Tessa Dwyer

Fansub Dreaming on ViKi: “Don’t Just Watch But Help When You Are Free”

Abstract Fan subtitling, or ‘fansubbing’, is a heterogeneous and rapidly growing field of amateur translation exhibiting a number of traits that have so far been overlooked by scholars of audiovisual translation. Current research on fansubbing is broadened by examining this phenomenon beyond the strictures of anime subculture alone, drawing on the counter example of Internet start-up company ViKi and exploring the gaps in mainstream subtitling that fansubbing both exposes and fills. The team of volunteer translators working for ViKi re-animates notions of global diversity by capitalizing on the affordances of new technologies and collective intelligence to break down the national and linguistic hierarchies that dominate contemporary media and professional audiovisual translation. Despite a largely conservative ‘look and feel’ and signs of increasing commercialization, ViKi’s fansubbing model makes an important contribution to the internationalization of audiovisual translation practices, bringing programs from small-language communities to diverse audiences across the globe. The paper further considers the extent to which the legalization of ViKi’s fansubbing activity empowers fans to bring about real change in the media marketplace.

Informal Translation, Post-Cinema and Global Media Flows

This chapter provides an overview of the impacts that different kinds of informal distribution have upon film translation. From video bootlegging to torrents with SRT files, what does piracy mean for translation and translators? What are the material properties of particular distribution channels and to what degree do these lend themselves to translation between languages? What effect are new technologies (notably subtitling software) having on the availability of films in different languages?

Changing accents: Place, voice and Top of the Lake

ABSTRACT This article examines the role that locality, cultural specificity and authentic voice play within current television industry shifts and transnational developments. Focussing on Top of the Lake, I explore its thematic and aesthetic preoccupation with place, voice and nation by spotlighting issues of accent and vocal in/authenticity, detailing the controversy sparked when US star Elisabeth Moss was cast as New Zealand native, detective Robin Griffin. The adopted Antipodean accent furnished by Moss creates a highly ambivalent foregrounding and re-negotiation of the national within the particularly transnational space of post-broadcast ‘quality’ television. Presenting a ‘sonic spectacle’ (Holliday, Christopher. 2015. “The Accented American: The New Voices of British Stardom on US Television.” Journal of British Cinema and Television 12 (1): 63–82), Moss’ wobbly accent makes audiences doubly aware of the effort being expended to cue regional specificity and locale. In the following discussion, Moss’ vocal crafting in Top of the Lake is linked to the increasing importance given to authentic place and on-location shooting within post-broadcast television, as a means of fostering emotional pull and deep levels of viewer engagement. In Top of the Lake, links between place and authenticity are further interrogated via its self-aware invocation of touristic imagery and desires – made all the more nuanced due to Campions presence as auteur and New Zealands role as media-tourism mecca.

Accented Relations: Mad Max on US Screens

When Australian cult classic Mad Max (1979) reached North American cinema screens in June 1980, it received a limited run and resulted in modest box office takings. New York Times reviewer Tom Buckley noted with some irritation that its dialogue had been dubbed and was often out of sync. Declaring the film “ugly and incoherent,” Buckley states: “much of the rudimentary dialogue in this Australian film has been dubbed from ‘strine,’ the thick dialect of the subcontinent, into country-and-western English.” Beginning with this moment of cross-cultural disarticulation via dubbing, this chapter explores how the iconic Mad Max series charts the changing fate of Australian movies and accents in the US market, bringing into relief the stakes involved in speaking Australian on screen. By thoroughly unpacking this instance of English-to-English dubbing, it emerges as a springboard for thinking about the role of language, voice and accent in cross-cultural reception practices and in Australian efforts to assert a sense of cultural distinction and independence. The significance of the vernacular in the Mad Max films is illuminated by viewing them in relation to Australian film industry developments of the 1970s onwards and particularly the much-maligned genre of “Ocker” comedies. Moreover, by positioning the same-language dubbing of the first film in relation to US release strategies developed for other Australian features of the era, it is possible to pinpoint how the Mad Max series deploys language to effect generic reinvention and negotiate ongoing relations with US cultural formats, finance and markets. Accented Relations: Mad Max on US Screens

Multilingual Publics: Fansubbing Global TV

This paper focuses on the language politics of global media, examining publics that arise through experiences of film and television in translation. Through an awareness of screen translation processes and strategies—from dubbing and subtitling to fansubbing and live interpretation—new publics arise. Globally, such publics count, accounting for a major proportion of audiences worldwide. Hence, I argue that screen translation and experiences of translated media can no longer be positioned as peripheral to either screen culture as a whole, or to its analysis.