The discussion about the German synchronization of “Kevin – Alone in New York” has now led to an answer from Netflix. The streaming service promises improvement. The (partially) reported new synchro should not be expected yet.
Will “Kevin – Alone in New York” be re-dubbed because racist terms that were not included in the original, including the N word, were incorporated into the German version? This is (partially) reported and causes some excitement, but is currently not in sight. A corresponding Netflix announcement still has a lot of good sides. But first things first: What actually happened?
A few weeks ago, actress Thelma Buabeng, who was last seen in the cinema in “Berlin Alexanderplatz”, drew attention to the fact that that in the German dubbing of “Kevin – Alone In New York” racist terms are used – completely without there being an equivalent in the original English version.
In an Instagram post that was quickly massively shared, she asked the legitimate question: How could it be that a German dubbing studio comes up with such “completely unnecessary racist translations for a children’s or family film”?
She addressed the post to Sat.1, where the Christmas classic is regularly repeated, to the rights holder Disney – but also to Netflix, because with the streaming service she has had other experiences with racism in synchronization.
In addition to the reference to “Kevin – Alone in New York”, she shared her own experiences that she had made while working on a dubbing when she was supposed to speak the perfect British English of a Sudanese woman in the German version with an accent. At the time, she was told that Netflix wanted it that way. She refused.
The famous streaming service with the red N now apparently entered into a dialogue with her and promised improvement, like Thelma Buabeng, who stood in front of the camera for the Netflix film “Freaks” and dubbed the Netflix film “The Money Laundering” (see above) , made public on Instagram.
You have had “a prolonged productive conversation” with the Netflix supervisor for the synchronization. She not only apologized, but also promised a remedy. Changing synchronizations, in which the person speaks perfect English in the original but then suddenly has an accent in the German version, should no longer exist on behalf of Netflix, for example.
Re-dub for “Kevin”? That’s why it won’t work for now!
Buabeng also reports that she was promised that the synchro to “Kevin – Alone in New York” will be changed the next time it is broadcast. This leads to the message that Netflix is re-dubbing the film. But that will probably not work …
Because Netflix can of course promise that very easily, when it looks like the streaming service will never have the Christmas classic in its program anyway. After all, the rights to it are now owned by Disney. Since the Maushaus has its own streaming service with Disney + (where the film is also running), it is very unlikely that Netflix will ever get the rights again. Therefore we will probably never see “Kevin – Alone in New York” with this synchro (or any other) on Netflix anyway.
The fact that Netflix answered has more to do with the general accusation of racist problems in dubbing than with the classic film with Macaulay Culkin itself, because Netflix has nothing to do with this at the moment.
Regarding “Kevin – Alone in New York” it remains to be seen whether Disney will react at some point. At least a clear indication of the problem, as Disney has in the meantime before many other productions with racist representations, would be desirable. This is currently not available at Disney +.
Still: An important step by Netflix
Even if the headline about an alleged re-synchronization is now overshadowing the debate, in the opinion of the author of these lines, one should especially look at the part of the answer sent by Thelma Buabeng where Netflix can really do something and now also look at these words , so by this promise, has to be measured:
The streaming service can influence that racist terms, clichés and representations are not introduced in new synchronizations:
A character who speaks perfect English in the original version, suddenly giving an accent to the German dub because of skin color or origin, or letting them speak broken German is racist (and by the way also falsifies the film)!
Incidentally, this also applies to clownish synchronizations, which have nothing to do with the original version and were only missed because of the skin color of a character.
Such synchronizations have to stop and it is a shame that such cases seem to still exist. And of course not only Netflix, but also every other client (streaming services, film distributors, TV broadcasters, …) and in the end, of course, the synchronizing studio involved!
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