Gender in audiovisual translation: Naturalizing feminine voices in

415199
EJWXXX10.1177/1350506811415199FeralEuropean Journal of Women’s Studies
Article
Gender in audiovisual
translation: Naturalizing
feminine voices in the
French Sex and the City
EJ WS
European Journal of Women’s Studies
18(4) 391­–407
© The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/1350506811415199
ejw.sagepub.com
Anne-Lise Feral
Independent researcher
Abstract
This article explores how certain feminine voices are adapted or ‘naturalized’ in
audiovisual translation in order to conform to the intended audience’s assumed
gender beliefs and values. Using purposefully selected examples from the American
series Sex and the City, the author analyses elements pertaining to American feminism
and how they are rendered in the French dubbing and subtitles. While the subtitles
retain most references, the dubbing reveals a marked tendency to delete, weaken and
transform allusions to American feminist culture as well as female achievements in
the public sphere and feminist ideology. These findings are discussed in relation to the
history, place and representation of women and feminism in France. The case study
suggests that integrating a feminist approach in audiovisual translation research could
help women’s studies detect the unspoken gender values of the cultures for which
audiovisual translation is produced.
Keywords
audience, audiovisual translation, dubbing, feminism, France, gender, Sex and the City,
subtitling, television
The interconnection between gender and translation is not a new object of research.
Women’s role in translation history, translation’s role in women’s history, alternative
feminist translation practices (Simon, 1996), the gendered metaphorics of translation
(Chamberlain, 1992) and translation shifts as a result of gender and cultural differences
(Leonardi, 2007; Santaemilia, 2005) are some examples of the increasingly fertile ground
where gender studies and translation studies intersect. As Von Flotow observes, these are
Corresponding author:
Anne-Lise Feral. Email: [email protected]
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interdisciplines which, when brought together, raise many issues regarding language,
culture and power (1997: 1). Yet, while translation as a means of feminist subversion has
been well documented, more research needs to be undertaken on the role of translation –
and by extension audiovisual translation – as a marginalizing force against women and
feminism. Although issues of cultural adaptation and (self-)censorship in audiovisual
translation are now regularly explored, adapted and/or censored, items are rarely fully
and transversally analysed from a feminist point of view. In this article, I wish to exemplify how integrating a feminist approach in audiovisual translation research can help us
make the most of the extraordinary richness both audiovisual translation studies and
gender studies have to offer. To this end, I look at the French subtitling and dubbing of
the first season of the famous television series Sex and the City (hereafter SATC, first
broadcast by the American cable channel Home Box Office (HBO) between 6 June 1998
and 23 August 1998).
Within the field of audiovisual translation studies, the differences between dubbing
and subtitling have been shown to operate on various levels: technical (Baker and
Hochel, 2001: 75), financial (Gottlieb, 2001: 247) and last but not least, sociocultural
and political (Goris, 1993; Gottlieb, 2004). Subtitling and dubbing nations are frequently
contrasted, especially in their degree of receptiveness to other cultures (Gottlieb, 2004).
Subtitling and dubbing also differ in terms of cultural prestige (Gottlieb, 2004: 83–7;
Lukyen et al., 1991: 71) and this is perhaps best illustrated by the function one method
fulfils in cultures generally dominated by the other method. In a predominantly subtitling culture, dubbed programmes tend to be aimed at pre-literate children. In a dubbing
culture, such as France – where 90 percent of audiovisual imports are released dubbed
(Lukyen et al., 1991: 30) – subtitles are thought to be for ‘the better educated and more
affluent, as well as students and other intellectual minorities’ (Luyken, cited in Baker
and Hochel, 2001: 76). In other words, there is a correlation between the audience’s
expected ‘cultural capital’1 (in Bourdieu’s terms) and the appropriate and/or preferred
method of audiovisual translation. Associated with greater cultural tolerance and capital,
a subtitled version is often considered to be a ‘proper’ translation (usually undertaken by
a single translator) which allows access to the original version and preserves the original
culture’s authenticity (Gottlieb, 2004: 87). In contrast, a dubbed version is produced by
a team of dubbing ‘authors’ (a title generally preferred to ‘translator’ in the industry)
whose main task is to adapt the audiovisual text in order to make it sound as natural
as an original (Goris, 1993: 177–87; Sarthou, 2006).2 Compared to subtitles, dubbing
could thus be said to function as a filter, selecting which elements can reach viewers and
which elements need to be ‘naturalized’ on the basis of what the majority is believed to
understand.
