Elizaveta Friesem - Blog

Blame is not the answer: Reflecting on our implicit biases

2/8/2017

After the 2016 presidential election one half of the country has turned to the other half of the country, and accused it quite unequivocally of such serious sins as overt racism, sexism and homophobia.

But blame is not the answer.

In the modern America we should beware not of the explicit prejudgment (although it certainly exists as well), but of assumptions that are hiding under the surface of our own consciousness. They are called implicit biases. It turns out that we all have them, whether we want it or not. Because of these biases we often contribute to social flaws even when we are actively trying to make them go away.

This video explains how each of us can learn about our implicit biases. We can learn about them by taking an ingenious Implicit Association Test created by Harvard scholars. The test is free and fun to take. The video describes how the test works, and talks about the importance of acknowledging our own implicit biases for making the world a better place.

Did media literacy backfire? My thoughts on danah boyd's piece

1/9/2017

I have just read this provocative piece by media scholar danah boyd. Here are my thoughts about it.

I agree with danah boyd's point that the focus on fake news oversimplifies the problem and distracts us from bigger issues that contributed to the 2016 election outcome. Like dahah, I am concerned about the current tendency I note among my liberal friends, especially those who work in the area of media literacy, to focus on blaming the media for what happened on November 8th. I agree with danah that we need to heal the rifts that exist in our society along the lines of not only gender and race, but also class and political affiliation. Although she does not use the word "empathy," I believe that is what danah is hinting at when she talks about the need to listen to each other in the increasingly polarized world.

What I do not agree with is the author's simplified presentation of media literacy education. Not all media literacy educators talk about fake news as the key problem. Understanding what sources to trust is important in media literacy education, but that's not the end of it. I, for one, certainly don't teach my students that we must simply find experts and trust them. My main issue with this piece, thus, is the way danah boyd describes media literacy education, ignoring the complexity of approaches that exist in the field.

Critiques of the piece have pointed out correctly that danah boyd paradoxically engages in polarization as she is describing its problems. In the best tradition of marketable media texts, the title is designed to attract media literacy community's attention and raise a lot of eyebrows.

At the same time, I think we should resist the temptation to engage in further polarization by focusing overwhelmingly on the essay's flaws. The author does make many important points, although the wording that conflates media literacy education is general with the news literacy is unfortunate. However, nuance can be added without dramatically altering the piece.

I believe that we should use danah boyd's essay as a starting point for important conversations about the current state and the future of media literacy. What are some effective ways to go beyond focusing on fake news in the classroom? What techniques do you use in order not to fall back on the dichotomy of "good" vs. "bad" media texts and representations? How can we complicate our discussions about the outcome of the 2016 election without reverting to the good old media effects paradigm? Add your questions, and let's talk!

On the importance of empathy in the post-election America

11/27/2016

Since the election night, the United States has welled up with anger and blame. Heated debates about the future of the country have promptly spilled out from social networks into the streets. In the time of divisiveness, we should be able to listen to each other. Yet some find it hard to muster empathy for those whose votes propelled Trump for presidency, while others either do not see any ground for fear or contribute to it with their actions.

If you are against Trump, you might be asking: “How could we miss that our country is filled with racist, homophobic, misogynistic bigots?” While you should fight to stop harassment and intimidation, you also need to try to understand Trump supporters’ complex motivations. The country’s inability to listen to them might be what cost Hillary the precious votes. It is possible that this lack of empathy for Trump supporters has propelled him to presidency.

If you are for Trump, do not ignore people who are now afraid for their well-being and even life. Yes, the new president might be able to address your concerns and make your voices heard. But remember that even if you only voted for Trump because of his economic promises, there are others out there who have been emboldened by the outcome of this election to engage in vicious harassment. You can be happy about your victory, but do not gloat, do not mock the other side as they are wiping their tears in shock and disbelief.

I can hear anti-Trump activists say: “But have you seen videos of Trump rallies? Have you read about swastikas painted on walls, or school children chanting songs about the Wall to their Hispanic classmates?” Only a certain kind of people goes to rallies. They are not representative of all Trump supporters. And although your Facebook news feed seems to be filled with examples of post-election atrocities, Trump supporters are not all vicious bullies whose only pleasure is to undermine principles of a liberal society.

I can hear the pro-Trump part of the population retort: “But they call us deplorables! Our president-elect is not perfect, but his promises made us hope that our needs will be finally addressed. After all, Clinton is not perfect as well but you ignored her flaws and voted for her anyway.” Unfortunately, media stories draw the nation’ attention to bizarre acts of harassment instead of showing Trump supporters as ordinary people with a variety of backgrounds and needs. Intimidation is happening, and people are legitimately afraid. If you are against violence, do not take this fear personally – do something to alleviate it.

Exercising empathy sounds good in theory but it is easier said than done. Two days after the election I held in my arms a sobbing friend who had been harassed by a self-proclaimed anti-gay, anti-LGBTQ, racist Trump supporter on a weekly basis. A day after that I myself cried in desperation when I discovered that a person who is dear to my heart refused to understand my frustration with the election results. Every day since the election, there are moments when I want to shout in anger, to find someone to blame. Yet I am trying to fight these feelings, because I want to believe that many people on the other side of the divide have the same basic values as me.

