miss maggie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bossymarmalade) wrote2010-03-18 09:27 am
bossymarmalade) wrote2010-03-18 09:27 am
Entry tags:
what a brave corporate logo!
This article in Feministe about the Telephone video is really pissing me off. In general because of the smug, insistent pedantry of it (look, just because the song's called "Telephone" it doesn't mean EVERY SINGLE EVENT must then revolve around the telephone; also, that is a honey bun and not a sandwich, idiot; also you are a fucking feminist writer and should know why it's not on to refer to the vulva as a "vagina"; also if you did the minimum of goddamn research you could refer to Gaga's partner in the prison yard as trainer Heather Cassils instead of "Very Friendly Smoking-Hot Butch Lady"), but in particular because of this:
Hey there, did it ever occur to you that Asian women sometimes think and speak IN ASIAN LANGUAGES?!? Maybe she's thinking "a different language than everybody else's" (nice) because, hmmm, she has access to a "different language than everybody else". What's so wrong with her using it, or -- horror of horrors! -- reflexively reacting with it in her own mind? Is this a fucking performance sport?
This is a discourse that especially pisses me off as a diasporado, because as you all well know there are a TON of issues about many of us being systematically denied access to our source-tongues. I would *love* to be able to bust out cusswords or whatever in Hindi, even for my private unspoken reactions. Sometimes I feel like among Western white society, being an Anglophone when your source-language is a non-Romance one is taken as a sign of "goodness", like you're safer, more model of a minority, more assimilated; the reaction from Canadian white folks when I tell them, "no, I only speak English", is always one of surprise and approval. (It's a different story with Canadian brown people, but I'm not getting into that right now.)
So yes, maybe it *was* necessary to subtitle the Japanese woman's thoughts in Japanese in this context. Or did you assume that nobody watching the video would be able to understand those characters, so it was purely an exercise in exotification? Was her sudden Japanese subtitle making her Asianness a little too visible? Don't translate your own discomfort over the inscrutability (yes, I went there) of those characters into some generalizing "NO FOREIGN LANGUAGES PLZ" declaration for all of Western media, thank you.
And was it really necessary to subtitle the Asian woman's thoughts in a different language than everybody else's? No. No, it was not! I am not so cool with the ways that this video deals with race, I think. I mean, Beyonce's there, and presented as an equal and partner. Sure. But I am thinking like, this Asian girl and her special "hey, have you noticed this chick's Asian? Just thought I'd point that one out to you" subtitle ....
Hey there, did it ever occur to you that Asian women sometimes think and speak IN ASIAN LANGUAGES?!? Maybe she's thinking "a different language than everybody else's" (nice) because, hmmm, she has access to a "different language than everybody else". What's so wrong with her using it, or -- horror of horrors! -- reflexively reacting with it in her own mind? Is this a fucking performance sport?
This is a discourse that especially pisses me off as a diasporado, because as you all well know there are a TON of issues about many of us being systematically denied access to our source-tongues. I would *love* to be able to bust out cusswords or whatever in Hindi, even for my private unspoken reactions. Sometimes I feel like among Western white society, being an Anglophone when your source-language is a non-Romance one is taken as a sign of "goodness", like you're safer, more model of a minority, more assimilated; the reaction from Canadian white folks when I tell them, "no, I only speak English", is always one of surprise and approval. (It's a different story with Canadian brown people, but I'm not getting into that right now.)
So yes, maybe it *was* necessary to subtitle the Japanese woman's thoughts in Japanese in this context. Or did you assume that nobody watching the video would be able to understand those characters, so it was purely an exercise in exotification? Was her sudden Japanese subtitle making her Asianness a little too visible? Don't translate your own discomfort over the inscrutability (yes, I went there) of those characters into some generalizing "NO FOREIGN LANGUAGES PLZ" declaration for all of Western media, thank you.
no subject
This. :( Not that Gaga's works don't come with a whole set of issues & problems, but there's lots of good, subversive thinkitty stuff in it too! Couldn't we discuss/analyze both? Wouldn't that be interesting?
And, to