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ABSTRACT
Global media scholars and translation scholars have long studied the circulation of American programming around the world, but these two fields are rarely put into communication. This article bridges the divide, using Glee as a case study to analyze the relationship between global media flows and dubbing. By articulating the numerous factors that impact a program's dub, we develop a new lens for understanding how the translation process changes globally circulating television shows. This article argues that various forms of identity are alternately exaggerated and downplayed through the adaptation process, affecting the ways American programming globally circulates ideologically rich identities.
TRANSLATION IS A CRUCIAL ELEMENT IN GLOBAL MEDIA FLOWS BUT IS GENERALLY ABSENT from scholarship of production cultures. While there's a certain poetry to this, given the goal of dubbing studios to render the translation process invisible, translation warrants closer scrutiny due to its central role in repackaging ideological representations for foreign audiences. This article argues for the examination of translation as a form of production and uses the American program Glee (Fox, 2009-15) to examine the ways this production culture shapes marginalized identities for Latin American audiences.1 Because Glee characters are so diverse, its translation provides a much-needed understanding of how translation norms shape depictions of gender nonconforming, LGBTQ, and ethnic and racial minorities. I identify industrial norms and constraints that affect the show's cross-cultural adaptation and trace the consequences of production decisions to determine how marginalized identities are articulated through translation. I find that adaptation processes' cultural negotiations diminish the binary between globalization and localization and that various technical, cultural, and industrial factors overlap and interact to affect production processes, simultaneously exaggerating and eliminating cultural differences among racially and sexually diverse characters.
The circulation of media throughout Latin America both illustrates the limits of traditional media flow models and demonstrates Mexico's prominence as a mediator of the Latin American market. This geolinguistic region contains heterogeneous dialects and histories, but the commonality of the Spanish language allows programming to flow with relative ease throughout the region.2 A small number of major firms have emerged that enjoy considerable success both within and across national borders.3 The Mexican company Televisa, for example, is a leading creator of Spanish-language media, which is then exported throughout...