Exercising empathy does not mean not fighting back. We should oppose violence against minorities, disrespect towards women’s rights, and ignorance about the climate change. We should press the president-elect to condemn any violent acts done in his name. Yet we need to form alliances across the divide and not only along its lines. People on the other side are not all cry-babies, idiots or cruel bigots. They have their unique stories and reasons for their choice.

Being able to empathize with those whose opinions differ from ours might have never felt so difficult. It is hard to find a balance between listening to potential allies and protecting ourselves from those who insist on staying enemies. Doing it every day is emotionally draining, confusing, and frustrating. But we should remember that violence only breeds violence, and if we hate instead of trying to love, we will only get hate in return.

Video games for change

7/31/2016

If you want to help your friends, students or children discuss LGBTQ experiences, why not use a video game for that? Some video games have been described as having problematic representations of gender and sexuality. As more and more people are becoming not only consumers, but also producers of video games, we suddenly have indie games that tell stories from the LGBTQ point of view. Many of these games are free and available online. Here I am going to talk about three games that seem particularly suitable for helping people around you better understand what it means to be LGBTQ: Dys4ia, Lim and To Kill a Black Swan.

Dys4ia is an autobiographical non-game created by Anna Anthropy aka Auntie Pixelante. In this game, the player controls a character undergoing hormone replacement therapy and transitioning from sex assigned at birth. "The game consists of several chapters, and each of them employs low-level systems of interactions (controls, collisions, movements in space, micro-challenges and so on) to express a range of visceral states like frustration, stress, humiliation or relief."

According to Patrick Gann, Dys4ia can help non-transgender people empathize with those who feel uncomfortable with the sex assigned to them at birth. Yang argues that the power of this game lies in the player’s very lack of real influence over the eventual outcome: “It’s taking its turn in the larger dialogue outside of the game, saying, ‘No, now YOU listen to ME for once.’ ”

Although Lim does not explicitly tell a story of LGBTQ experiences, this is one of the possible interpretations of this game. Lim is about the external violence that one experiences standing out, and an internal self-violence of blending in. The game is very simple. "Players navigate a maze as a multi-colored square, encountering brown and dark blue blocks throughout the series of rooms. The blocks react violently to the player’s presence in the space, shaking erratically and seeking out the player to collide with him/her. As they push the player’s block around, there is often the possibility of being shunted outside of the maze completely, becoming isolated from the experience of the game and being forced to navigate the maze from the outside."

The game also offers an option to blend in, which, as the player soon discovers, comes with a price. There is no graphic violence, but sound and visual effects that the player encounters will make her physically uncomfortable. The game allows the player to get a taste of intense discomfort that people marginalized because of their difference feel. Lim and Dys4ria were praised by a famous media scholar Henry Jenkins for their effectiveness and originality.

Finally, there is To Kill a Black Swan, "a short murder mystery visual novel about a detective, a yoga course attendant, a grieving wife, an obsessed cleaner, a 'bro', and a bitchy friend." But I won’t tell you more about it – it is a mystery after all!
These three games are, of course, not a magic bullet, and I am not claiming that by playing them one can suddenly understand LGBTQ experiences, or cured from homo/transphobia. You should not simply tell a person to play them and hope that the games will be self-explanatory. However, they can certainly be a nice way to start (or continue) this very important conversation.

This piece was previously posted by www.cultnoise.com

I doubt therefore I exist

7/4/2016

Some say that doubt is the surest way toward failure. If you want to win, you should never question your actions. I disagree. It it my belief that a healthy amount of doubt is essential for personal growth, and that the lack of doubt leads not to success but to stagnation.

Of course, too much doubt can be paralyzing. If we are afraid about every step we take and overanalyze potential failures, we will not get too far. However, when we are not able to take a critical look at our beliefs and actions, we won't see our mistakes, and won't adjust to changing circumstances of our lives.

It's not a coincidence that the scientific approach to understanding the world (as opposed to art or faith) is based on doubt. Good scientists question their beliefs all the time, and change conclusions of their research based on available data. (This principle does not always work in practice, but this is how science ideally should be).

When we are convinced that we are always right, and ignore alternative opinions, it is not a sign of strength but of weakness. It means that even if we are wrong (and sometimes we surely are) we won't be able to notice or admit it.

So what does having a healthy amount of self-doubt mean? We should be able to ask ourselves once in a while: Why do I believe what I believe? Why do I feel what I feel? Why do I act the way I act? We should not be afraid to admit our mistakes and biases. Nobody knows everything, but everybody knows something, so it is crucial to listen to others, even when their opinions seem to be different from ours.

Doubt is not something to fight against. It is essential for being human, for evolving and understanding the complexity of the world.

