Professional Documents
Culture Documents
To illustrate, Tarria Modleski (1982) states that the structural openness of soaps is
an essentially ‘feminine’ narrative form. She means that pleasure in narrative focuses
on closure, while soaps delay resolution and make anticipation an end in itself. Then,
why viewers prefer to watch soaps? Herzog’s study of soap opera viewers lists the
three main reasons for engagement in soap as "emotional release, fantasy fulfilment
and desire for information and advice"; watching soaps in most cases is a sign of
escapism and getting out of bored (cited in Brown’s Soap Opera and Women’s Talk ,
1994, p. 68). Indeed, what is known about soaps is that their name has been taken
from its sponsors “detergent companies”; in her Love and Ideology in the afternoon,
Laura Stengl questions “isn’t it unprecedented for a cultural product to indicate so
crudely its material origin…and its conscription in the battle between different
commercial brands? In fact, it is twofold function: to promote the sale of household
products, and to subsume the house wife in her role by offering her romantic
hedonism and gratification. It is as if saying to women “learn how to be the ideal
house wife, watching and washing”.
Long ranning device: soaps are endless serials that make viewers join at any
time. This technique identifies soaps as that that have no single narrative line;
several storoes are woven to get more attraction. Christine Geraghtoy (1991, p
211) notes that “the longer they run the more impossible it seems to imagine
them ending”.
These techniques reiterate the fact that soap opera is a genre that is distinguished
by its specific narrative form, including overlapping intrigues and ‘continuity’ of
characters with dynamic and complex interactions. Romantic, sexual relationships and
class struggles are also confirmed to be the nut of soaps’ episodes.
Dubbed soaps are one of nowadays debatable issues that many scholars have been
analyzing, questioning and criticizing. It has become an arena of research by itself
because of its many multi-dimensional discourses. First, dubbing refers to the act of
translating a text from its original language to the so-called target language.
“Translation is a mode of representing identity and triggers a linguistic, philosophical
and commercial debate” Alexandra Buccianti affirms. It is a process by which a text
is transported –as a flux- from one linguistic community to another, and by flux I do
refer to the whole package of this text/film/soap (its cultural, social and ideological
discursive representations).
Noor is a Turkish-based soap that has been dubbed into the Syrian language,
generating more than 85 million Arab viewers in its final episode august 30, 2008
while it received little attention in its home land in 2005, Alexandra Buccianti asserts.
Having Gumus/Noor dubbed into Syrian dialect by Sara production studio in
Damascus has challenged the traditional literary Arabic dubbing of soaps, that had
created disconnect between the audience who found the language too difficult to
understand and inadequate for the scenario of the plot.
Because it didn’t only translate, nut also transposed, adopt and re-appropriate, the
Syrian dubbing of Noor has taken many processes to fit the context of Arab societies.
We can say that it is a means of localizing the global and globalizing the local; that is
to say, invoking E. Said’s “Traveling Theory”, when Gamus was dubbed into Noor, it
has taken the shape of the new context to which it was translated: Arab- society.
Thereof, many modifications were made; in her article “Dubbed Turkish soap operas
conquering the Arab world: social liberation or cultural alienation?”, Alexandra Buccianti argues
that it begins with the ‘Arabization’ of the names. Mehmet was preferred to be
Muhannad, an ancient and rare Arabic name, portraying a desire of uniqueness. Other
arrangements were more concerned with the format and the content; concerning the
format, Noor was 100 episodes of one hour each in its Turkish language while it has
been aired in 154 episodes of 45 minutes each. As to the content, which is more
important, many erotic scenes were censored since they have been seen as
inappropriate with the Arabo- cultural, social and religious values. Even though this
censorship, Noor has triggered many marital crises when the female viewer started to
ask for more romance and respect as that between Noor and Muhannad. Here, where
the limitations of soaps in general and dubbed ones in particular exist and lie. Since it
is an amalgamation of a whole culture, Noor has affected its viewers in terms of
values and cultural identities.
Moroccans were daily viewers of Noor on MBC channel, but their approximate
number can’t be compared to the Mexican dubbed soap opera Ayna Abi, being the
most significant case that has generated a media revolution in the Moroccan society.
This Moroccan Arabic dubbed soap confirms Noami Sakr’s argument that “media
flows are (…) facilated where the language is shared”. The act of dubbing this film
into Moroccan Arabic facilitates its circulation throughout Moroccan viewers; it
creates a sense of belonging to the characters identified with. This film, powerfully,
shows the cultural dimension of translation and its hegemony, targeting a certain
society. It is a Mexican culture, values and social roles that have been dubbed and
localized to raise the soap’s consumption and circulation among all Moroccan
segments without any kind of segmentation. While in the past, most soaps were
dubbed into standard Arabic, now with the social liberation or what is called the
democratization of media outlets all Moroccans, literate and illiterate, old, young and
children can have access to entertainment through soaps, mainly the likes of Ayna
Abi. It has characterized a media ‘bombarding’ era on the Moroccan national TV for
its inclusion of all Moroccans’ consumption. What is new in this soap is its child
characters’ involvement in the content. Therefore, while the previous soap opera Noor
targets mostly young females and males, Ayna Abi aims at children viewers with its
emphasis and “zooming” on child characters. Evidently, I have tried to ask some
children some questions like did you watch Ayna Abi? As quickly as I finished my
question, they started very innocently telling me about the whole soap’s content from
its beginning to end; really I was shocked and surprised. How can a soap opera affect
children to that maximum? What is its magic or bate to make children its main
viewers? It is first the language which persuades children to viewing as they could
easily fathom its ‘storylines’ in addition to its incorporation of child-characters.
Children started to identify easily with the two main child-characters; Frihkolito, with
whom he is obsessed with getting knowledge of who is his father, and Tonio, the
other child who is searching for his mother. Children are not aware of the social
dilemma in which characters are entangled searching for one of their parents, but
innocently they identify with their funny, amiable and kindhearted characters.
So, the questions that remain here, is it possible to talk about the return of local
dialects after the domination of standardized Arabic? And can we anticipate a dubbed
Amazigh soaps with the later establishment of an Amazigh channel in addition to the
Arab-speaking channels? These are open questions that are open for debate.