9 Hilarious Instances When French People ‘Translated’ English Movie Titles To English
You may remember the wonderful film Lost in Translation with the brilliant acting duo of Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. Personally, I have rewatched the movie about ten times over the past two-plus decades, and I’m going to repeat it one of these days. By the way, if I lived, for example, in Quebec, I would know this masterpiece by Sofia Coppola called Traduction infidèle, which can be translated from French as Unfaithful Translation.
Despite the fact that this title is not entirely authorial, it, by the way, even more accurately conveys the essence of the film, doesn’t it? But this is perhaps an exception – usually French film distributors ruthlessly edit the titles of Hollywood movies, wanting to please their audience. And this viral Twitter thread is about just that.
Twitter: juanbuis
Turns out, French film distributors often ‘rename’ English movie titles to please their audience
Image credits: juanbuis
It all started a few months ago when Twitter user @juanbuis shared an interesting discovery – it turns out that the popular ’00s comedy The Hangover was distributed in French cinemas under a title that can literally be translated back into English as The Very Bad Trip. By the way, this is also a rather successful find of translators, though the Original Poster (OP) became interested in this topic and started to explore French film distribution further.
Image credits: juanbuis
Image credits: juanbuis
Apparently, many Hollywood movies were shown in France with the word ‘Sex’ or ‘Sexy’ added to the titles
So, it turned out that, for example, the police comedy The Other Guys was shown in France as Very Bad Cops, while French viewers, it turns out, know Not Another Teen Movie as Sex Academy. What’s more, according to the original poster, French translators have a truly universal adaptation tool – just add the word “Sex” or “Sexy” in the title – and voila, you can release the film!
Image credits: juanbuis
Image credits: juanbuis
Don’t believe us? Okay, let’s check. The cute rom-com What’s Your Number is France’s Sex List, the slow movie A Short History Of Decay turned into the tempting Sex Therapy, and the mysterious thriller Tangled… well it turned out to be, right, Sex Trouble! One can only be surprised that the recently released horror comedy Cocaine Bear appeared in French cinemas not as Sexy Bear, but simply Crazy Bear.
Image credits: juanbuis
Image credits: juanbuis
It turns out, this tradition isn’t unique to French film distributors, but is pretty common worldwide
“Actually in any country, film distibutors often tailor the title to the audience – or how they see the audience, and that vision is not always right,” says Dmytro Kosygin, a film director and cameraman from Ukraine, whom Bored Panda asked for a comment. “Sometimes it’s because the language of the country in question doesn’t work with English puns. And sometimes the distributors are just trying to simplify things, or link them to another movie that was successful before.”
Image credits: juanbuis
Image credits: juanbuis
“For example, in the Ukrainian box office, the first film of the Fast And Furious franchise for some reason came out with the title Afterburner, so all the following English wording games and numbering of films passed by the viewer, because the distributors simply numbered the titles – and that’s all. But the movie The Hangover was shown in our cinemas under the title Bachelor Party In Vegas. But that’s not all. The Bridesmaids movie, which has no connections with The Hangover, was renamed to Bachelorette Party In Vegas, thus telling the audience what to expect from the movie.”
“I won’t say that this is a very successful practice, but each country has its own film distribution traditions, and cinema owners try to follow them. I don’t know how correct this is, but in this case, the viewer, as they say, votes with their money,” Dmytro states.
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Folks in the comments on Twitter were strongly divided on the topic and the heated discussion ensued
As for the commenters on Twitter, people’s opinions, as is often the case, are divided. English-speaking netizens consider this practice ridiculous, while the French, for example, reasonably note that English-language puns and idioms are not always clear or easy to pronounce in Romance languages. So adaptation for the local audience becomes absolutely necessary. It’s another matter how successful this adaptation is – but that’s a completely different matter…
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By the way, here’s another example for you. In the movie Hancock, any American can easily understand why Will Smith’s character chose this last name for himself. But foreigners, most likely, would need a long explanation about John Hancock and his signature under the US Constitution. That is why, in the dubbed version I saw, the hero simply admitted to seeing the name ‘John Hancock’ on another patient’s file at the hospital.
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For now, before I go and review Lost In Translation, please feel free to share your opinions on whether you think the tradition to change original movie titles is ridiculous or not, and maybe recall some funny examples in the comments. After all, the more opinions, the more interesting, isn’t it?
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