No subtitles for songs? That’s irritating, but doesn’t make me angry. Who cares of something is miss-spelled? We can still get the general idea.īad word choice? Still not a problem! So long as I can figure out the gist of the statement, it’s fine with me.
I would far rather have the “it looks like Simran has fallen for Kuljit instead of Raj” joke be translated as “Her dosen’t love you any more” than some weird white-washing of it. Miss-spellings, No subtitles for songs, Bad word choice Subtitles-Not a Problem! Why does it happen all the time in Indian film? This flattening and hiding of who they are? I don’t see French movies changing “Napoleon” to “George Washington” in their subtitles, they assume that the audience should be familiar with this person and if they aren’t, it is on them to learn more. It is saying “we are so ashamed of our cultural heritage that, rather than triumphing it and encouraging you to learn more, we are hiding it away behind western references that in our minds are somehow ‘better'”. And it describes the whole sweep of folks who might watch Hindi films and know Indian culture, and still need subtitles.Īnd second, it is minimizing Indian pop culture. Why insult them by pretending they don’t exist? I am sure there are plenty of ABCDs all over the world who know perfectly well who Raj and Simran and Kuljit are, but aren’t fluent in Hindi. And also to people who are Indian and don’t happen to speak Hindi. Which is insulting to people like me, folks who seriously watch the movies but aren’t Indian. On the one hand, it is expecting that people reading the English subtitles will not be capable of a frame of reference for Indian pop culture. When, for instance, Student of the Year 2 mentioned jokes about “Raj” and “Simran” and “Kuljit”, why did my English subtitles translate it to “Elizabeth” and “Mr. Next to no subtitles at all, this is my least favorite option. And it’s also insulting to the film itself, it says “we know the Tamil audience likes Vaaranam Aayiram, but it isn’t a good enough movie to cross over, English speakers wouldn’t like it and neither would anyone else in India”.
The removal of subtitles is just so unwelcoming, it says to me “we don’t want you to watch this movie, we don’t think you will like this movie, we are going out of our way to make sure you can’t watch this movie”. It’s available through Amazon Prime/ErosNow but without subtitles. For that I have to go to an illegal file sharing site and see the DVD version. It’s available, sure, just without subtitles. There is no reason that, for instance, I cannot find Vaaranam Aayiram legally streaming with subtitles. If non-Hindi films especially want to break through and be taken seriously, then their producers need to get serious about spending just a little extra money to add subtitles. It is also infuriating when I think about other people in the Indian market. Especially when the subtitles are available on the DVD version of the films, so they are in fact taking a step backward in terms of access. There is no reason that international streaming services shouldn’t provide subtitles. If Indian film wants to be taken seriously on the world stage, they need to provide English subtitles. So I am going to complain about a thing that I think we all have strong feelings about-SUBTITLES!
Also I just got an email asking me to sub in for Sunday school this week and I REALLY REALLY don’t want to. I don’t usually let myself complain, but it’s pouring rain, my summer schedule is looking like the things I want to do won’t be possible because of other stuff that is happening that I am less excited about, and I have a big irritating expense that appeared suddenly out of nowhere.
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