Naturalization in dubbing is particularly interesting from a feminist and gender studies’ point of view. Since gender is a sociocultural and ideological construct (Von Flotow,
1997: 99) which patriarchal discourses often naturalize in order to justify gender inequality (Bourdieu, 2002: 40), comparing originals and original-sounding dubbed versions
could shed light on which elements need to be naturalized in order to conform to the
intended audience’s assumed gender beliefs and values. To illustrate this point, I propose
to explore the French versions of the first season of SATC. My study seeks to answer
the following questions: from a gender studies perspective, how have elements engaging
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with American feminism been handled in the French subtitling and dubbing? Which
elements have been maintained in the subtitles but naturalized in the dubbed version?
How can these discrepancies inform us of the assumed gap between the average audience’s knowledge and beliefs about gender and those of a more cultured ‘élite’?
Since its first broadcast in 1998, SATC has been the object of much debate and controversy, notably as regards its representation of gender and engagement with feminism
(Akass and McCabe, 2004; Arthurs, 2003; Gill, 2007: 244–6). As a text produced in a
patriarchal culture where some feminist gains have been achieved, SATC draws upon
various and often contradictory feminine voices and perspectives. One such perspective
seems inspired by feminism, and passages from the original where this is most apparent
have been purposefully selected and compared to the French dubbing and the French
subtitles. The findings of the comparative analysis have been organized into three
sections, each corresponding to a particular type of feminist presence in the series:
references to feminist culture, a marked expectation of full gender equality in the public
sphere and a relative understanding and use of feminist rhetoric. As becomes evident,
these categories tend to overlap, which in itself indicates the pervasiveness of certain
gender configurations and the usefulness of a comprehensive and interdisciplinary
approach to detect them in audiovisual translation.
Feminist culture
In SATC, discussions on gender issues are a recurring motif where each heroine becomes
the mouthpiece of a particular viewpoint. In the case of Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), such
conversations are an opportunity to display her informed understanding of current
feminist debates. For example, in the following scene characters discuss the legitimacy
of accepting money from a male sexual partner. When Samantha (Kim Cattrall) deproblematizes women’s material dependence on men, an appalled Miranda urges the others
not to ‘listen to dime store Camille Paglia’ (Episode 5 ‘The power of female sex’):
DUBBING:
Surtout n’écoute pas ce genre de boniments terribles.
SUBTITLES:
N’écoute pas la Camille Paglia des supermarchés.
In the dubbed version, the name ‘Camille Paglia’ is replaced by ‘boniments terribles’
(terrible claptrap), placing the emphasis on Miranda’s reprobation and the ‘cheapness’ of
Samantha’s argument. The disappearance of Paglia suggests that the average French
viewer is assumed to be unacquainted with the ‘féministe énnemie des féministes’
(Guilbert, 2002: 243) and by extension, with her controversial dismissal of the idea of
sexuality as a site of oppression for women (Phillips, 1998: 6). Tellingly, her name is
retained in the subtitles.
As the next example shows, paraphrase can also be used in subtitling. Here, the
heroines discuss the degrading potential of a particular sexual practice, when Charlotte
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(Kristin Davis) expresses her shock by reminding her friends that she ‘went to Smith!’
(Episode 4 ‘Valley of the twenty-something guys’):
DUBBING:
J’ai grandi chez les bonnes sœurs!
SUBTITLES:
J’ai été éduquée dans une école de filles!
While the dubbing conveys that the discussion is at odds with Charlotte’s extended experience in an exclusively female environment, the shift from ‘Smith’ to ‘les bonnes sœur’
transforms a university education into Catholic schooling. Yet, a college such as Smith
and a nunnery have little more in common than the female gender of their students.
Education by the nuns was quantitatively and qualitatively inferior to that provided to
boys (Lelièvre and Lelièvre, 1991: 25) and would typically prepare girls for their role as
wives and mothers (Blöss and Frickey, 2006: 20). This is quite different from a college
like Smith, which, since it opened in 1871, has aimed to be ‘for the higher education of
young women, with the design to furnish for [the founder Sophia Smith’s] own sex
means and facilities for education equal to those which are afforded now in our Colleges
to young men’ (www.smith.edu). Thus, while nunneries historically limited women’s
prospects and perpetuated gender inequality, Smith College was founded to remedy
this inequality. Smith is still committed to female achievement in the public sphere and
its alumnae include high-profile feminists such as Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. In
the dubbing, the altered – and religious – connotation suggests an understanding of single-sex educational settings in which female-only education cannot be conceived of
beyond the confinement of Catholic nunneries. Not only has the proper noun Smith been
obliterated in the subtitles but the level of education implied by the original has also been
lowered: Smith has become a girls’ school. Although more neutral than the dubbing, the
subtitles have a slightly old-fashioned feel: in France, girls-only schools have been rare
since the 1960s. Yet, this anachronistic adaptation seems to have been preferable to
maintaining the reference to single-sex higher education.
