Translating identity: norms and industrial constraints in adapting Glee for Latin America

This project analyzes the Spanish dubbing of Glee for Latin American audiences in order to understand how identity—gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, and (dis)ability—is shaped by the adaptation process. I make two primary interventions within the field of global television studies. First, I expand adaptation analysis by adding industrial norms and production processes to the traditional theorizations of technical and cultural aspects; secondly, I use this web of elements as an interpretive lens for analyzing television translations, thus providing a model for making sense of how the adaptation process affects the representation of race, sexuality, and other forms of identity. Glee is translated for all of Latin America by the Mexico City company New Art Dub, and so I spent three weeks there doing field work. In addition to interviewing Glee’s Spanish-language script writer, director, actors, engineers, and technicians, and observing their work at every stage, I reviewed dubbed scripts and conducted textual analysis of the dubbed episodes. As this project demonstrates, the translation process negotiates complex international forces along with numerous industrial, technical, and cultural constraints as it shapes representations of and discourses about sexual, gender, racial, and ethnic identities. This research demonstrates that between imperialism and indigenization is an entire adaptation industry which simultaneously exaggerates and downplays cross-cultural similarities and differences.