Something about Evil Twins: Western TV Programs in Russia

6/16/2016

This piece was previously posted by www.cultnoise.com

1. These Stupid Shows

Since the Iron Curtain fell enabling the flow of much-desired Western (mainly, European and U.S.) popular culture to reach Russian viewers, translation and dubbing of imported TV programs have seldom been entirely accurate. Russian audiences, whom Soviet propaganda had for decades been warning of the shallowness of the capitalist world, were probably less than surprised to hear characters on imported shows utter hackneyed phrases in dull voices. Studies show that pre-existing attitudes towards a country determine the way individuals process programming produced there. TV programs imported from the West may be popular in Russia, but are they perceived as anything more than pleasant but superficial entertainment?

Growing up in Russia, I often came across U.S. series on Russian television channels, which only show dubbed versions of imported programmes. My opinion about these shows had been quite low… until I learned English well enough to start watching them in the original form. Taking translation (substituting English with Russian) and dubbing (substituting the original voice track with the one read by voiceover actors) out of the picture has dramatically changed my opinion.

Although some Russians can gain access to unmodified Western entertainment through the Internet, lack of fluency in foreign languages remains a significant barrier for a considerable part of the audience. Thus, most Russian viewers become acquainted with Western entertainment programming by watching dubbed TV shows on television.

The problem is that, whether dubbed or broadcast with the original sound, a programme might seem to remain essentially the same to an uncritical viewer. A careful comparison can reveal significant distinctions between the two forms, but are Russian audiences aware of these discrepancies?

Below I explain why I believe that translation and dubbing in Russia are not neutral mediators between imported shows and local viewers, but often create programmes that have little in common with the originals. Metaphorically speaking, it seems that imported programmes in Russia can turn out to be the ‘evil twins’ of original shows, potentially able to cause misperceptions of Western popular culture among Russian viewers.

In order not to leave my thesis unsubstantiated, I am going to talk about metamorphosis of the critically acclaimed U.S. animated sitcom Futurama on Russian television screens. This is but one example of Russian translation and dubbing, and the reader might not see it as significant enough to create generalizations. My goal here is to start the conversation, not to provide the ultimate truth. My assessments and interpretations are all but subjective, and with this essay I hope to open ground for further discussion.

2. Russia and the West: Uneasy Relationship

I chose to focus on a U.S. show because of the concerns about Americanization still lingering in Russia and because of the complicated relationship between the U.S. and Russia today. Despite the fact that the Iron Curtain disappeared more than two decades ago, the relationship between Russia and the West, the U.S. in particular, remains strained.

Russian government occasionally uses Soviet rhetoric to accuse opposition leaders, anti-government political activists, and NGOs of being Western puppets. In 2012 Russia passed the internationally criticized ‘foreign agent law’ that requires any non-profit organisation that engages in vaguely defined ‘political activity’ and receives funding from abroad to register as a ‘foreign agent’ or pay a substantial fee. The stigmatizing term ‘foreign agent’ comes from the Cold War era and has strong associations with espionage.

Anti-Western rhetoric has been recently used by Russian politicians to talk about such controversial issues as the Russian anti-gay law and the unrests in Ukraine. Advocates of the much discussed law against gay propaganda claim that the attempts to overturn it reveal Western/U.S. negative influence. Those who voice their disagreement are accused of being Western agents trying to weaken Russian traditional value system, the basis of Russia’s uniqueness and strength. By the same token, European countries and the U.S., who have criticized Russia’s role in the Ukrainian crisis, are accused by Russian pro-government media of imposing their political agenda and trying to weaken both Ukraine and Russia.

Considering transformations that the U.S. animated TV show Futurama underwent to be shown in Russia, we should keep these tensions and political dynamics in mind.

3. Case Study: ‘Farnsworth Parabox’

Futurama is a critically acclaimed television show, and not without reason. While from the first glance the series may seem merely a goofy comedy, it provokes reflection on the modern world and its future as well as on science fiction, which is a significant genre in today’s popular culture. The show often explores controversial topics, which include environmental issues, the ethics of science, problems of racial and gender discrimination, etc.

I chose this critically acclaimed series with the purpose to determine whether Russian translation and dubbing are precise enough to convey such a show’s virtues to Russian viewers. I wanted to explore whether Russian audiences have an opportunity to see U.S. popular culture as offering not only purely entertainment-based texts but also more complex and thought-provoking programmes with carefully written dialogues and characters.

The dubbed Futurama made a good example for the case study also because it can be seen as representative of official (as opposed to fan-produced) translation and dubbing in Russia. Seasons 1-4 of the series were first broadcast by REN TV, one of the largest private federal TV channels in the country at the time of the show’s first airing (2001). The translation and dubbing for REN TV was produced by the dubbing company Studia Kiparis. According to its website, the company has provided translation and dubbing services since 1992 and works with all kinds of video products: documentaries, live-action films, TV series and animation.

For this essay I chose to analyze one episode: ‘Farnsworth Parabox’. In this episode, appropriately enough, characters encounter somebody they believe to be their evil twins.

I found that the translation of this episode is infested with numerous semantic mistakes, and the dubbing is substantially inferior to the original voiceover of the show.