Paraphrase is not the only translation strategy employed in the audiovisual translations of SATC. In the following scene, the names of famous women provide a humorous
contrast between important figures in the American media and an unknown and uncooperative restaurant hostess:
ORIGINAL:
The most powerful woman in New York is not Tina Brown or Diane Sawyer or even Rosie
O’Donnell. It’s the hostess at Balzac.
DUBBING:
La femme la plus puissante de New York n’est ni Tina Turner, ni Naomi Campbell ni même
Hillary Clinton. C’est l’hôtesse du Balzac.
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SUBTITLES:
La femme la plus puissante de New York n’est pas Tina Brown, Diane Sawyer ou même Rosie
O’Donnell. C’est l’hôtesse du Balzac.
(Episode 5 ‘The power of female sex’)
Tina Brown – editor of The New Yorker in 1998 – has been considered one of the most
powerful British women abroad by The Guardian (1996: 9), while the television journalist Sawyer has featured twice in Forbes’s list of the world’s most powerful women
(Hensher, 2004: 33). Although they are not feminists per se, Brown and Sawyer are
both powerful women in the traditionally masculine fields of publishing and political
journalism. In order to make the joke effective in the dubbing, they are replaced by two
internationally famous American women – a singer and a supermodel – relocating
female power to a much less valued field: that of entertainment and celebrity culture.
The last of these three famous women is Rosie O’Donnell, the television celebrity and
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights activist whose political agenda has
been described as ‘staunchly feminist left’ (Krum, 2001: 11). In the dubbing, her name
is substituted with another internationally famous American woman: Hillary Clinton,
who was the First Lady of the United States at the time. Although Clinton has arguably
been the most politically involved American First Lady, her power could be seen to
derive from her husband’s status rather than her own in the late 1990s. In any case, the
substitution considerably weakens the homosexual feminist radicalism originally
implied by the name of O’Donnell. In contrast, the names of these women are all
retained in the subtitles.
From these first examples, one can see the impact of the audience’s expected cultural
capital on the treatment of high-profile women and feminist figures. While they tend to
be made available to the French cultured ‘élite’, ordinary members of the audience are not
expected to be familiar, or willing to familiarize themselves, with them. The only exception to this is the reference to the academic institution Smith, which disappears from both
the dubbing and the subtitles, resulting in a loss of Charlotte’s self-characterization as a
university graduate. As the following section shows, lowering female achievements is not
an uncommon practice, particularly in the dubbing.
Gender equality:The public sphere
One defining aspect of SATC is the – arguably unrealistic – way in which female characters expect to be as successful and powerful as men in the public sphere. Such expectations obviously involve equal access to education. As illustrated in the previous
section, the heroines’ university education can be referred to even in conversations
unrelated to education itself. Perhaps because of this, dubbing authors have often judged
it unnecessary to convey the heroines’ status as university graduates. For instance,
when Miranda recalls an experience she had while ‘in college’, the American ‘college’
becomes ‘au lycée’ in the dubbing (Episode 8 ‘Three’s a crowd’) while the subtitles
retain the original level of education: ‘à la fac’. The same happens when Charlotte
responds to an artist who is surprised by her familiarity with his work:
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European Journal of Women’s Studies 18(4)
ORIGINAL:
I studied you in college!
DUBBING:
J’ai tout étudié sur vous quand j’étais au lycée!
SUBTITLES:
Je vous ai étudié à l’université!
(Episode 5 ‘The power of female sex’)
The shift from university to high school in the dubbing not only fails to convey Charlotte’s
standing as an arts graduate, it is also fairly inconsistent for it implies that high school
students learn in depth (‘tout’) about the most recent modern art. Once again, the subtitles retain the idea of higher education. A similar observation could be made about the
following scene where Miranda is asked to analyse an ambiguous message left on an
answering-machine. She replies:
ORIGINAL:
I have no idea. And I finished first in my litigation class.
DUBBING:
Impossible à dire. Et pourtant j’étais première en explication de texte.
SUBTITLES:
Je n’en ai aucune idée. Et j’étais première en cours de litiges.
