This is left unsubtitled and robs the film of some context. For instance, Karnan opens with a quote in Tamil that roughly translates to “These were times when common people began to fight spiritedly for their needs and rights”. The subtitles read “only the ostrich will know the pain of hatching such an egg!” This makes the line appropriate across ages (which is critical for a streaming platform) but it also makes the character sound philosophical when he was bawdy in the original.Īnother problem is leaving something important unsubtitled. In the scene where Vijay Sethupathi talks about the “butt-pain” of an ostrich that lays a large egg, the point and punchline of the entire joke is in that lewd, and unexpected, phrase. Does a Malayalam film need to read like an English film in the subtitles for it to be accessible?Īn example of potentially losing some context about a character could be found in Master. This ‘standardization’ is problematic not just from an inclusiveness standpoint (should all speaking patterns be flattened out into one standard English template?) but also calls into question the value of presenting a regional film to a new, larger audience while also blunting it’s specificity. Manian,” anglicizing the localness that’s integral to the film. Joju George’s character is called Maniyan sir. Because streaming platforms can arbitrarily modify subtitles, it’s impossible to pin down whether a missing layer of context is due to the subtitler or the streaming platform.įor example, in Nayattu, subordinate police officers use the term ‘sir’ as a mark of respect, which is common practice in India. The viewer intuitively assumes that the subtitles communicate the nuances of the original dialogue (which, of course, could be translated into English in many different ways). But after that it becomes the sole prerogative of the streaming platform to adapt it as they please.īarring typos and grammatical errors, an issue that’s considerably harder to spot if you don’t know the language of the film is: context.
Typically makers hand over their films to streaming platforms along with the subtitles.
What’s wrong with the subtitles on streaming platforms?