In a TV series, characters’ personalities are a significant aspect of the programme’s continuity, which is one of the most important features of TV series as a genre and the one that can be easily tampered with by a careless translator or voiceover actor. Every new episode is a part of a larger story and its connections with previous episodes must be respected. Apart from being the basis for story arcs and inside jokes, continuity manifests itself in the personalities of characters as they slowly change or remain the same throughout the series. This case study demonstrates that the continuity of Futurama was repeatedly broken because of a negligent approach to the character’s personalities on the part of translators and voiceover actors.

5. Distorted Meanings: Evil Twin Invasion?

‘Farnsworth Parabox’ is the fifteenth episode of the fourth production season of Futurama. Unlike other episodes, it features only seven main characters of the show, all working in the intergalactic delivery agency Planet Express: Professor Farnsworth (quintessential mad scientist, owner of the agency), Fry (dim-witted but kind-hearted loser), Leela (charming cyclopean, strong-willed, skilled in martial arts and piloting), Bender (heavy-drinking, kleptomaniacal, egocentric and ill-tempered robot), Amy (extremely rich, spoiled, shallow klutz), Hermes (Rastafarian bureaucrat-workaholic) and Dr. Zoidberg (poor, friendless and smelly crustacean-like alien).

In this episode the Professor creates a box containing a parallel universe. Simultaneously, in the parallel universe the parallel Professor creates a similar box. Travelling through the boxes the Planet Express team meets their parallel selves. Initially sure that they encountered their own evil twins, the two teams have to overcome their mistrust and work together in order to save both universes from destruction.

In this 21.5 minute long episode I detected forty-six semantic mistakes – roughly 2 mistakes every minute. The mistakes range from slight misinterpretations of the original text to blunders that entirely change the meaning of characters’ words, rendering dialogue absurd and incomprehensible. Below the reader can find a sample of mistakes in the context of the story. Quotations from the original text are followed by close translations of corresponding phrases in the Russian version.

The episode starts in the Planet Express building as Fry pleads with Leela to go out on a date with him. ‘I know you’ve rejected me a lot before,’ he begins. In the Russian version, the whole phrase becomes ‘You ignored me.’ Although up to this episode Leela has indeed been refusing to start a romantic relationship with Fry, she considers him a true friend. Thus, in the very first minute the translation misleads the viewer, breaking the show’s continuity.

Meanwhile Professor Farnsworth is busy conducting another doomsday experiment upstairs and something is going awry. We hear him cry: ‘Buddha! Zeus! God! One of you guys, do something!’ In Russian: ‘Buddha! Zeus! God! Somebody, help me!’ In the original text, the Professor addresses his plea to divine beings, which reveals the enormity of his ego. In the Russian version he seems to be addressing his crew. Since Fry and Leela hear the cries perfectly well and do not rush to save him, one may deduce that his supplications leave them indifferent. That contradicts their personalities as they thus far have been presented by the series.

The Professor luckily is not seriously harmed and when in the next scene the team gathers around the meeting table he shows them a mysterious box and announces: ‘I need you to dispose of this crazy-ass experiment…’ In Russian: ‘I want to tell you about an idiotic experiment…’ However, the Professor does not intend to communicate anything about the box except that it must be destroyed. Moreover, throughout the series, the Professor never refers to his own experiments as idiotic, even though most of them are weird and/or dangerous.

The Professor informs the team that they will have to throw the box into the sun, for ‘only the thermal nuclear inferno of the sun has enough energy to ensure its total destruction.’ This phrase is symptomatic of the Professor’s love for the overly dramatic style, an aspect of the mad scientist parody. In Russian, however, the phrase becomes insipid: ‘Only the nuclear energy can ensure total destruction’.

When asked about the contents of the box, the Professor replies: ‘I don’t know what’s in there. But I’m sure our minds would be unable to comprehend it.’ In Russian the meaning is inverted: ‘I know what’s in there but I’m sure our brains will be unable to endure it’. Russian viewers will face a significant inconsistency later in the episode when the Professor is amazed to find out what the box actually contains.

Curious, Hermes attempts to open the box, but the Professor hits his fingers with a hammer. ‘You hurt my collator!’ Hermes cries out. In Russian: ‘You hit my extremity!’ Here we lose a part of Hermes’s personality as well as an in-joke. (Hermes is a boringly meticulous bureaucrat who adores paperwork so calling his hand ‘collator’ is both precise and amusing.)

Having given the order to destroy the box, the Professor goes away, leaving Leela in charge. However, curious Bender steals the box. Before opening it, he utters a blasphemous parody of a grace, which is quite in line with his antisocial personality: ‘We thank you, Bender, for the gift we are about to receive.’ The Russian translation – ‘We thank you, Bender, for this wonderful gift’ – does not contain any religious allusions and therefore fails to convey Bender’s irreverence.

Leela is the one who actually opens the box, and is engulfed by it to find herself in the Planet Express of the parallel universe. There she encounters the parallel team, which looks almost but not the same as the original one.

The parallel Professor sees the original Leela and, having finally understood the meaning of his invention, regrets that he did not realise it earlier: ‘Oh, I’ve been as dumb as Fry,’ he sighs. ‘Am not!’ says Fry, insulted. In Russian: The Professor: ‘How could I be as dumb as Fry?’ – Fry: ‘No!’ Fry is indeed an exceptionally dim-witted guy so his indignation is amusing, while in the translation ‘No!’ does not make much sense.

