#why can't germany accept subtitles

[swordsonnet-bardofwar]

I'm trying to get the motivation to torture myself through gomens season 2 and just looked at the episode description....

Tell me why the German translation for Aziraphale is Erziraphael and why that sounds so funny

In general, I've just noticed the differences between German and English good omens.

Like, what are those voices?? Erziraphael saying okay during thenflaming sword scene????

[la-pheacienne]

Dubbing is not acceptable for me under any circumstances if it's not an animation for kids. I am probably the most fervent hater of dubbing that you can find, my ears just bleed, whether the dubbing is "good" (it's not) or not. You just can't watch cinema like that. The voice of the actor is an essential part of the artistic product, as essential as the meaning of the words that are spoken. Can you watch a Godard movie in English, having Belmondo speaking like an American? Is he still Belmondo then, or something else? How can I watch for example James Bond speaking German? Is he still James Bond or something else? Can I watch a western of Clint Eastwood speaking Spanish and still pretend that I am watching the same medium an American is watching? The answer is a big fat no. Changing the voice with another and in another language just kills coherence, context, style, impact, everything. And I genuinely, GENUINELY don't understand the need for it. Reading subtitles is extremely extremely easy, it literally takes no effort. Why not add them? Just why? Why hire actors to do the same job that an actor is already doing, in the medium you are consuming?

I have been raised in a country where we don't dubb anything (apart from animation for kids who can't read/have just learned how to read, and telenovelas like Maria del Barrio) and the reason we don't dubb is cause nobody speaks our language and we know it very well. So the need to open ourselves to the world, get in direct contact with foreign languages, get the foreign references and not isolate ourselves is very present from the get go. It's a question of survival for us. I genuinely don't know what happens in the Anglosphere, they rarely dubb I think cause like 80% of media they consume is English speaking anyway lol. But apart from the Anglosphere, I do have the impression that western countries that are more influential than mine, and very attached to their language, like Germany, France, Italy, Spain, just don't make the effort that we make, and it is very frustrating to see that because for me it translates as a privilege, the fact that they are willing to just flat out dismiss the actual artistic value of a movie in the service of hearing their own fucking language all the fucking time.

TLDR: subtitles are better and obsession with dubbing is a sign of privilege.

[farosdaughter]

Wow, kudos to you for remembering so much about this version: you have actually brought my attention back to many details I'd overlooked!

-I can't remember whether Eliza uses du or Sie when talking to Higgins, but she definitely addresses him by the latter at the end when she's trying to distance herself from him. Only then Higgins answers back in the same manner as a joke, but I *think* he always says du to Eliza. Eliza's dialect is something I can't place either, so I would also wager it's a made up language comprising different regional dialects.

-so that's what Eliza's instrument is! Thank you for specifying! I loved how often and prominently it is featured throughout the movie: even Higgins who seemed to detest it starts playing (with) it at the very end, just as he's accepting Eliza's role in his life. Her song cracked me up at first, but paying attention to the lyrics gives it a whole different (ie creepy) meaning. It's indeed very telling and appropriate for the time period and place this movie was made and indirectly set in. As far as I can tell this version likes to pretend it's set in England, unlike the more creative Dutch film. However, it has so many quintessentially German details about it that they immediately give away the lie. Mrs Higgins' flat being turned into what looks like a villa by the lake is a very glaring one: it just screamed Berlin to me. I'm guessing keeping the original setting was an intentionally superficial choice to divert the audience's attention from what was happening in Germany at the time.