(Episode 4 ‘Valley of the twenty-something guys’)
In the same way as Charlotte draws attention to her university education, Miranda here
refers to her own analytical and mediating abilities as well as her achievement as a law
student. In the dubbing, the university litigation course in which Miranda excelled
becomes ‘explication de texte’, an exercise involving the detailed reading of a literary
text typically done in high school. Although this exercise certainly requires an aptitude
for analysis and interpretation, the sense of accomplishment is considerably lessened. In
contrast, the litigation course features in the subtitles.
Education is not the only public arena where the female characters’ achievements
have been consistently lowered by the dubbing authors. Compared to the original and the
subtitles, the dubbing displays a marked ambiguity as regards women’s professional success and power. Consider the following information on Miranda, given in passing:
ORIGINAL:
Miranda had worked on a successful merger.
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DUBBING:
Miranda était débordée de travail.
SUBTITLES:
Miranda avait travaillé sur une fusion importante.
(Episode 7 ‘The monogamists’)
The successful merger on which Miranda had worked disappears in favour of an explanation that Miranda is snowed under with work. Female success and responsibility are
thus replaced by an overwhelming workload, re-characterizing Miranda as a woman who
finds it difficult to cope with her job. In comparison, the subtitles render the importance
of her task. A similar phenomenon occurs when Carrie’s voice-over (Sarah Jessica
Parker) introduces the audience to her friend Samantha as a:
ORIGINAL:
Public relations executive.
DUBBING
Son métier: relation publique.
SUBTITLES:
Directrice de relations publiques.
(Episode 1 ‘Sex and the city’)
In the dubbing, Samantha’s managerial role is diluted into an undefined job in the field
of public relations, thus avoiding the decision-making nature of her position and the
required qualities of control and authority. This can be contrasted to the subtitles and
the choice of ‘directrice’, which adequately expresses her level of responsibility.
Samantha’s professional success is once again transformed when she sees it as adding
to her sex-appeal:
ORIGINAL:
Plus I own my own business.
DUBBING:
En plus, je suis indépendante.
SUBTITLES:
En plus, je possède ma propre entreprise.
(Episode 1 ‘Sex and the city’)
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European Journal of Women’s Studies 18(4)
Samantha-the business owner becomes Samantha-the independent woman. Owning one’s
own business certainly implies independence, but independence does not necessarily
imply being the managing director of one’s own company. As the subtitles show, it was
linguistically and stylistically possible to translate Samantha’s company ownership.
In a similar manner, the dubbing of the following exchange between Jack and
Charlotte illustrates a distinct tendency to tone down female professional aspirations:
ORIGINAL:
Jack:
What are your fantasies?
Charlotte: God, I’d love to own my own gallery.
DUBBING:
Jack:
Quels sont tes fantasmes?
Charlotte: J’en sais rien. J’adorerais avoir une galerie.
SUBTITLES:
Jack:
Quels sont tes fantasmes?
Charlotte: J’adorerais avoir ma propre galerie.
(Episode 7 ‘Three’s a crowd’)
Although Charlotte is the least ambitious female character of SATC, she still wishes
for control and power in her professional life. In the French dubbing, Charlotte seems
humbler as ‘my own’ gallery – retained in the subtitles – is translated by the indefinite
article ‘une’ galerie. Moreover, the emphatic function of ‘God’ is replaced by a vague ‘I
don’t know’, implying that this is not a topic she has given much thought to. Charlotte’s
professional ambition is once again toned down in the dubbing when she anticipates the
professional rewards of convincing a notoriously reclusive artist to exhibit his latest
work at the gallery she runs:
ORIGINAL:
So, if I could get him to show at the gallery, it would be an incredible coup.
DUBBING:
Alors si j’arrive à lui obtenir une expo à la galerie, ça serait un coup génial pour lui.
SUBTITLES:
Si je pouvais le convaincre à exposer à la galerie, ça serait un coup incroyable.
(Episode 5 ‘The power of female sex’)
In the dubbing, Charlotte does not bask in the glory of her potential professional ‘coup’.
Instead, she appears to anticipate how valuable the exhibition would be ‘pour lui’ (for
him), which is neither the case in the original, nor in the subtitles. The emphasis on
how valuable the exhibition will be to his career is also rather incoherent. Indeed, as
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previously revealed in the dubbing, this is the painter Charlotte learned all about in
high school. If he was famous enough to be on the high school curriculum, why would
obtaining a gallery exhibition be ‘un coup génial pour lui’? The answer to this may lie
in the following example:
ORIGINAL:
Mike: I’m a creative director of an ad agency but eventually I’d love to have my own shop.
