The Canadian Press reports that the MPAA will be called before a Quebec legislative committee to explain why so few films are dubbed into French.
Quebec Presses Hollywood on Lack of Movie Dubbing
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I don’t live in Quebec, but I’m a native French speaker. I’d never noticed this was an issue. Normally, when I see an American movie, I watch it in the original English. It just seems so much more natural to me, exactly like watching a French movie in the original language. Then again I’m also the type of person that watches ‘foreign’ movies with subtitles, like The Devil’s Backbone.
There’s an important precision that neither this post nor the article itself seem to make. The problem isn’t so much about the availability of movies in French, but the availability of movies in “Quebec French”. Most Hollywood movies are dubbed in French, but it’s done in France where the accent, the terms and the expressions are way different.
That being said, I tend to watch movies in their original versions anyway.
Dialects
Speaking as an Anglais who may not have even a micron of a clue here, I can’t say that I have much of a problem with the idea myself. Quebecois-Français is evolving into its own, and if the audience wants the dubbing…well, they’re paying the admission charges and DVD purchase orders, right?