-Higgins playing Schubert and then behaving like a Romantic hero for a bit is an interesting choice. Gründgens absolutely sells the emotionally stunted intellectual who doesn't see love even when it's staring him in the face, so it doesn't feel as jarring as some of Higgins' romantic moments in the Dutch version. IIRC, after his confrontation with Eliza he opens the door to Pick's bedroom (they have connecting rooms?) and starts ranting about how dangerous it is to get involved with a young woman, no matter her social class. Schopenhauer said that women are a joke of nature, so it must be true. Pick is half asleep so he asks Henry what the matter is with Eliza. Higgins answers that she's asking to be taken seriously as a woman. Pick asks why that shocks Henry? He's surprised by her 'sudden' change, since she'd seemed so passive for months. He wants to know out of scientific interest whether this change was brought by his lessons or if Eliza has always been her own woman. Then he starts admiring the night sky and the moon. Pick just leaves him at it.

-Johnny does have a more prominent role in this movie. I thought he looked younger than Eliza (he looked like a teenager to me), so I never picked up love interest vibes from him but I could be wrong. He's definitely fascinated by her transformation when they meet again at the races though, and he offers her an ice cream. There's a man about to go away without paying, and Eliza first jumps a fence and then breaks her umbrella trying to defend Johnny from the thief. I liked how much attention was given to Eliza's old way of life. The movie's apt subtitle being 'Elisa, das Blumenmädchen' really reinforces how Pygmalion is first and foremost Eliza's story.

-the final act is the one with the most changes from the original play! Higgins does start mixing cocktails at some point, but it's during Mrs H's tea party, while Eliza is telling everyone about her aunt. In the final act he just walks around disgruntled and tries to order Eliza to come home. Mrs H berates him and tells him to behave. I loved the moment where Eliza asks him to call her Miss Doolittle and Freddy immediately calls her Eliza. Their confrontation on Mrs H's porch/balcony is much shorter, and Higgins muses that she's turned out exactly like all other society girls. He also congratulates her on her upcoming nuptials and social advancement but warns her never to reveal her origins, as it could compromise her relationship with Freddy. Eliza goes to get ready for dinner and puts Higgins' ring back on! When she intentionally reveals her background to the Eynsford Hills at dinner, Higgins raises his glass to her and is obviously delighted. I got the impression that was all the confirmation he needed that Eliza wasn't after a social position, and had indeed a sense of self outside of her 'education'. Their second confrontation is also much shorter, she basically threatens to teach phonetics and 'steal' his methods, then she corrects his grammar (he gets a verb wrong) when he gets angry. Finally, she asks him what she should choose to do between marrying Freddy, selling flowers, or teaching. He answers that she should choose to stay with him (and still calls her Fraulein Doolittle). It's definitely missing the spark present in the 1938 movie, as Higgins is more flustered/embarrassed than angry! But I found it endearing nonetheless.

got my hands on German Pygmalion from 1935🦫

[acruska]

The huge problem I have with Ku'damm - a few words about depiction of rape

Since I’m living in Germany now, I’m trying to watch as much as possible in German. Shows, movies, romance, sci-fi, I watch it all. After all, that was how I learned most of my English.

I started watching a German show titled Ku’damm 56 on Netflix expecting it to be more or less a Dirty Dancing redo. A girl from a good family is fighting with a very proper mother and doing lots of improper dancing. That melody has been played before, but it's fun, so why not? Generally, I enjoy the show, watched all three seasons in less than a week, and cried like a baby throughout the last episode. I’ll probably share at some point all the things I love about it, but that’s a different post.

What I have a HUGE problem with, is the depiction of violence in the show, especially sexual violence and violence against women. Most of all, Ku'damm 56 is romanticizing rape. I believe that to be a pretty serious issue for an award-winning show produced by public TV.

This post will mention rape a lot and contain spoilers, so read at your own risk.

Ku'damm is narrated mostly from a female point of few, following the lives of three sisters, who are in dire need of a husband (at least according to their mother). The very premise of the show is that the 50's were a man's world where even a flawed husband was better than no husband. Because of the time the show is set in, violence against women and diffent kinds of discrimination are more or less accepted as period-appropriate and just the way things used to be. Hence, each of the husbands the three sisters end up marrying is occasionally violent, and only in one case it becomes a major plot-point. The protagonist, Monika Schöllack, is portrayed as a (growingly) strong woman, who is independent and breaks social norms and who would marry only for the deepest love. And yet her marriage is the most problematic of them all.