Libby: I’d love to have my own shop, too.
DUBBING:
Mike:Je suis directeur de la créativité dans une agence mais je monterai sans doute un jour
ma propre affaire.
Libby: En fait, je voudrais bien avoir une boutique.
SUBTITLES:
Mike:Je suis directeur créatif dans une agence de pub, mais je voudrais monter ma propre
affaire.
Libby: Je voudrais aussi monter ma propre affaire.
(Episode 6 ‘Secret sex’)
In both the original and the subtitles, Libby and Mike use the same terms. In the dubbing,
however, the rendering of professional ambitions seems to be based on the gender of the
person who voices them. In the French dubbing, Mike’s ambition is transformed into an
almost absolute certainty that he will, in the future tense, set up his own business one day.
In comparison, Libby’s ambition echoes Charlotte’s in that she would like, in the conditional, to have a generic shop. Moreover, the addition of ‘en fait’ at the start of Libby’s
first sentence as well as the omission of the adverb ‘too’ contributes to the sense that
Libby only uttered these words as an afterthought rather than a genuine attempt to show
Mike that she had similar professional ambitions.
Most of these transformations are unlikely to be solely due to synchronization
constraints for they occur even when the speaker’s mouth is invisible. When analysed
collectively, the differences between the translation choices in the subtitles and the
dubbing suggest divergent values as regards women in the public sphere. While the
cultured élite has access to a university educated, professionally ambitious and/or
powerful feminine voice, this voice seems to have been naturalized into another voice,
which appears to put less emphasis on female education, skills, ambition and success.
Here, the interdisciplinary perspective of gender studies can shed light on why the
majority of French viewers are expected to prefer such ‘humbler’ female voices to the
more ‘categorical’ voices of high-flying career women, flaunting their academic and
professional excellence and ambition.
A cursory look at the French media reveals that representations of gender roles have
remained more traditional in France than in Anglo-American cultures (Blöss and
Frickey, 2006: 121; Hayward, 1990: 103; Holland, 1997: 147). Popular beliefs about
gender have been shaped by Republicanism and Catholicism, which both view women’s ‘natural’ place in the private sphere (Hause and Kenney, 1984: 259; Lelièvre and
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Lelièvre, 1991: 109–10). As a result, women in the public sphere, particularly those
working in traditionally masculine fields such as law and medicine have historically been
mocked (Bard, 1999a: 51), despised (Macknight, 2007: 137) and feared (Thébaud, 1986:
292). Women’s entry into the workforce is often portrayed as a relatively recent post-First
World War phenomenon despite the fact that French women have always worked (Bard,
2004: 20; Ferrand, 2004: 10; Schweitzer, 2002) and that 7.7 million of them were in
employment before 1914 (Ripa, 2002: 63–4). Moreover, unlike British and North
American women, French women were encouraged to stay at home during the Second
World War and the postwar propaganda promoting women’s role as wives and mothers
was therefore one of continuity with the traditional gender roles advocated by Pétain’s
Vichy government (Ripa, 2002: 40). Comparatively, British and North American women
seem to have more historical proof of their ability to perform a man’s job. Although
France has never lacked women who work, French culture seems to have historically
lacked positive images of women working, especially in traditionally ‘masculine’ and
prestigious professions. Moreover, compared to Anglo-American cultures, fewer powerful and responsible female figures stand out in French history. This is most evident in
school books where ‘l’apparition des [rares] figures féminines . . . souffre constamment
d’un déficit de sens révélant un processus de dévalorisation inconscient [the [rare] female
figures who appear . . . are consistently presented in a meaningless way, revealing a subconscious process of depreciation]’ (Rignault and Richert, 1997: 43).
Although France has one of the highest female employment rates in Europe (Gregory,
2000: 21), there is a persistent tendency to blame female employment for the decline of
the family and the rise of unemployment (Castelain-Meunier, 1988: 70; Ripa, 2002:
40–1). French employers are reluctant to give women positions that require a firm hand
and authority (Holland, 1997: 140) and French women continue to be underrepresented
in high-level occupations (Burrell, 2000; Holland, 1997: 141; Ripa, 2002: 77), particularly compared to their Anglo-American counterparts (Kremer, 1999: 10). Female
employment might have gained some legitimacy, but one still finds the widespread
belief that women’s natural place is in the home (a ‘persistence chez beaucoup que la
place “naturelle” de la femme est à la maison’ [Ripa, 2002: 64]) and thousands of small
details, all based on the premise that a woman in power, a woman who gives orders,
is not ‘natural’ (‘des milliers de petits détails, tous fondés sur le postulat qu’une femme
au pouvoir, une femme qui commande, cela ne va pas de soi, ce n’est pas “naturel”’
[Bourdieu, in Portevin, 1998]).