The rest of the original team travels through the box into the parallel universe. Both teams settle the problem of naming their universes (original universe becomes Universe-A and the parallel universe Universe-1). Then they discover that the key difference between the two universes is that coin flips have opposite outcomes. ‘That explains fruity here,’ says metallic-gray Bender-A, looking askance at golden Bender-1. ‘I tossed a coin to pick my finish. Fog hat gray.’ He lovingly pats himself on the belly. The transformation of this small monologue in Russian is truly mind-boggling: ‘That explains everything. I tossed a coin to commit a suicide. Terrible!’

The Professors worried that twins from parallel universes may be evil, both teams must stay in Universe-1 until this dilemma is solved. Meanwhile everybody is to keep an eye on his or her alternate self.

We see the Amys chatting on a couch at Planet Express, putting polish on their toenails. ‘We’re exactly the same, right down to the…’ Amy-A finishes her sentence abruptly as she suddenly notices that they are using nail polish of different colours. In Russian: ‘We’re exactly the same, except…’ The word ‘except’ suggests that Amy-A must have known about the polish difference before she saw Amy-1’s toenails, so in Russian her astonishment goes unexplained.

The Professors are also trying to get to know each other better. The Professor-A inquires about the strange scar on the top of the Professor-1’s skull. The latter eagerly explains that he had been experimenting to see if he could remove his own brain. ‘Getting the brain out was the easy part. The hard part was getting the brain out,’ he recounts enigmatically. Both giggle happily at this crazy in-joke that apparently only they can appreciate. In Russian: ‘Getting the brain out was easy. But putting it back – not so much.’ While the original phrase is intended to show the twisted nature of the Professor’s thinking, in Russian it becomes dull and toothless.

The Zoidbergs are discussing their spiteful colleagues when their thoughts turn to the wonderful box they both desire to own. ‘Some day they’ll watch from down in the gutter, they will, as King Zoidberg caresses their fancy box!’ says Zoidberg-A revengefully. In Russian: ‘Some day they’ll see from down in the gutter, they will, as King Zoidberg crumples their wretched box!’ Saying this Zoidberg-A is petting an imaginary box and his words in Russian do not correspond to this gesture.

The Professors finally conclude that neither of the teams is evil: Team-A can go home. As both teams sit around the meeting table, Hermes-1 walks in and asks in surprise: ‘Why aren’t you all out destroying the Professor’s box?’ In Russian: ‘Why are you damaging the Professor’s box?’ The box, nonetheless, is nowhere to be seen, and the viewer is left confused.

It turns out that everybody has completely forgotten about Hermes-A, who must be on his way to destroy the original box. To make the long story short, after some further adventures the teams manage to stop Hermes-A just in time and both universes are saved.

These are just a few examples out of the forty-six mistakes that I discovered in the translation. The reader is encouraged to imagine how much these inaccuracies can detract from the show’s coherence and influence the reader’s perception of the original.

6. Sound Matters

The fact that actors’ voices are a significant part of their performance hardly needs argumentation. With voices they can convey the whole gamut of emotions, even when their faces remain unseen. Therefore, a voice is a crucial part of any character’s personality, be it in a film or a TV series. When it is substituted by dubbing, that may affect viewers’ perceptions of this character.

If we want to learn about the quality of dubbing, the way it is produced is usually quite enlightening. Seasons 1-4 of Futurama were dubbed by two actors only: Irina Savina and Boris Bistrov. Savina and Bistrov have also been the key voiceover actors of The Simpsons. In an interview Bistrov gave to a fan website he revealed some interesting details about the dubbing process of the both shows.

According to the actor, he and Savina usually ‘receive a text immediately before the recording and ... don’t know anything [about it]. Later when you get used [to a TV show] and already know your characters you grasp the whole thing better.’ That can lead to certain inaccuracies: ‘Sometimes you start talking [when a character is] off-screen, you think he is an old guy, and then [he enters] the frame and turns out to be pretty young.’ To the interviewer’s question whether in this case they have to record the whole scene again, Bistrov answered: ‘No, you jump out [into the frame] and then start talking as he should.’

It does not take them much time to dub an episode of The Simpsons or Futurama: ‘One episode is about 25 minutes long and we dub it in around 40 minutes.’ Which is, of course, nothing compared to the time it takes the original cast to voice an episode – six to seven hours.

At the time the interview was conducted, Savina and Bistrov had just started dubbing Futurama, and the interviewer asked Bistrov if he had already developed preferences for some of its characters. His reply: ‘The thing is, when you are dubbing – you ... don’t comprehend it entirely, don’t see the big picture. Later when you watch it as a viewer, only then it becomes clear.’

This significant interview reveals several things. The voiceover actors fail to become familiar with an episode before dubbing it. They are not asked and not given time to think about a text they are going to read, to say nothing about rehearsing roles. Not surprisingly, Savina and Bistrov often fail to intonate character’s speech correctly. Thus, in the Russian version the characters speak in such a way that their intonations at times display emotions or convey meanings different from those in the original.

