Do You Speak My Language?

Ayana Bhattacharya

Copy Editor, Monograph

(Published in Year 6 Vol. 3)

Last October, Bad Bunny hosted Saturday Night Live, a week after being named the headline act for the Super Bowl. In his opening monologue, he joked about replacing cast member Marcello Hernandez as producer Lorne Michaels’ favourite Latino. In mock self-aggrandisement, a choppy compilation of Fox News hosts was edited to proclaim “Bad Bunny is my favourite musician, and he should be the next President!” And after delivering a series of punchlines in Spanish, he declared that if you hadn’t understood him, you had four months to learn. Discourse online was incendiary; the mood of the moment split into two disparate camps. There were those who lambasted Bad Bunny, hurling affected “how could you’s!” for desecrating the altar of All-Americanism, and those who championed his ascent, embarking on well-intentioned Duolingo courses in preparation. This February, his halftime show became the fourth most watched in the Super Bowl’s history, drawing over 128 million viewers. It was also the first to be performed almost entirely in a language other than English, barring a salsa-infused Lady Gaga cameo. There were concerns asserting that Bad Bunny’s show would be incomprehensible, requiring millions of American viewers to live-consult Google Translate, or worse, miss out on a rare, unifying moment in pop-culture. But his show, evincing cultural pride and family, did just the opposite, leaving audiences with the ever-appropriate message of love conquering hate. 

I linger here because Bad Bunny violated (or perhaps, unwittingly cleared) an unwritten rule of cultural translation by choosing not to accommodate. The outrage preceding and following his show reviled his anti-ICE advocacy, his perceived proclivity for skirts, but most conceivably, the un-Americanness of a Spanish Super Bowl halftime show. To his critics, it was simple math: in a population of 348 million, only 59 million people spoke Spanish. That Bad Bunny performed his catalogue without so much as including English subtitles (as demanded by many), was audacious. American media has long treated translation as a one-way street. His refusal to default to English courted a sort of citizen-of-the-world fantasy — if the Super Bowl is a national spectacle, the halftime show is principally international. In choosing to retain language and cultural references, Bad Bunny’s show could’ve been incoherent and puzzling. But by virtue of his medium, Bad Bunny lucked out; music famously eclipses language when sparking connection. And yet, most creators aren’t that fortunate. So, the question here is this: how do you adapt media for an audience that doesn’t speak the language?  

Succession (2018–2023) is an incisive, prestige TV dramedy for the post-hyphen age. It’s post-modern, post-irony, post-truth, even. It indulges in profanity and revels in its lack of a moral compass. It’s acute and terribly satirical. And it’s funny because you’re in on the joke, because the ideal viewer is acclimatised to cultural shorthand and American political absurdity. Even if you were to translate the dialogue word-for-word, the show’s intended tone of precise ridicule just wouldn’t land. In a standout moment wrought with second-hand embarrassment, Kendall performs a tribute to his father, Logan. “‘L’ to the ‘OG’”, he raps, off-beat, invoking bewildered stares and laughter. The original lyricism articulates a certain faux-hardcore hip-hop persona, lost and discarded in the Hindi dub of Succession. Translated, the scene no longer denotes Kendall’s desperate plea for power, nor the humiliation rituals he undergoes in asking for it. When Connor runs for office, a funeral serves as a fundraiser. He tells his girlfriend he has a “donor boner”. Juvenile, and yet, exactly the kind of irreverent throwaway line the show specialises in. The Hindi dub entirely abandons this joke (“boner” isn’t as funny when translated to Hindi). But without the joke, the audience loses key context for Connor’s character. Connor, despite his best efforts at self-actualisation, is a grade-A asshole, just like his siblings.  Cutting the joke cuts him slack. If the original, English show has a knife to its characters’ throats, the Hindi dub blunts its edge. 

So, if a show is technically the same, but doesn’t preserve its essence in its translation, is it still the same show? A ship of Theseus-esque dilemma, answered by a different show: Shin-chan. There’s an insouciance to five-year old Shin-chan that’s left him the lasting emblem of childhood mischief in India, a blazing personality reproached and chastised by parents worried sick. This panging worry led to a brief ban in 2008, which would strip the show of its provocative and vulgar material in favour of a wholesome, family-friendly turnaround. The version I grew up with was so heavily censored that episodes often bordered on illogic. Shin-chan’s explicit “elephant dance” was blurred, and his dad now drank juice, not beer. Years later, I’d discover the Funimation dub, a stark departure from the Shin-chan I’d grown used to. It was a whole new show. This Shin-chan delighted itself in its political incorrectness, having perfected a kind of slobbish prurience. In one episode, a (five-year old) character plays-pretend that she’s been sold into “white slavery”, blaming her scheming stepmother. She begs her father to leave his inheritance to her instead, claiming her stepmother would use it for a “vaginoplasty”. There’s certainly a world of difference between the version I grew up with and what Funimation broadcast. And crucially, neither of them accurately reflect the original Japanese anime. In the case of Shin-chan, and really, any work that loses tonal consistency across its editions, each variant is a new ship. Each variant remedies the anxieties and appetites of its audience. With it, the original becomes secondary to the audience. 

I’m not a purist. I don’t think Shin-chan’s moral restructuring in the Funimation dub mars the original show. But there’s a certain give-and-take to what translated work asks of its audience and creators. Almost compulsorily, translation is perceived as an act of accommodation, extending accessibility — hospitable, welcoming servitude. And yet, in practice, it presents itself as a sort of power struggle. Adapting dialogue to culture is resolutely difficult. Character notes are scrapped, plotlines eschewed, tone lost to the ever-fleeting preferences of the zeitgeist. Translation, really, becomes an exercise in bargaining. How much story are you willing to forfeit for relatability’s sake? And how much editing and modification does it take before something’s an entirely new work? When Shin-chan was adapted for American audiences, it pulled from the likes of South Park and Family Guy to situate itself in a post-9/11 political climate. Oggy and the Cockroaches, an originally silent cartoon, was adapted for Indian audiences with a Hindi dub in 2009. This dubbed version even renamed the cockroaches, assigning each a Bollywood actor’s accent to emulate. I’m willing to bet that in adapting media for new audiences, a lot more invention is involved than intended. That’s why Bad Bunny’s halftime show warranted such spotlight — his refusal to accommodate preserved the integrity of his work. Instead of zeroing in on an American experience, he invited the audience to zoom out.