American Villains -- or Not

[Arcadia]

Y'know, this makes me wonder .... is it fairly common for "foreign" programs to show up on TV's world wide now? Here in the States I only recall seeing British and I think (?) a couple of Canadian imports. Unless you count anime, I can't think of any non-English speaking countries we get TV shows from. And most of the anime is pretty "Americanized;" i.e., it's not presented as if it were a Japanese show.
 
In the 60's my family spent some time overseas, I remember seeing Bonanza (!) in Japanese. (Yes, it was weird.) But I don't recall any other American programming in any of the other countries we visited. Has that changed, does anyone know? If so, are shows translated, or subtitled?
 
I imagine the sheer volume of shows we output in this country makes it unlikely we'd need to import programming. On the other hand, there's an awful lot of channels with nothing on.....

[Janie]

Well, in my country there are lots of American or British shows/films on TV and some channels broadcast even shows/films from other countries (but almost no one watches it). They're usually dubbed in Czech though or sometimes subtitled but the subtitled versions are aired at around midnight (because people here are too lazy to read subtitles ). 

[jesskayding]

Here in the US. I've seen productions from all over the Globe because of diversity amongst my friends & acquaintances. They have to pay extra for their nationaties package via the cable company. However some satellite programming includes shows from India & Mexico. Maybe even some others I'm just not aware of. I love Bollywood by the way.

[Arcadia]

Interesting. Thanks! I never even thought about this before, I guess I just assumed each country mostly had "locally produced" programs like we do.

I find I usually prefer subtitles, I like hearing the original cast voices and the way they pace their words, etc. (I remember seeing Das Boot in German with subtitles, then I saw it again later, dubbed -- it just wasn't as good, somehow. I ended up buying the subtitled version.) But reading subtitles can lead to missing some of the onscreen action. I wish I had the ability to learn a language in two hours......

[Caya]

Subtitles are horribly distracting, imho. When I got the 25-years edition of The Rocky Horror Picture show, it was the first time I ever got to see it without subtitles (they would only show it subtitled at the cinema, and my VHS version had them too). And even though I could practically speak and sing along with the text at that point and thus never even read the subtitles anymore, I still noticed a couple of details I'd missed all the times those darn things were there to distract me.

[Janie]

I prefer subtitles too but I agree that one can miss some important details on screen. That's why I've started watching British/American programmes in English with no subtitles. I have to admit that my listening skills improved a lot (Wish I could say the same for speaking or writing ).

[Carol the Dabbler]

Alex and I generally watch things at least once with subtitles turned on, so that (in theory!) we're not missing anything in the dialog, and then we watch it without subtitles, so that we don't miss out on the action and the background stuff.

 

This is particularly true of shows or movies where everyone is speaking a foreign language, such as British!

 

[Janie]

Well, things like Sherlock where there is a lot of talking, or rather a lot of very fast talking, I first watch with english subtitles too. But when I watch it later without subtitles I still find a lot of things in the dialogs that I missed at first even with the subtitles on!

[Carol the Dabbler]

And subtitles are hardly ever perfect.  The Sherlock subtitles are very good, but even they screw up abysmally every so often.

 

[jesskayding]

Yup got to appreciate sub titles. especially in karate or konfu? Without the subtitles they're super comical.

[T.o.b.y]

Funny, I usually watch things with subtitles at least once, too, but not Sherlock. I can't bear to have the subtitles on there, it spoils the magic. So a million thanks to people like Ariane DeVere, who write transcripts. And to all of you, who call my attention to bits of dialogue I never even heard before, and explain what it means, too...

[jesskayding]

Oh. I bought the DVDS so I could more fully under stand what Sherlock was saying via subtitles. They couldn't play enough reruns for me to understand English outside of my Midwestern accent.

[stick]

As some one from the UK (wales) I see a lot of American films have the British as villains and we are so often in American comedies (like Friends) treated like jokes, where they use stereotypes that have no baring on the real world or what people in the UK are actually like or what our living conditions are actually like (very few of us live in big mansions in a field). Its a bug bear of mine for example that the few shows that the UK make that gets attention in America (media) are shows like Downton Abbey which just reinforces the stereotypes of Britain that America has, which is far away from the lives of 99% of the people in UK. So I could understand if writers in the UK reaction to this is to make some villains American as a sort of lets return the favour for always making us the villains, in a friendly ribbing kind of way. Its a shame that the really interesting and modern stuff that we make doesn't get its chance over America because it means they miss out, like how we in the UK would miss out if we didn't get the best of what America make.

[Arcadia]

I have to admit, when I hear a villian with a British accent, I rarely think of him/her as British, I just assume the accent is meant to represent "not American." I think of it as a sort of generic "world" accent, I guess. Maybe because when I was a kid we lived overseas a lot, and everyone DID speak English with a British accent! (Except us Americans, of course. :P )

[Carol the Dabbler]

Its a bug bear of mine for example that the few shows that the UK make that gets attention in America (media) are shows like Downton Abbey which just reinforces the stereotypes of Britain that America has, which is far away from the lives of 99% of the people in UK.

 

Of course, it's easier for you to recognize a false stereotype of British life, simply because you're more familiar with the actual conditions there.  By the same token, it's easier for an American to recognize a false stereotype of American life, and unfortunately I see a lot of them on American TV.  So it's not just the British who are misrepresented on American TV, it's basically anyone who doesn't live in New York City or Hollywood.

 

I have to admit, when I hear a villian with a British accent, I rarely think of him/her as British, I just assume the accent is meant to represent "not American." I think of it as a sort of generic "world" accent, I guess. Maybe because when I was a kid we lived overseas a lot, and everyone DID speak English with a British accent! (Except us Americans, of course. :P )

 

Yes, I think that's generally true.  The English spoken by people I know from Germany and India is clearly modeled on British English, despite the local modifications.  To be specific, it seems to be modeled on the sort of English spoken by the average well-educated person from southern England, or something like that.

 

Of course, there are tons of other British accents that could never be mistaken for anything other than British -- Scottish or Cockney or Liverpudlian, for example.

[Arcadia]

 

Its a bug bear of mine for example that the few shows that the UK make that gets attention in America (media) are shows like Downton Abbey which just reinforces the stereotypes of Britain that America has, which is far away from the lives of 99% of the people in UK.

 

Of course, it's easier for you to recognize a false stereotype of British life, simply because you're more familiar with the actual conditions there.  By the same token, it's easier for an American to recognize a false stereotype of American life, and unfortunately I see a lot of them on American TV.  So it's not just the British who are misrepresented on American TV, it's basically anyone who doesn't live in New York City or Hollywood.

So true! Also if you went only by American TV, you would believe all Christians are Catholics, all hookers have a heart of gold, and everyone who uses a gun is a crack shot. Not so true!