Anyone watching any English channel regularly must be familiar with the censorship of ‘bad’ words that go on. The English subtitles provided in the channels all miraculously swallow up words like ‘fuck’ or replace ‘crap’ with ‘shit’ (or maybe it is the other way around).
I am most amused by this editing. Who is supposed to benefit from this I wonder?
Clearly it can’t be for kids. I certainly hope not considering some of the serials subject to this include ‘Dexter’ – a gripping tale about a serial killer who kills other serial killers. Which kid is watching this! Or for that matter which kid is watching the cynical ‘Family Guy’ or ‘How I met your Mother’ where the lead characters deal with relationship issues and one of the characters lives largely for sex.
On the other hand, surely we adults don’t need the policing.
Most times it is amusing. Like when ‘sex’ is replaced by ‘love’ in sentences like ‘It is just about sex, isn’t it?’ As you can well imagine, the whole context of the scene changes when you do the substitution.
Sometimes, it is plain annoying. Try watching a Guy Ritchie movie where the volume dips everytime an obscenity is used and your head will spin from the rapid changes in volume.
Of course, like everything else in our country that defies logic, after all this careful policing, we have five year olds singing the hit number ‘Bhaag DK Bose’.
Makes you go 'What the @#&* ' ?
I am most amused by this editing. Who is supposed to benefit from this I wonder?
Clearly it can’t be for kids. I certainly hope not considering some of the serials subject to this include ‘Dexter’ – a gripping tale about a serial killer who kills other serial killers. Which kid is watching this! Or for that matter which kid is watching the cynical ‘Family Guy’ or ‘How I met your Mother’ where the lead characters deal with relationship issues and one of the characters lives largely for sex.
On the other hand, surely we adults don’t need the policing.
Most times it is amusing. Like when ‘sex’ is replaced by ‘love’ in sentences like ‘It is just about sex, isn’t it?’ As you can well imagine, the whole context of the scene changes when you do the substitution.
Sometimes, it is plain annoying. Try watching a Guy Ritchie movie where the volume dips everytime an obscenity is used and your head will spin from the rapid changes in volume.
Of course, like everything else in our country that defies logic, after all this careful policing, we have five year olds singing the hit number ‘Bhaag DK Bose’.
Makes you go 'What the @#&* ' ?
3 comments:
I so agree. And the worst part - inspite of the mistakes and the policing, I find myself reading them and not listening anymore to the characters! It's so annoying, and no matter how much I try, I can't seem to do otherwise.
Sometimes I worry if my listening skills will go bust with all these subtitles. Like Priya, I don't listen to the characters much.
Its plain annoying.
Priyanthi/Musings - yep, subtitles is another gripe of mine!
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