Gender in Audio-Visual Translation: Giving (an Italian) Voice to Dystopian Heroines

The present article analyses the audiovisual translation of two contemporary motion pictures, The Hunger Games and Divergent, where the voices of dystopian heroines have been adapted and modified for the Italian public. Inspired by the fascinating intersection between gender studies and translation studies, the present research considers the impact of translation shifts due to gender and cultural differences (De Marco 2012; Leonardi 2007; Santaemilia 2005) all the while reflecting on the important issues revolving around language, culture and power (Von Flotow 1997). While problems due to cultural adaptation and censorship in audiovisual translation are now being regularly investigated, looking at audiovisual translations with a feminist perspective might help detect the unspoken gender values of the target culture, for which the audiovisual translation is produced (Feral 2011). To this end, I look at the Italian dubbing of two dystopian movies, considering stylistic changes and major translation interventions, such as errors, deletions and shifts present in the text, as well as the rendering of proper and common names. The analysis reveals how discrepancies between the original text and the target text influence the reception of the characters’ voices and thus the construction of a dystopian heroine.