Feminist scrutiny of the French dubbing of SATC helps to uncover these small details
and shows a marked tendency to depreciate female achievements. The four heroines’
power, competence and ambition in the public sphere seem to have been ‘naturalized’
into a more acceptable ‘traditional’ understanding of femininity. As the next section
demonstrates, some aspects of female discontent with patriarchal structures appear to
have been equally naturalized.
Feminist rhetoric
This section examines how audiovisual translators have dealt with feminist rhetoric, particularly in scenes where the heroines discuss gender issues. One notable episode in this
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respect is ‘Models and mortals’, where the female characters deplore the negative effect
of models and beauty canons on women. In the following example, Carrie demonstrates
a degree of familiarity with the oppressive nature of what Naomi Wolf calls the ‘Beauty
Myth’ (1991):
ORIGINAL:
I find it fascinating that four beautiful flesh and blood women could be intimidated by some
unreal fantasy. I mean look, look at this [holding an issue of Glamour]. Is this really intimidating
to any of you? . . .
voice-over:Suddenly I was interested. If models could cause otherwise rational individuals
to crumble in their presence, exactly how powerful was beauty?
DUBBING:
Je trouve ça fascinant que quatre merveilleuses filles soient attirées voire intimidées par ces
filles plastifiées de partout. Ça doit être plutôt désagréable. Regardez ça. Est-ce que ça vous
fascine vraiment? . . .
voice-over:Soudain, je me suis sentie intéressée. Si les mannequins pouvaient changer le
comportement d’une femme, du moins l’influencer, quel était donc le pouvoir
réel de la beauté?
SUBTITLES:
Je trouve incroyable que quatre belles femmes avec les pieds sur terre puissent être intimidées
par un fantasme. Regardez. Est-ce que ça vous intimide? . . .
voice-over:J’étais intéressée tout à coup. Si les mannequins faisaient perdre les pédales à des
individus rationnels, quel était le pouvoir de la beauté?
(Episode 2 ‘Models and mortals’)
In the dubbing, ‘some unreal fantasy’ is transformed into ‘ces filles plastifiées de partout’. The unreality of the models’ beauty is therefore replaced by the unnaturalness of
their appearance, leaving the reality of their beauty unquestioned. The unreality of these
standards of beauty is, however, maintained in the subtitles with the choice of ‘fantasme’
as an equivalent for fantasy. The subtitles also appear equally keen to denounce the negative impact of models on women, notably through the repeated use of ‘intimider’. This
negativity is attenuated in the dubbing where intimidation is first replaced by attraction
and appears only once, following the adverb ‘voire’. This presents it as an extreme version of the previously mentioned attraction, making it more akin to veneration. In the
dubbing, Carrie’s allusion to this ‘rather unpleasant’ situation could be seen as an attempt
to compensate for the previous loss of negativity. However, by asking her friends whether
they are really fascinated by the Glamour cover girl, she seems to reinforce the notion of
admiration. While models are positioned as physically superior beings in all versions,
women’s relationship to this superiority changes in the dubbing, which re-establishes
models’ positive magnetism and erases the idea that unreal standards are being forced
onto women. This is all the more evident in Carrie’s concluding voice-over. In the dubbing, models do not make individuals crumble, they change and influence a woman’s
behaviour, and there is no indication that this is done in a negative way. This can be
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contrasted to the subtitles, which not only maintain the negativity with ‘perdre les
pédales’ but could also be said to accentuate the contrast between rationality and irrationality. Indeed, where Carrie originally defines her friends as real ‘flesh and blood women’,
the subtitles define them as women with ‘les pieds sur terre’, i.e. level-headed women.
As the next example shows, the heroines are not as willing to denounce the detrimental
and unfair impact of beauty standards on women, nor their origins in male imagination:
ORIGINAL:
Miranda:The advantages given to models and to beautiful women in general are so unfair, it
makes me want to puke! . . . We should just admit that we live in a culture that
promotes impossible standards of beauty.
Carrie:
Yeah, except men think they’re possible.
Miranda:Yeah.