To put it plainly, her husband and love, Joachim Franck, is a rapist. He rapes Monika in the first half of the first episode and then victim-blames her for it, which leads to a suicide attempt (BTW, the writers also have an unhealthy relationship with suicide). And it's never mentioned afterwards and actually turns up to be the beginning of a romantic relationship that lasts throught the series and is shown as the only happy and loving marriage of a Schöllack sister.

No woman wants it. So? They all do it.

The rape scene looks like the writers were not quite certain what consitutes rape, so they pulled all the stops, just to be sure. Monika is sober and proper, says "no" loudly and clearly and tries to fight him. The situation is pretty straight-forward, but Joachim tells her that no woman wants it and all do it anyway - and procedes to do what he wants. He will later say that she asked for it, and her own mother will accept that explanation based on her earlier inappropriate behaviour.

Your daughter downright propositioned me.

In the later part of the episode we observe a wide collection of victimizing behaviors, including victim-blaming and forcing a clearly scared victim to go out with her rapist in order to orchestrate a marriage between them. Monika, who already has poor self-esteem and is bullied by her mother, attempts suicide. In the end, the traumatic experience starts her on the way towards self-acceptance and finding her inner strength.

Somehow in this turbulent aftermath it becomes clear that Joachim is going to be her love interest. He refuses to have sex with another woman (by leaving her alone in the middle of nowhere, like that's okay), admits that what happened with Monika may not have been consensual (by calling it a misunderstanding!) and all is forgiven.

About this story at the wedding... It is completely within the realm of the possiblity, that there really was a misunderstanding.

From then the show plays on a standard romantic sequence: they don't like each other - he thinks of her but she can't stand him - she starts to like him too - the are broken up by circumstances - they come together and live happily ever after (or not). This is a great recipe for a romantic story - when it's not based on sexual assault. What the creators completely miss is that Joachim raping Monika is not comparabale to Mr Darcy calling Elizabeth Bennet "barely tolerable". The gravity is just different.

The problem is, Joachim is written as a likable character. He's portrayed as a good and generous man, who tries to save the world by getting his company out of arms production (I'm looking at you, Tony). Not to mention the gift to humanity that is the lanky form and beautiful face of Sabin Tambrea.

I must admit I really like Joachim Franck of Ku'damm '59 and '63. I used to consider this whole rape sub-plot completely out-of-character for him, which is why I allowed myself to like him later on. After the third season, it all makes so much more sense. Still, that is not the last time he's violent and there is no excuse for rape.

I'd forgive those cheeckbones a lot, but maybe not rape.

According to Wikipedia, the editor-in-chief of the public TV station ZDF, which produced the show, stated: "With Ku’damm 56 we continue our tradition of narrating history in a contemporary way. […] Ku’damm 56 shows women on their path to self-determined sexuality and equal rights."

What the show really does is romanticize rape. In the character of Joachim Franck it gives us a somewhat remorseful rapist, who is otherwise a good guy. It expects us to like him and to believe in the love he shares with his victim and our protagonist, the strong girl who literally writes songs titled "Standing Tall" and "Strong Woman", as if the show was worried we wouldn't get it. The audience is asked to completely forget the rape and accept that the guilt and the fear is how a beautiful love is born.

What I find shocking is that audience did exactly that. Ku'damm '56 is critically acclaimed, it won German Television Award for best writing and was nominated for best miniseries. I found exactly one article and one tumblr post about the rape issue, and the latter was trying to justify rape romanticization with character development. Maybe there's more discussion on the German-language web (which would make sense, since I have no idea if Ku'damm is even available with English subtitles). I just wish we didn't need to have this kind of discussion about shows produced in the last decade, especially the ones centered on female-empowerement.