The management of pay TV StarTimes, has said that dubbing Chinese films into Yoruba and other indigenous languages, as the company is currently doing,
The management of pay TV StarTimes, has said that dubbing Chinese films into Yoruba and other indigenous languages, as the company is currently doing, will not erode Nigerian culture. In a statement signed by StarTimes Head, Public Relations, Isreal Bolaji, it said that the project was not aimed at undermining Nigerian culture and economy.
“The world has become a global village which continues to shrink exponentially due to sustained advancement in technology. The implication of this is that cultural communications too have to align with the current trend. In reality, cultural intermingling is even growing faster than the rate of global integration.
“This is clearly evident in Yoruba movies being subtitled in English, Indian movies with English, French, Arabic or Swahili subtitles, Mexican, Philippines,’ Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Indian series, just to mention a few, which are dubbed in English and other popular languages of the world. Cultural integration is a continuous phenomenon that dates back to when man was first created.
StarTimes further argued that Nigerians liked Bollywood and Chinese movies, hence, the need to improve communication channels.
“Bollywood movies and some Chinese contents are subtitled. But some of the fans of these contents who are however slow readers rightly feel short-changed. Hence the urgent need to dub voices in their preferred language. This has no intention to suppress any culture here,” it added.
Recall that not too long ago, indigenous film makers protested against this as they see the plan to dub Chinese films and air it in the country as a threat to the indigenous arm of the Nigerian film industry, its culture and economy in general. Leading film-makers, marketers and other stakeholders, including Tunji Bamishigbin, Jide Kosoko and Dele Odule, had held a media briefing in Lagos, condemning the development and called on relevant authorities to halt it.
Dele Odule and Jide Kosoko
According to the film makers at the media briefing,
“Today, the Nigerian film industry is enmeshed in problems of the misapplication of the almost endless possibilities provided by technology, which is devastating the not-so-strong structure on which the industry operates. Already it is overwhelmed by all manner of abuse ranging from the cankerworm of the Nigerian kind of piracy where pirates operate in the same market with right owners, to the selling of all manner of foreign films uncensored, and sales of hard copies of dubbed foreign films in the Yoruba Language, made in Alaba, with the connivance of unscrupulous Yoruba people, leaving practitioners worse for it.
“You may have observed a convergence of youngsters watching some Chinese or Indian films that have been dubbed into distorted and uncouth dialogues in Yoruba. We hereby reject this development in its entirety and urge the Federal Government and our regulatory agencies to rise onto their feet and see the danger inherent in this practice and stop the trend. This is totally uncalled for at this time when the Federal Government is looking in the direction of the film industry as a viable alternative to oil in its economic diversification policy.”