DUBBING:
Miranda:Les avantages qui sont donnés aux mannequins et aussi aux belles femmes me
dépassent tellement que je voudrais tout de suite être encore plus bête et plus
moche! . . . Nous devrions juste admettre que nous vivons dans un monde où
personne ne peut instaurer un nouveau standard de beauté.
Carrie:
Oui, nous n’avons pas à nous juger les unes les autres.
Miranda:Oui.
SUBTITLES:
Miranda:Les avantages donnés aux mannequins et aux belles femmes en général sont si
injustes que ça me fait gerber! . . . Notre culture impose des canons de beauté
impossibles.
Carrie:
Sauf que les hommes les croient possibles.
Miranda:Oui!
(Episode 2 ‘Models and mortals’)
In the dubbing, Miranda’s repulsion is absent as is the unfairness of advantages given to
beautiful women. ‘French’ Miranda no longer finds them ‘unfair’, she just does not
understand them. She feels so much out of her league that she would somehow rather be
more stupid and ugly. In contrast, both the unfairness and Miranda’s disgust are present
in the subtitles. In the dubbing, what emerges as impossible is not the ability to live up to
the current standard of beauty but the ability to establish a new one. Here, the subtitles
not only closely follow the original but even reinforce the original feminist rhetoric:
impossible beauty standards are not just promoted, they are imposed by culture.
Moreover, men’s responsibility in perpetuating such standards (by believing that they are
possible) disappears in the dubbing in favour of a suggestion that women do not have to
‘judge one another’. Carrie’s use of the plural female form ‘les unes les autres’ clearly
points to female responsibility. Not only are unfair and impossible standards no longer
unfair and impossible but the solution offered by the dubbing indicates a different understanding of women and their relationship to beauty: if women do suffer from these standards, they only have themselves – and each other – to blame. While the original mention
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of male beliefs directly links the problem of beauty standards to ‘the old habits of patriarchal societies . . . which produce envy, rivalry, bitterness, and isolation among women
themselves, who compete for the prizes of female beauty under male dominance’ (YoungEisendrath, 2000: 55), the dubbing does not acknowledge such male dominance and
shifts the blame from its cause – patriarchy – to its result – female competition and
rivalry. Predictably, men’s responsibility remains in the subtitles.
Subtle transformations occur in the French dubbing in scenes where the female protagonists display a degree of feminist understanding of gender relations. For example,
here is how Miranda reacts to Samantha who claims that there is a biological basis for the
notion that ‘men give, women receive’:
ORIGINAL:
That’s exactly the kind of argument men have been using since the dawn of time to exploit
women. I mean, I don’t . . .
DUBBING:
C’est tout à fait le genre d’argument que les hommes utilisent depuis la nuit des temps. Tu ne
vas pas commencer à parler comme eux!
SUBTITLES:
C’est le vieil argument des hommes pour exploiter les femmes.
(Episode 5 ‘The power of female sex’)
In the dubbing, Miranda does point to Samantha’s argument as one historically used by
men but the idea that men use this argument in order to exploit women has disappeared.
If she is really appalled at Samantha’s determinist condoning of men’s exploitation of
women, it is not as clear as in the original. The subtitles render ‘to exploit women’ but
omit the notion that men have been doing this ‘since the dawn of time’. This difference
in emphasis is all the more evident when the conciseness of the subtitles is compared to
a further transformation in the dubbing. While in the original, Miranda is interrupted in
mid-sentence, and ‘I mean, I don’t . . .’ could lead to the development of another point,
the dubbing has Miranda admonish Samantha for talking like men as though this was the
real offence.
As I have shown so far, feminist ideas tend to have been toned down in the dubbing.
The following example constitutes an insightful exception to this tendency and illustrates
how the concept of feminism can emerge in the dubbing of SATC even when the original
makes no mention of it. In a typically graphic fashion, the four female friends discuss the
practice of fellatio:
ORIGINAL:
Samantha:Plus the sense of power is such a turn on, maybe you’re on your knees, but you’ve
got him by the balls.
Charlotte: Now, you see, that is the reason I don’t want to go down this road.
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DUBBING:
Samantha:Et en plus, tu as un pouvoir sur eux très excitant. Tu es peut-être à genoux mais tu
les tiens par les couilles.
Charlotte: Je ne suis pas féministe et je n’ai aucune envie de faire ce que vous dites, aucune!
SUBTITLES:
Samantha:Et le sentiment de pouvoir est excitant. T’es à genoux mais tu le tiens par les
couilles.
Charlotte: C’est la raison pour laquelle je ne veux pas m’y aventurer.
