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Subtitles

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As a lover of languages and cultures, I am appalled by people who refuse to watch foreign movies just because they are subtitled. The actor's voice is of vital importance and the emotions that he or she conveys cannot be conveyed by a person reading a voice-over.

Actors invest a lot of time and energy into preparing for and performing their roles and every emotion comes from inside of them. These emotions can't be duplicated and added after the fact. Every actor is unique, and their unique voices help them to shape the characters they play and bring them to life. When the it all comes together, the audience can become lost in the action and the characters become real to them.

I have never liked dubbed movies. I remember watching a few dubbed Kung Fu movies when I was a child, and even back then, dubbing seemed silly to me. The voices didn't match the movements of the actors' mouths, the dubbed voices were exaggerated, and I knew that these Chinese people weren't really speaking English. By the time I was twelve, I was watching subtitled movies and never thought twice about it. I was actually surprised when I found out that some people preferred dubbed movies over subtitled ones.

Watching subtitled movies from all over the world has made me more culturally enriched. I immediately recognize people speaking Korean, Mandarin, and Cantonese when I walk down the street. When I was studying Japanese, watching subtitled movies helped me with the intonations of the language and made me a better speaker. I had never heard spoken Swedish until I saw a Swedish movie and I was amazed at the some of the similarities between Swedish and English. (With Swedish being a Germanic language.) And how else would I have heard spoken Icelandic if not for watching subtitled movies?

Dubbing takes away the authenticity of a movie. For me, it is completely distracting to see a young Korean woman with the voice of a Valley Girl. I laugh when I read movie reviews on Netflix or Amazon where people give movies bad reviews because the DVD only had a subtitled option and no dubbed option. (This sounds absurd, but I've seen it more than once.) They complain about having to read the movie, as if reading was some arduous task. Once I am into a movie, reading the subtitles becomes second nature. Anyone who is not visually or mentally impaired should be able to multitask and still enjoy subtitled movie. We multitask in everyday life and this should be no exception.

Learn more about this author, Melissa Washington.
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