Translating movie titles
In Sweden we have this ridiculous tradition of translating movie titles into a, preferably. silly and completely unrelated description of what the movie is about. Say a movie like Tarzan, should in this manner, be called "The boy who lived in the djungle with bears and tigers" - just to make sure that the people going to the movies actually understands what the movie they are about to see is really about. I understand that this is all because Swedish Filmindustry (SF) and their idea how things should be. I have a number of possible reasons as to why it is as it is, I shall list them below one after the other.
1) They are afraid that people wont go see foreign movies if they do not understand the title.
2) They assume that people are as lazy and illiterate that they can't pick up a dictionary and look the title up themselves.
3) For some reason they belive that the ridiculous Swedish titles sounds better than the original title.
4) They are trying, in some weird twisted way, to "preserve" the swedish language .
5) They deny the fact that most swedes are rather well educated in the english language and probably atleast one or several other languages aswell.
6) They fail to see the way a translation of a title in many way ruins the meaning that was originally intended when naming the movie.
I can go on for quite a few more points in the same fashion but I belive it is rather pointless to do such. What gets me is that us swedes like to see ourselves and our people as so enlighted and open - so ahead and up to speed with developement and the rest of the world. We pride ourselves with our education, we have most if not every household connected to the internet and we are aware of what is going on in the world around us. And still there's this need to slaughter foreign movie titles and replace them with (I have no idea who thinks them up) these worthless translations. There seems to be a difference in how media and culture is looked upon. CD titles are not translated, tracks on a cd aren't translated either. Because that would be in conflict with the artistic idea of the album, it would mess up the whole thing of the CD. So why do we do it to movies? It is one thing to have subtitles for movies - for those who aren't very good in following spoken english. But the title is in print, it is the first contact we have with a movie and it says alot about what we can expect and there is probably, in most cases, alot of thought put behind naming a movie.
So, I say, it it about time that swedish filmindustry - or whoever deals with these things - stop slaughtering movietitles and work to preserve the original idea and thought of the movie and its title. Thank you.
1) They are afraid that people wont go see foreign movies if they do not understand the title.
2) They assume that people are as lazy and illiterate that they can't pick up a dictionary and look the title up themselves.
3) For some reason they belive that the ridiculous Swedish titles sounds better than the original title.
4) They are trying, in some weird twisted way, to "preserve" the swedish language .
5) They deny the fact that most swedes are rather well educated in the english language and probably atleast one or several other languages aswell.
6) They fail to see the way a translation of a title in many way ruins the meaning that was originally intended when naming the movie.
I can go on for quite a few more points in the same fashion but I belive it is rather pointless to do such. What gets me is that us swedes like to see ourselves and our people as so enlighted and open - so ahead and up to speed with developement and the rest of the world. We pride ourselves with our education, we have most if not every household connected to the internet and we are aware of what is going on in the world around us. And still there's this need to slaughter foreign movie titles and replace them with (I have no idea who thinks them up) these worthless translations. There seems to be a difference in how media and culture is looked upon. CD titles are not translated, tracks on a cd aren't translated either. Because that would be in conflict with the artistic idea of the album, it would mess up the whole thing of the CD. So why do we do it to movies? It is one thing to have subtitles for movies - for those who aren't very good in following spoken english. But the title is in print, it is the first contact we have with a movie and it says alot about what we can expect and there is probably, in most cases, alot of thought put behind naming a movie.
So, I say, it it about time that swedish filmindustry - or whoever deals with these things - stop slaughtering movietitles and work to preserve the original idea and thought of the movie and its title. Thank you.
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Postat av: Nielsie
silly swedes
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