On top of that, Savina and Bistrov definitely do not possess enough virtuosity to substitute for all members of the original cast. We know that cast consists of eight actors and that most of them speak for several characters. Can all this work successfully be done by only two people? Bistrov might have done his best, but all male characters sound very much alike. At times, the very choice of actors seems unfortunate. Irina Savina’s voice is much higher than that of the original Leela (played by Katey Sagal), so in the Russian version Leela becomes unnecessarily girlish.

Audiences, of course, understand that the show is dubbed but are they able to see through the dubbing? This important question needs more investigation.

7. Searching for Explanations

While deciding on a sample for the case study, I could have chosen from a wide spectrum of programming with the net result being more or less the same. Poor quality of translation and dubbing is not an unfortunate exception but rather a rule that is valid for the vast majority of Western programming presented to Russian audiences (unless something has dramatically changed in the last three years that I have been out of Russia, which I doubt). How can we explain the existence of low-quality translation and dubbing on Russian TV screens?

Considering the tensions between the Russia and the West and the centralisation of the media in Russia we might be tempted to believe in ideological explanations. The relationship between television and power structures within Russia has quite a long history. If Russian television channels are run in a way that is beneficial to the government, that might manifest itself not only in biased news coverage but also in such subtle methods as encouraging low-quality translation and dubbing. Reinforcing audience’s belief in shallowness of the Western culture would justify governmental policies that claim to protect Russia from the ‘negative’ Western/U.S. influence.

However, there is a more obvious explanation: an economic one. Low-quality translation and dubbing might be explained by the negligence of Russian TV executives unwilling to pay for quality translation and dubbing, and the consequent negligence of underpaid translators and voice-over actors. Most translators in Russia receive ludicrous wages and are considered disposable, which makes dedicated, skilled professionals shun this job. Translators are underpaid because, for the executives of Russian TV channels, the quality of the result apparently does not matter as much as the opportunity to save money. The situation with Russian voice-over actors was only briefly mentioned here but their working conditions appear little better than those of translators. The important difference is that, unlike translators, voice-over actors are not ‘nameless’ and some of them even enjoy popularity with TV series’ fans, like Savina and Bistrov.

We should also take into consideration the ‘implied audience’ factor. Changes of the source text occurring while it is being translated and dubbed might be caused by a simplified idea of the audience. TV executives as well as translators and voiceover actors hired by dubbing companies in Russia might believe that Russian viewers will watch and enjoy it anyway – so why bother.

Finally, we should not forget about the possibility that audiovisual texts may be subject to conscious and unconscious manipulation by local distributors just they perceive television products as something lacking any intellectual and/or artistic value.

8. Tada! Conclusion

In ‘Farnsworth Parabox’ characters fear that their parallel counterparts may turn out to be evil twins, but to everybody’s great relief no such creatures are detected. On Russian television the situation is entirely opposite: evil twins are not expected yet they come uninvited. The analysis of the Futurama episode demonstrates that Russian and U.S. audiences may well be said to watch not the same, but two TV programmes that appear unnervingly alike yet are inherently different. It might well be that the greatest part of Russian audiences, predisposed to see goofy entertainment in all U.S. popular culture, will not consider the possibility that something is wrong with the translation. All the absurd inconsistencies and flat jokes in the Russian dubbed version – the U.S. show’s evil twin – might well be blamed on the original series and attributed to the overall shallowness of the culture that created it.

In the modern world, television is a window that many people use to look at other nations and to create opinions about them. We should not underestimate the impact that imported popular culture (and imported TV programming in particular) might have on perceptions of the countries that produce them. For those who cannot afford to travel to see other cultures with their own eyes or who do not know foreign languages well enough to gain direct access to these cultures, watching television is a main way to learn about the world. And if this metaphorical window’s glass is dirty or distorted, those who look through it trying to understand other nations might see an image that has little to do with reality.

*Disclaimer: All opinions expressed here are purely subjective. If you disagree with my analysis, I am willing to start a discussion. However, I must tell you, that I lived in Russia for a long time and experiences the horrendous quality of local translation and dubbing first-hand. Also, I am kind of a linguistic snob. Words matter.

Unfairness of the tier system in U.S. public schools

6/8/2016

Rereading my dissertation I came across this passage that reminded me of the unfair tier system in U.S. public schools.

All classes in West Cityville High School were divided into three tiers according to students’ level of academic achievement. Tier I (honors) consisted of students with the best grades. These students had the highest chance of entering college after graduating high school. Tier II students had not-so-stellar grades, but they could still get into college if they took remedial classes. Tier III students were considered underachieving, and their chance of getting into college were the lowest...

I discussed the tier system with [the participating teacher], and in his opinion it was deeply flawed and unfair, because it did not take into consideration factors that made otherwise talented and smart students get lower scores, such as socio-economic status, learning disabilities or family environment. To me, this system, which is not uncommon in U.S. public schools, served as an additional validation for conducting my research with high school students. If public schools consistently mark a substantial portion of their students as unfit for college, conversations about media and gender must take place in school, and not only on college and university levels.

So don't tell me that everybody in the U.S. has an equal chance for success!

