Racial Stereotypes on Screen: Dubbing Strategies from Past to Present

This paper addresses the way representational practices such as stereotyping (Kozloff 2002 and Hall 1997) are dealt with in dubbing. In particular, it investigates how dubbed films have dealt with racial stereotypes across time. First, an analysis is offered of the strategies adopted for dubbing into Italian the speech of Black characters in two major Hollywood productions from the late 1930s and early 40s, namely Casablanca and Gone with the Wind. Both films had an enormous impact on the Italian public and were extremely influential on the image of African-American people that was received in Italy. A later redubbed version of Gone with the Wind is considered. Commissioned by Paramount Pictures in 1977, the new dubbing intended to both update the language and erase the overtly racist elements of the previous dubbed version. The last section of the paper addresses the dubbing of the film Bamboozled (2000), where linguistic parody and racial stereotyping are used with the intent to expose the subtleties of racism. Finally, some considerations are drawn on the way dubbing has elaborated, absorbed, come to terms with, and even repressed racist discourse and practices of representations.