Bleats International

Black 'dubbing artists' are currently up in arms in France over discrimination rife in the film and TV distribution fields, restricting them to voicing over only black actors. In fact, white dubbers frequently take care of black voices too, meaning that the edifying sound of, say, Ice-T with the voice of a Daniel Auteuil-soundalike isn't uncommon.

Normally I would find this state of affairs reprehensible...if it wasn't for the fact that the entire dubbing industry is guilty of perpetuating a crime against culture, mutilating works of art with inevitably less characterful line deliveries which also mutilate the original dialogue through the necessity of having to remould sentences in order to facilitate lip-synching. As a by-product, of course, countries that practise this sad custom simultaneously limit their exposure to other languages (and therefore don't learn them), and can live in a state of denial regarding how much American junk they in fact consume. The last point is particularly relevant to the French, being renowned for their paranoia about the invasion of 'Anglo-Saxon' culture and the 40% French-language output quota imposed on all TV and radio broadcasters.

Unsurprisingly, in the few countries where dubbing is not practised (reasonably excepting cartoons aimed at under-fives), namely all of Scandinavia and Holland, English language skills are markedly superior to those in dubbing countries as viewers are at least passively constantly exposed to two languages at the same time.

Admittedly the severely dyslexic should be catered for and most Hollywood and US sitcom production may not be worth preserving from such debasement per se, but to dub across the board throws out the baby with the bath water. Even Sylvester Stallone doesn't deserve to be stuck with the same voice as Charlton Heston and Steven Segal, as may happen where there is a shortage of dubbers and the viewers are already anaesthetised through years of exposure. Such suspension of disbelief should not be required in any circumstances, barring satirising the original work (hence I leave a loophole for the only dubbing that is regularly found on English screens, i.e. that of anime and chopsocky films with mewling American college accents or piss-take Chinese accents, for the simple reason that the original dialogue is unbearably awful and deserves to be made comic. 'Now try my tiger style!'). Dubbing rarely understands subtler characterisation. Don't get me started on the French Marge Simpson...

What's especially baffling about the French example is that France, with some justification, purports to be the most cinema-literate culture in the world. You would expect this disregard for the cinematic art in, say, Bollywood, where 99% of films must have 99% of everything for 99% of everyone, in the style of Joey's reaction in Friends to the hybrid dish that was Shepherd's Trifle: 'Custard? Good! Jello? Good! Meat? Good! What's not to like?' But not France, where films on cable come with a presenter intro to the work, just like dear old Alex Cox used to do on BBC2 until the bastards pulled Moviedrome. All that escapes the mangling is musicals and Donald Duck, who was either untranslatable or just unvoiceable. And there are prizes for the best dubbers, which is a bit like getting an award for being the nicest paedophile on the nonce wing.

Governments could put a stop to this sorry state of affairs, seeing as there are rules on systems of measurement and use of languages, both of which are considerably harder to enforce. But the political will isn't there: electorates will want to hang on to their dubbing like a child to the stabilisers on their first bike. So it's really up to the autocracy of the EU to do something culturally beneficial for once. In the meanwhile, I'd urge France's black dubbers to get themselves discriminated against in a respectable profession instead.