcomings (weight, acne
scars). As in the case of Steve Guttenberg, it is hard to understand the
success of Jean-Marc Parent, whose main ability is his disconcerting
ability to collect a crowd.
assigned to the French characters (echoed in the French version) is
inspired by the same doxa, or ideology, that sanctions Québécois
French usage.
Detailed analysis of this corpus provides interesting insights. In
the dubbing of The Simpsons, translation into Québécois French is
qualitatively superior to that of standard French11, in what seems to be
a valorization of the latter variety12. But the presence of such a variety
(or variant) validates a monolithic view of Québécois society and primarily reflects the perspective of translators and dubbing actors.
Although the vast majority of the Québec population, according to the
viewer polls and ratings, enjoys Québécois French in television dubbing, other viewers and critics maintain a prescriptive approach to language. They oppose what they call l’accent québécois [Québécois
accent] in television or, worse, film dubbing as the accent is considered to be dubious by some in Québec (Tellier 1999:6)13 and improper by others in France (Seren-Rosso 1989:33)14. The Provençal accent
One of these controversial ideas was without a doubt «Flashe tes lumières», a general appeal made on television in which the viewers were asked to flash any lamp, light
or lighting device they had access to at that moment for no particular reason. This
appeal was a complete success.
11
Unlike the majority of Québécois dubbing of foreign television series and films.
12
Especially children, since they seem to be the audience targeted by the dubbing studio for the series.
13
C. Tellier (1999) declares that “most certainly nobody speaks that way [français
québécois] in law firms”. This kind of statement, while consistent with our hypotheses, do not appear in the critics’ reviews of Canadian series such as Omerta (19971999), where lawyers use the same language (français québécois), as in the dubbing of
Ally McBeal.
14
The author of that article is referring to the “acadien” accent, a dialect present in the
Canadian Atlantic provinces and differing greatly from Québécois.
10
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The use of a dialect to typify a social class in adaptation is not a
common practice but also not exceptional. Hatim and Mason
(1990:40) describe the controversial use of Scottish English to denote
the rural character of Russian peasants in a play adapted for television.
That a particular social class is associated with a particular dialect,
however, indicates that a certain attitude is pervasive among both participants in the dubbing process (translators, dubbing actors, broadcasters) and television viewers. To what extent that attitude is shared
by the wider population remains to be studied and is beyond the frame
of this research.
It is clear that this attitude has penetrated the dominant televisual
discourse, although the explanation is uncertain. The possibility exists
that exposure to familiar voices in an animated series is attractive to
the audience. Another potential explanation for this practice is the
presence of (sympathetic) dubbing actors with experience in media
other than television15, which most certainly plays a role in the translation’s reception. The audience believes they are watching a show
produced by members of their own culture.
In fact, the obfuscating effect of dubbing is twofold. First, the
substitution of another language for that of the original work represents a high level of cultural appropriation of the main message, that
is, what must be transmitted. However, in the case of The Simpsons,
most of the humor and subversive discourse passes through the linguistic message and is thus modified. Dubbing is then an example of
the defensive stance, between the imperialist stance of the film remake
and the transdiscursive stance of subtitling. France, by dubbing all
films, protects its culture from the hegemony of the United States16,
Talk radio, for instance, is flooded with well-known television personalities, who
have their own morning or afternoon show where they can easily express their personal opinions on all matters.
16
For example, in the case of introduction of foreign products (films and television
shows), Dutter and Dutter (1995:29) mention the existence of an intermediary tongue
in dubbing that is neither English nor French. This tongue is “décalquée de la langue
de départ (a calque of the start language)” and “fausse (false)”. Taking note that the
15
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Plourde, E.
but also “protects” its language from régionalismes17 by using a standardized language for dubbing (Whitman-Linsen 1992:50). Moreover,
the artificial language, created by and for dubbing and using standardized French, is also present in the Québécois dubbing, as we have seen
in the excerpts. Standard and regional French are in fact vectors of an
ideology that assigns a specific social class to Québécois French.
Québécois French is also an artificial construction, failing to take into
account its own variants and dialects and other French variants spoken
by Franco-Americans (e.g., Acadien18).
receptivity. Even if the French and Québécois versions of The
Simpsons diverge, the effects and goals of dubbing remain essentially
the same; the dubbings position a barrier between the strange(r) and
the native, between the familiar and the unusual. The fact that dubbing
is used reveals that dominant televisual discourse primarily adopts the
defensive stance, especially against elements considered to be sources
of instability for the target culture. On the other hand, with respect to
the language issue, there is a shift in the adopted stance towards the
imperialist pole through the imposition of a single variety of French,
be it by limiting of the number of variants, as in France, or by deconsidering one of these variants, as in Québec.
The main divergences between Québécois and French dubbing,
even in the specific case of The Simpsons, are not fundamental. These
divergences are not necessarily inherent and do not modify the mechanisms of dubbing. However, France and Québec have different linguistic contexts, and this has an influence on dubbing. In fact, analysis reveals that the main divergence of the practice is that Québec cartoons target a young audience, resulting in censorship or mitigation of
some subversive discourse, a strategy not apparent in French dubbing.
