Exporting Laughs

Today within the Television industry we see shows being translated into numerous different languages and being shared across national borders. While many people might think this is a positive, there are actually numerous boundaries encountered when the original cultural context is changed. Within each new culture unique sets of values, beliefs, customs and interests are present, which change the way each person approaches TV shows. This is the most apparent in the genre of comedy.

For example:

Kath and Kim U.S version = FAILURE

Kath & Kim (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Whilst The Office U.S version = SUCCESS

The Office cast in the third season (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The genre of comedy according to Andy Medhurst “plays an absolutely pivotal role in the construction of national identity, because it invites us to belong by sharing the joke”, which makes it an appealing form of entertainment. When directors and producers are looking to translate comedies into new audiences and cultures, they do this by either exporting the content completely as is, all over the world like the TV show F.R.I.E.N.D.S which proved a hit world-wide, or they can sell the format of the show to buyers for it to be recreated in a new culture as we see in the reality show Big Brother.

Further, Friends is an example of a TV show that was exported, unaltered, all over the world, to places like Australia, Bulgaria, France, Portugal and Russia. It’s even been popular in China, with the creation a real life, fully functional “Central Perk” cafe (see the clip below). So we can see,  even though China and the U.S have vastly different cultures, some TV shows are transferable between cultures. Perhaps, as the clip suggests, Friends is successful because it focuses on the universal theme of friendship.

What makes television work in different cultures?

Well, no one is really sure. But it is easy to tell why a TV show fails. Sue Turnbull (2008) writes about why Kath and Kim (US) failed. It seems that the most significant reason was casting. The American characters of Kath and Kim were two slim, attractive women who did not at all convey the deluded nature of the Australian originals. As Turnbull notes, the humour in Kath and Kim was derived directly from the characters’ perceptions of themselves as different from reality.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of luck involved in exporting and importing foreign television. Success or failure is dependent on a multitude of factors specific to different cultures, such as political concerns, recent local events and cultural history. What one culture ‘gets’, another doesn’t.

The good news is, with globalisation, sharing of television is occurring more and more frequently, and so we can expect to see more TV shows from all around the world. It’s quite possible the reason some shows fail is that they are simply too ‘foreign’. With increased integration, perhaps it will be easier to understand and share TV, and especially, the world’s comedies.

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What foreign comdey television do you watch? Do you understand the humour?

Turnbull, S 2008, ‘It’s Like They Threw a Panther in the Air and Caught It in Embroidery’: Television Comedy in
Translation’ Metro Magazine Issue 159

Move over Hollywood

When I first heard the term ‘media capital’, this image immediately popped into my head;

When I think about where my media comes from, I usually think of it in terms of emanating from distinct nations. For example, The Big Bang Theory, in my mind, is an American TV show, that then is sold to Australian television networks.

I had an imperialist media understanding, which Curtin (2003) describes as, seeing the dominance of Hollywood as an epiphenomenon of the successful American empire. Which is a view, I believe many people would take. And I mainly see media capitols as your standard, Hollywood and Bollywood. Although it was news to me that Hong Kong played such important role on the world stage

However, it seems that this way of thinking is becoming somewhat out-dated, and what we really need to be thinking about are MEDIA CAPITALS.

That is, instead of seeing media in terms of coming from a particular country, with a distinct cultural stamp, we should really accept the reality of media capitals, which are essentially a hub for media development and distribution.

What is also interesting about media capitals is that they also seem to become places where different cultures interact, and what results is a hybridised mish-mash of media.

A media capital refers to a city which represents centers of media activity that have specific logics of their own. They are the sites of mediation, locations where complex forces and flows interact and they are neither bound nor self-contained entities. (Curtin, 2009).

This has emerged with the rise of creative diversity. So now, cities like Hong-Kong, Mumbai and Melbourne, where production is high, now challenge Hollywood and set the standards for media within their culture.

A poignant example of the diverse media capitals around the world was illustrated by Sukhmani Khorana (2012) in “Orientalising the Emerging Media Capitals: The Age on Indian TV’s Hysteria”. She describes how attacks on Indian students studying in Melbourne were responded to by the Indian media. However, what is primarily focused upon is theAustralian media’s response to the unprecedented coverage the attacks received in India. Indian media, it became clear, was not something to be taken lightly.

This Sunrise excerpt, rather than focusing on issues behind the attacks, instead highlights Australia’s ‘damaged reputation’ and repercussions for Australia’s continued International Student program, which, according to Khorana, was a common response. It is interesting to see how the different media capitals responded/portrayed to the event(s).

So it would seem that media capitals do, in fact exist irrespective of whether or not we are aware of them or give them much credence. Hong Kong is a major capital, while cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Madras may be heading there, according to Michael Curtin (2003) in “Media Capital: Towards the Study of Spatial Flows“.Hollywood undeniably has competition.

The growth of media capitals is yet another result of globalisation, and, despite a lot of confusion, in the long term, I think we can expect to see more positive outcomes from an increase in media from all over the world, not just select places.

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Curtin, M 2003 ‘Media Capital: Towards the Study of Spatial Flows’,International Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 202-228.

Khorana, S 2012, ‘Orientalising the new media capitals: The Age of Indian TV’s Hysteria’, Media International Australia, vol. 145, pp. 39-49.