(Episode 7 ‘The monogamists’)
Although all versions suggest that Charlotte does not wish to put herself in a position
where she feels that she has power over a man’s genitals, her rejection seems stronger
and more absolute in the dubbing – aided by ‘aucune envie’ and the repetition of ‘aucune’.
Charlotte also adds a reason: she is not a feminist, conflating the sexual practice and
feminist empowerment.
This striking departure – which is absent from the subtitles – and Charlotte’s sudden
disavowal of feminism in the dubbing prompts a feminist analysis of the motivations
behind this choice and the previously identified transformations in the examples discussed earlier. One could start by relating them to the widespread understanding of the
feminist project in France as one of aggressive emasculation (Bard, 1999b: 305;
Castelain-Meunier, 1988: 69). This perception is especially noticeable in popular representations of American feminism, a discourse also known as anti-amér-féminisme, in
which feminists are blamed for having made American men impotent and America
itself the least sexually satisfied country in the West (Ezekiel, 2002). As Ezekiel
observes, anti-amér-féminisme has been particularly effective in repelling French
women and feminists from the ‘dangers’ of American feminism (2002: 346). Central to
anti-amér-féminisme is ‘the defense of seduction à la française and of the supposedly
harmonious relationships between the sexes’ (Ezekiel, 2002: 346). The view that French
gender relations are governed by a ‘special gentleness and complicity’ (Holland, 1997:
148) is even shared by French feminists, who tend to be uncomfortable with American
feminism’s portrayal of ‘a female environment that is under siege’ (Ezekiel, 2002: 353).
In this context, one can see why references to historically exploitative gender relations
and male-perpetuated beauty standards have needed to be naturalized to be palatable to
the French general public. While feminist-inspired discontent is kept intact and even
reinforced for the benefit of an educated ‘élite’, the majority of viewers are presented
with a less political and more harmonious image of gender relations.
Conclusion
The aim of this article has been to illustrate how a feminist perspective could be integrated in audiovisual translation research and contribute to a richer and subtler analysis
of translated audiovisual material. I believe that academics, professionals and viewers
have much to gain from such interdisciplinary studies. By exploring how dubbing
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405
‘naturalizes’ values which potentially threaten certain patriarchal notions of gender roles
and relations, translation studies can expand our understanding of cultural adaptation
and censorship. In gender studies, analyses of audiovisual translation practices provide
interesting insights into the invisible and insidious workings of patriarchal discourses.
As the present study has revealed, unspoken gender values become visible only when
confronted by a different model of femininity – a model informed by a feminist emphasis on women’s equal rights and power. Moreover, research in audiovisual translation
could enrich debates on the role and place of women and feminism in the world. The
difference in treatment of American feminism between dubbing and subtitles analysed
in this article points to the paradoxical situation of feminism in France: the philosophically sophisticated French feminism known in gender studies departments in the US and
the UK could not be defined as politically active and displays little inclination to cultivate a broader movement of female solidarity (Cross, 1997: 172–4). Its debates appear
to be part of an inward-looking, limited, academic phenomenon ‘nurtured further by
feminist academics on an international network, in particular those from American universities’ (Cross, 1997: 175). This type of ‘academic’ French feminism seems to have
had little impact on the gender values held by the wider French public.
Clearly, a feminist reflection could also benefit both the professionals and the recipients of audiovisual translation not least because the average viewer of televisual fiction
tends to be female (Chaniac and Jézéquel, 1998: 31). As woman-oriented material such
as SATC is produced and translated for mass consumption and reaches a broad female
audience worldwide, further research on the ethical and political aspects of the ways in
which feminine voices are naturalized in audiovisual translation seems to be more urgent
than ever.
Funding
This research received a scholarship from the University of Edinburgh’s College of Humanities
and Social Science as well as the Muriel Smith Award (2005 and 2006) from the Graduate School
of Literatures, Languages and Cultures.
Notes
1. Cultural capital refers to accumulated cultural knowledge. Academic qualifications are the
most institutionalized form of cultural capital while cultural goods are considered an objectified
form. Strength and breadth of cultural capital tend to be interconnected with social power and
status (Bourdieu, 1986).
2. This was confirmed by the interview I conducted on 5 April 2007 with Pascale and Gilles
Gatineau, two dubbing authors who partially wrote the French dubbed version of SATC. To
them, a successful dubbed version was a ‘smooth’ one, i.e. free from any unnatural sounding
defect believed to make the surface of the text uneven. They found most culturally specific
elements to be translatable but too obscure and elitist for a dubbed version.
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