Rape Myths

5/26/2016

Those keen on raising awareness about sexual violence have been fighting a long fight to destroy dangerous myths that cloud public understanding of this serious social problem. However, these myths are still around, and perpetuated by the media they continue hurting victims of sexual assault. Below I will discuss several most pervasive and harmful rape myths. This list and the brief discussion following each item is an adaptation from the book Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes by Helen Benedict.

1. Rape is sex.
Rape is violence! “Nonconsensual sex” does not exist. To call rape “nonconsensual sex” is the same as to call robbery “nonconsensual encounter”. By using these euphemisms we minimize and trivialize the harm that is done to the victim. It is because rape is often seen as sex that some people are reluctant to consider it a serious crime. Benedict writes: “As a teenage victim of rape once said to me, rape is to sex like a punch in the mouse is to a kiss… I prefer to characterize rape simply as a form of torture. Like a torturer, the rapist is motivated by an urge to dominate, humiliate or destroy the victim. Like a torturer, he does so by using the most intimate acts available to humans – sexual ones. Psychologists and researchers in the field have discovered that rape is one of the most traumatic events that can happen to a person”. Because rape is a form of violence, it can and does often happen within a relationship, with the assailant knowing the victim. The victim can be raped by the assailant even if she loves him.

2. The assailant is motivated by lust.
In reality, rapists are motivated by the desire to dominate and/or humiliate their victims. Rapists are often driven by anger, insecurity, attempts to prove their masculinity through violence, or even by sadism. That is why we must never suggest that a victim provoked the attack by flirting, dressing suggestively or appearing sexually available. By saying that we would completely miss the point. Rapists do not attack women because of what they do or how they look. Rape is never the victim’s fault. Even if a victim willingly went to bed with her assailant but then decided not to have an intercourse, it is still rape because he did not want to stop.

3. The assailant is perverted or crazy.
Nope. You would never recognize most rapists in the crowd. They might have ordinary looks or appear pleasant and attractive. The majority of rapists are known to their victims, they are not seedy and suspiciously loners hiding in the shadows. They walk the streets among us and they look like us. Their physiological profiles are also not beyond what is considered “norm”. Many sexual assaults happen not because assailants are some kind of perverts, but because of the common expectations and pressures connected with masculinity. Rapists might want to prove to others or themselves that they are “real men”, or they might simply feel entitled to their victims’ bodies.

4. Women provoke rape.
Please, give me a break! Rape is violence and nobody wants being attacked, humiliated and tortured. So women surely do not provoke rape on purpose, in order to revenge or as some kind of perverted entertainment. And because rape is not sex, women also do not unconsciously provoke rape by their sexuality. Benedict notes that “interviews with rapists have revealed that they barely notice the looks of their victims… Most commonly, rape is a crime of opportunity: the victim is chosen not because of her looks or behavior, but because she is there”. As for the rape that happens within a relationship, a victim should not be blamed of provoking the assault same as a wife should not be blamed if the husband beats her. And do not give me that BS about the rape being the victim’s fault because she walked into the dark alley. Women have the right to go wherever they please.

5. Women deserve rape.
Every time people ask the victim: “What were you doing there so late and alone?”, “Why did you go with him to the bar?”, “Why did you hitchhike?” – they revive this dangerous myth. If the woman knew her assailant, if she let him walk her to the door, if she has been in a relationship with him, if she walked down an empty street, if she drank in bar, if she jogged through a midnight park – she NEVER deserves to be attacked. Women, and everybody else for that matter, should be able to take such risks and not be blamed if something bad happens to them. Well, we should create the world where nothing bad will happen to them in the first place.

6. Rape happens to “bad” women.
It is a part of a larger myth that bad things do not happen to good people. Unfortunately, they do. Rape does not happen because women are sexually available. It happens because of rapists’ desire to hurt and dominate, because of their insensitivity and anger. According to Benedict: “The myth results in a cyclical trap for a sex crime victim: The woman becomes ‘bad’ by virtue of having been raped because one myth holds that she would not have been attacked if she had not provoked the assailant with her sexuality, while another myth holds that only ‘loose’ women are sexual”. Phycologists show that patterns comfort people. We like to think that things happen for a reason, that events are connected. The world where everything is random is just too terrifying. And of course we like to think that we are good and nothing will happen to us if we stay that way. Thinking that the rape victim has brought it on herself is part of physiological defense mechanism, as old as humankind itself.

7. Women cry rape for revenge.
This myth dates back to the Biblical days – think of the story about Joseph the Israelite and vindictive Potiphar’s wife. However, statistics show that the tendency of women to lie about rape is largely exaggerated. It happens in no more than 2 percent of cases, as often as with other kinds of crimes. Interestingly, when somebody is robbed or conned they are never questioned as much as rape victims. There is a disturbing distrust of women who accuse men of rape, as if that’s what we do to entertain ourselves. Women who report rape are subject to humiliating grilling by everybody starting from their friends to the police to the judicial system. Do you really think that somebody would risk such humiliation and trauma for a lie?

