[2586] in Humor
Re: HUMOR: Lost in translation--and yet gained
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Fred Sienko)
Wed Dec 9 10:21:54 1998
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 1998 10:13:32 -0500
From: Fred Sienko <frederick.j.sienko@lmco.com>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Titles Too Bad To Be True
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 4, 1998; Page F01
It was a cute item in the New York Times Week
in Review section, a peek at some of the wacky
titles slapped on American movies in Asia.
In Hong Kong, the article last month said,
"Leaving Las Vegas" somehow became "I'm Drunk
and You're a Prostitute." In China, "George of
the Jungle" turned into "Big Dumb Monkey Man
Keeps Whacking Tree With Genitals." "My Best
Friend's Wedding" was "Help! My Pretend
Boyfriend Is Gay." "Batman and Robin" sounded
less than swashbuckling: "Come to My Cave and
Wear This Rubber Codpiece, Cute Boy."
Some titles obliterated the taste barrier. The
Pamela Anderson Lee flick "Barb Wire" was said
to have been marketed in China as "Delicate
Orbs of Womanhood Bigger Than Your Head Can
Hurt You." And there was this Hong Kong
knee-slapper: "The Crying Game" emerged as "Oh
No! My Girlfriend Has a Penis!"
But the joke was on Times reporter James
Sterngold and his editors. These outlandish
titles were spoofs that first appeared in
August on a Web site called TopFive.com.
"Rolling on the floor laughing!" TopFive
contributor Doug Johnson said by e-mail.
Sterngold says he was skeptical at the outset.
He says Scott Neeson, the executive in charge
of foreign distribution at Fox, sent him a
legitimate Wall Street Journal clip about
creative foreign titles -- and attached a list
of the wild ones.
"I said, 'These are kind of outrageous. Are
these for real?' He said yes," Sterngold
recalled from Los Angeles. "I made a mistake.
I should have checked each of these out."
A Fox staffer confirmed that Neeson had sent
the satiric list but said he thought it was
part of the Journal article. Sterngold,
though, says it was his responsibility, not
Neeson's. "It's embarrassing," he said. "I'm
disappointed and depressed. If it was hard
news, I probably would have been more
vigilant. But it was a light item."
=A9 Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
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