The new Star Trek movie is playing in Sandefjord and I’m looking forward to getting out to see it as soon as my heavy Eurovision Song Contest-watching schedule allows. When I do finally buy my ticket and sit down in the theater to watch J.J. Abrams’ latest masterpiece, I will be thanking my lucky stars that I live in Norway and not Germany where, I learned during my recent visit, all foreign language films and TV programs are dubbed into German.

Honestly, how annoying would that be, to live in Berlin and be so excited that the “Sex and the City” movie was finally coming to town only to discover I couldn’t understand any of the filthy chatter? And how wrong would it be to hear James Bond, a BRITISH secret service agent, speaking Deutsch? It was frustrating enough flipping through the TV channels in our hotel room and finding nothing to watch except a dubbed “New Adventures of Old Christine.” (Surprisingly, I was able to follow the plot without understanding the dialogue. Let’s give it up for simple American TV!)

I had heard of the widespread European practice of dubbing films and TV shows but had never experienced it firsthand. When I lived in San Francisco, my friends Mayte and Didier, of Spain and France respectively, used to imitate the Spanish and French voices of Homer Simpson to much hilarity in our local pub. I mean, sure, that’s very funny but only because you know that, later, when you’re safe and drunk at home in front of your television, everyone in Springfield will be speaking English, as nature intended. The joke wouldn’t work so well if your TV world was limited only to the original English-language versions of your favorite programs that you could illegally download off the internet.

Thank goodness Norway doesn’t engage in this dubious custom! All non-Norwegian-language television programs are shown in their original language with Norwegian subtitles. (Expect for non-Norwegian children’s programs but that’s understandable since most of the kids watching those shows can’t read.) So, all of the Desperate Housewives speak English, as do Jack Bauer and the entire cast of LOST. The actors in Danish shows speak Danish, Swedish Swedish, and German in the delightful 1970s Austrian-made detective series, “Inspector Rex.” Rex is an amazingly clever German Shepherd who helps his less-amazingly clever but oh-so-handsome cop partner solve crime in an unnamed German city. Rex barks in German but I can understand him even without subtitles.


I found this interesting graphic on Wikipedia showing the dubbing practices throughout Europe. The countries in blue dub only children's programs; those in red dub everything. The rest are a mix of some dubbing and using mostly subtitles. Based on this map, Husband and I will not be moving to Western Europe any time soon, with the exception of The Netherlands, Portugal, or Belgium.



Personally, I find dubbing distasteful and sort of lazy. I prefer my Russian opera to be sung in Russian and my Seinfeld to have a New York accent. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it’s especially bad form of the French to engage in dubbing, knowing how protective they are of their own language.

Not everything about dubbing is bad. It allowed for some awesomely entertaining moments on Drew Carey’s excellent version of the American TV comedy series, “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Very often, Drew and his guests would perform a skit wherein two people would act out a scene from an imaginary movie in a randomly-chosen language and two other people would provide the English voiceover. Here’s a great example with Stephen Colbert as the special guest. Enjoy!