Why do all these myth still exist and persist in our culture? Benedict explains: “One function of all these myths… is to protect nonvictims from feeling vulnerable. If people can blame a crime on the victim, they can find reasons why that same crime will not happen to them”. These myth are also connected to the gender inequalities and stereotypes that permeate society. Some men still feel that they own women’s bodies, or that have the right to dominate public and private spaces. Other men give in to the pressure to prove their masculinity, and, unfortunately, use violence to do so.

How we can fight against the rape myth? Educate yourself and others. Never blame the victim. Don’t buy into the rape culture. Rape is not sex and it is not a joke. It is a difficult topic to talk about, but in order to destroy the dangerous myths connected with sexual violence we should continue bringing them into the light.

(previously published by http://www.cultnoise.com)

"Whatever my man is"

5/7/2016

About a month ago I was sitting in a live music cafe in New Orleans, listening to masterfully performed classical jazz and blues hits. When we got to the dessert, the singer started a song that I know well and love. But this time I was was paying more attention to the lyrics.

It was "My Man" by Billy Holiday.

Below I highlighted parts that I found really disturbing as I was listening to the singer's mellow voice.

It cost me a lot
But there's one thing that I've got
It's my man
Cold or wet
Tired, you bet
All of this I'll soon forget
With my man

He's not much on looks
He's no hero out of books
But I love him
Yes, I love him
Two or three girls
Has he
That he likes as well as me
But I love him

I don't know why I should
He isn't true
He beats me, too
What can I do?

Oh, my man, I love him so
He'll never know
All my life is just despair
But I don't care
When he takes me in his arms
The world is bright
All right

What's the difference if I say
I'll go away
When I know I'll come back
On my knees someday
For whatever my man is
I'm his forevermore

"He isn't true, he beats me, too. What can I do?" Wow, I thought to myself. This is a story of an abusive relationship, and it is a love song. There is nothing empowering here, as she knows, whatever he does, she is going to crawl back to her man on her knees.

So much has been written about misogyny of rap, so much panic around this Black youth oriented genre. What about looking into songs that are considered classy by middle and upper class Whites? Different scholars notes that glorification of unhealthy relationships has deep roots in our culture. It is unfair to put all blame on rap, and by association on African-American culture. As Karen Sternheimer notes in her book Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture, when we focus our criticism on rap we betray our discomfort with African-American culture in general. We also reveal our inability to see that traces of sexism can be found in many other texts of our culture, some of which are quite dear to our hearts.

Why It Is Fine Not to Call Yourself a Feminist

4/27/2016

I am passionate about women’s rights, I use feminist theory to inform my research, I advocate for gender equality—however, I do not call myself a feminist. I know that this is stance that is frowned upon by some people who choose this term to describe themselves. My position may be seen as rejecting feminism’s legacy and cause, as being afraid of the stigmatized term, as reinforcing harmful stereotypes, or as being hypocritical.

I have two things to say to people who will question my choice. First, there are many different kinds of feminism, and I don’t relate to all of them. Second, it is more important to look at people’s actions than at words that they use to describe themselves.

Feminism in not a homogeneous movement. Feminists understand their cause in many different ways. Yes, if we look into dictionary we will find one neat definition. But when we are talking about such a complex phenomenon as feminism, dictionary is not enough. Merriam-Webster tells us that feminism is “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.” There are plenty of feminist scholars who advocate against the division of people into “men” and “women” (take, for instance, Judith Butler). There are also plenty of feminists who do not know Butler or do not agree with her, plenty of feminists who think that men and women are different, and that this difference should be acknowledged.

Feminists can have such different opinions on things that their debates turn into wars, literally. So-called "feminist sex wars" split feminists in two camps viciously opposing each other in the 1970s and 1980s. One of the reasons for these heated debates was the difference in interpretation of pornography, prostitution and BDSM. Can participating in these activities be liberating for women, or it is always oppressing and humiliating? Echoes of these wars can be found in today’s feminism(s).

There are some definitions of feminism that I can most certainly relate with, for the example the one formulated by bell hooks in her book Ain’t I a Woman: "Feminism… is a commitment to eradicating the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels—sex, race, and class, to name a few—and a commitment to reorganizing U.S. society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desires."

But there are also plenty of feminisms that I do not relate with, especially those that uphold gender binary. That is why I find it easier not to use the term to describe myself. This does not mean that, in my opinion, this term is useless, or that I reject the legacy associated with it.

And here I move to my second argument. I don’t quite understand people who say that if one does not call him/herself a feminist, he or she is against feminism. I find this logic internally flawed. Aren’t our actions more important that words that we use to define ourselves? I am most certainly for gender equality. I educate people about gender equality, I do research about ways of promoting gender equality, and I do my best to support gender equality through my activism. I study feminism, I support feminism, I advocate for helping people understand the complexity of this very important movement. Does it really matter how I call myself?

While I do think it is great that some celebrities call themselves feminists, I think that others might use this term to win more female fans, or because the term is so controversial. Should all their actions be celebrated only because they call themselves feminists?

I am for gender equality. I am for helping people understand the importance of the feminist movements, and their complexity. Let’s look beyond labels and find allies based on actions, not on words.

(previously published by http://www.cultnoise.com)