Title
Audio description, ideology and the normalization of violence
Conference name
Media for All 10 Conference
City
Country
Belgium
Modalities
Date
06/07/2023-07/07/2023
Abstract
Translating is not (nor should it be) an innocent act. Baker (2006, 2010) and many other authors, such as Tymoczko (2007), Gentzler (2017), Vidal Claramonte (2018) and Carcelén-Estrada (2020), see translation as an act of rebellion, of activism, an opportunity to give voice to different realities, to fight against the established power. In his concept of post-translation, Genztler himself speaks of a rewriting of reality, of an original message that has already been manipulated by others and their own beliefs and perceptions. However, decoding the semiotic and sound elements that accompany these rewritings and, in turn, carry meaning, is not an easy task. Violent narratives in advertising, where women's bodies are transformed into a surface of ideological inscription (Rodríguez Arcos, 2019), are a good example of this. We see these images, but the violence they exude goes unnoticed. But what happens when we must focus precisely on what we are seeing? Do we really become aware of the information that reaches us through the visual channel?
This study aims to reflect on the audio describer and his or her role in conveying an ideological message. For this purpose, the mythical scene of Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo’s wedding night, from the series Game of Thrones, has been selected. If the woman's body is a text, the spectator will have no problem reading between the lines: those of her face, twisted in pain; those of her posture, at the mercy of another body that subjugates her; and those of her sobs, a physiological reflection of her suffering. But has this message reached all spectators? Is it possible that we have normalised violence against women in such a way that this scene does not seem violent to us? How does our ideological stance influence our reception of this moment?
Our proposal aims to answer these questions through an experiment that includes the audio description of the aforementioned scene. The participants, 109 translation students from the University of Murcia, carried out the task. Our starting hypothesis predicted that their ideological beliefs would influence the way they would relate what was happening on screen. The results obtained from the audio descriptions and the ideological and self-report questionnaires reveal, on the one hand, that there is a tendency that points to a relationship between the students' beliefs and the strategies adopted in their audio description, while on the other hand, it shows a certain normalisation of the violence exercised against women in this scene.
This study aims to reflect on the audio describer and his or her role in conveying an ideological message. For this purpose, the mythical scene of Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo’s wedding night, from the series Game of Thrones, has been selected. If the woman's body is a text, the spectator will have no problem reading between the lines: those of her face, twisted in pain; those of her posture, at the mercy of another body that subjugates her; and those of her sobs, a physiological reflection of her suffering. But has this message reached all spectators? Is it possible that we have normalised violence against women in such a way that this scene does not seem violent to us? How does our ideological stance influence our reception of this moment?
Our proposal aims to answer these questions through an experiment that includes the audio description of the aforementioned scene. The participants, 109 translation students from the University of Murcia, carried out the task. Our starting hypothesis predicted that their ideological beliefs would influence the way they would relate what was happening on screen. The results obtained from the audio descriptions and the ideological and self-report questionnaires reveal, on the one hand, that there is a tendency that points to a relationship between the students' beliefs and the strategies adopted in their audio description, while on the other hand, it shows a certain normalisation of the violence exercised against women in this scene.