From a global perspective, analysis of the two translations of The
Simpsons highlights commonalities of dubbing strategies as having a
unifying function with respect to the spoken language of the target culture19. Unlike sub-titling, dubbing actually replaces the dialogue, the
primary means for the viewer to understand the humor of the series;
this replacement often results in modification of the original work’s
discourse in order to reinforce or to mitigate. In any case, modification
is designed to increase appeal to the target culture, thus increasing
250
By guaranteeing the introduction of a standardized spoken language in a foreign cultural product, especially a product of popular
culture, we have an efficient tool for linguistic uniformization and
recuperation of discursive habits. On television, this uniformization
and recuperation is made trite, since it is regular and repeated, and thus
is internalized more quickly. Dubbing performs an active role in the
relationship between television and language. Concerning the sociocritical aspect of this analysis, cultures (whether target or source) are
subject to multiple interferences, or rather multiple discursive identities, which contribute to their cultural evolution. This should be taken
into account in future research. A culture does not add up to a few
lines and cannot be reduced to a single discourse.
“majority” of these products are “American”, the authors discuss protection of the
arrival language, that is, the target culture.
17
Québécois films are dubbed in Parigot (the French slang of Paris) when shown in
France. For instance, Louis 19, le roi du câble (1989), the remake of which was
recently released in the U.S. in 1999 (EdTV), was dubbed in Parigot for release in
French movie houses under the title Reality Show. Liste Noire (1994), another
Québécois film, underwent the same process when its title was changed to Blacklist.
18
Acadien is the dialect of French spoken in the Atlantic provinces of Canada, including New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. There are some speakers in the Gaspé region of Québec province also. The dialect is akin to the Cajun
French spoken in Louisiana, since the two variants have historical ties.
19
A principle defended by French dubbers themselves, as we can detect in the discourse of Dura (1999), who says that “the best dubbing is a ‘Frenchized’ translation
that appeals to the masses of the ‘burbs and of the French regions.”
Dialects and language variants as delimitation are understructures
to discursive identity construction. The hypotheses must be modified in
accordance with the new findings. Consequently, the use of discursive
stances can define the type of approach for audiovisual translation: (1)
the imperialist stance is attributed to movie remakes or adaptations
where all foreign and original elements are replaced with local ones and
both the audio and the visual are changed, (2) the defensive stance best
describes dubbing or even voice-over in which only the audio channel
is replaced, (3) the transdiscursive stance is reserved for subtitling or
commentary which preserves the audiovisual and adds a visual signal as
an explanation, and, finally, (4) the defective stance is represented by the
practice of not translating. The notion of discursive stances can be
applied separately or combined in some analytical situations. For some
cultures, the discourse of the media and/or the political apparatus can
determine the approach as dependent upon the type, origin, and style.
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The Dubbing of The Simpsons
Plourde, E.
As with all translations, dubbing, remains subject to certain
norms. These norms vary from one culture to another and influence
the choices that are imposed by the technique. However, the practice
of dubbing is governed by the precise codes of the televisual discourse
as well as the cultural norms and becomes in some manner instrumental to the codes for uniformization of the spoken language.
Dura, Christian. 1999. Le succès au bout des doigts (http://www.sacem.fr/kiosque/
notes/doublage/dura.html).
Grazer, Brian, and Ron Howard (Producers), and Ron Howard (Director). 1999. EdTV.
(Film). Universal Pictures.
Kogen, Jay, and Wallace Wolodarsky. 1990. Krusty gets busted (Brad Bird Director). In
(Producer), The Simpsons. Los Angeles: Fox Broadcasting.
Korte, Dan. 1997. The Simpsons as Quality Television. The Simpsons Archives
(http://www.snpp.com).
Listo, Mike (Producer). 1997. Ally McBeal. 20th Century Fox Television and David E.
Kelley Productions.
Robyns, Clem. 1997. Translation and discursive identity. The Translator 3(1):57-78.
SACEM [Société des Auteurs Compositeurs et Éditeurs de Musique]. Le kiosque, Notes,
Les auteurs de doublage (http://www.sacem.fr/kiosque/notes/doublage/index.html).
Sadler, Richard (Producer), and Michel Poulette (Director). 1994. Louis 19, le roi des
ondes. (Film). Eiffel Productions and Les Films Stock International.
Seren-Rosso, M. L. 1989. Dubbing: Le doublage ‘made in France’. Language
International 1(5):31-33.
Simon, Sam, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, and George Meyer. 1990. Crepes of Wrath
(Wesley Archer and Milton Gray, Directors). In (Producer), The Simpsons. Los
Angeles: Fox Broadcasting Tellier, Chantal. 1999. Ally mon amie. ICI, 6 mai:6, The
Simpsons Archives (http://www.snpp.com).
Swartzwelder, John. 1995. Homer the Great (Jim Reardon, Director). In (Producer), The
Simpsons. Los Angeles: Fox Broadcasting.
UNESCO Statistical Yearbook. 1997. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization.
Whitman-Linsen, Candace. 1992. Through the Dubbing Glass: The Synchronisation of
American Motion Pictures into German, French and Spanish. New York: Peter
Lang.
Zabalbeascoa, Patrick. 1996. Translating jokes for dubbed television situation comedies. The Translator (Studies in Intercultural Communication) 2(2):235-258.
Many issues remain to be addressed concerning elements not present in this corpus but existing in the hundreds of other episodes of The
Simpsons, e.g., substitution of antagonism to political correctness by a
more direct anti-feminist discourse in the French version. In addition,
examination of the relationship between differing techniques (e.g.,
German vs. French dubbing) and the effects of dubbing remain to be
researched. Continued rigorous comparative analysis of the use of language in animated series like The Simpsons will result in a better understanding of the complex relationships between language and society.
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Université de Montréal
[email protected]
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