When Hollywood Speaks Chinese, I Cringe | Video Essay

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"Non-English language are treated like costumes to put on" hits hard

Man you went OFFFF in this video LOL. It always bothered me when Hollywood makes a white character speak Chinese to show off how SUPER SMART they are, meanwhile actual Chinese-speaking viewers are pointing and laughing

An epiphany hit me. Chinese language instructors aren't actors. They can help with pronunciations and vocabulary, but not with delivery. Voice acting is a craft of its own and being a native speaker doesn't automatically mean you're good at it. This is probably why Tucker from Rush Hour speaks Chinese well, cause he's right next to Jackie Chan, who knows how to act in Chinese.

3:58 honestly a great move by Chow to intentionally use awkward English to take us out of the moment then immerse us back in with even more appreciation for the character that acknowledges the awkwardness. I don't think this is even limited to comedy, imagine any of the movies shown but the Chinese speaker plainly says "I'm sorry I can't make out what you're saying". A great opportunity for embarrassment, frustration, humility, or any other character trait the writer wanted to communicate.

“It’s not Mandarin, nor Cantonese- it bullsh*t” 🤣

Their expressions when they speak chinese is hilarious, it's like they're acting like they're saying something profound, but they're just saying something normal.

I am Russian, so I want to point out that there is always a specific stereotipical character when someone is trying to speak Russian. He/She will do this 100% to show off how badass they are (like Gloria from the Modern family when she talks to mafia to scare them OR Murray from Stranger things when he talks to soldiers in s3 and s4 to trick them). HOWEVER, Gloria speaks awfully (I am a native speaker and hardly undersrood 2 or 3 words), Murray on the other hand speaks better, but in reality no russian-speaking person would believe he's a native (as he has very distinct accent) and so he won't be able to fool anyone

My respect goes out to Jim Carrey because he actually learned basic Korean for the movie Yes Man. That's why while his Korean wasn't perfect, it fitted the scene and the character he's portraying.

In K-dramas it always makes me laugh when they have a Chinese character that speaks Chinese but it's just another Korean actor stumbling through the random Chinese dialogue they're supposed to say 😆

I thought Bradley Cooper's movie was mocking Mandarin by making him speak complete garbage. Turns out, he was attempting to speak the language with marbles in his mouth.

The most frustrating thing is that Mandarin pronunciation isn't even as hard as people make it out to be; if actors spent a few hours practising their lines with a coach their speech wouldn't be anywhere near as jarring. Of course learning the difference between zai/cai, chuan/chuang, re/ri and so on takes longer but if all you need is a few lines then it's not important. Edit: Good point on the last bit about language and national identity. Hollywood loves to tell everyone how they've moved on from the stereotyping that they're still engaging in, but when they do it nowadays it's not racism, it's a "cultural homage".

The Shang Chi name case is funny, as it is because of stereotypes that they changed the Mandarin and had to keep the main characters name intact.

As a Korean we relate this to a spiritual level. Not only that a lot of Korean pronounciations were butchered around, we also had to endure watching scenes like neo-Koreans drinking "soap" and an American spy stealing North Korean nuclear factory plans titled "Gangnam bank foreclosure procedures". At least we had moments to poke fun at this. In The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), a Korean villain was asked to "say anything in Korean" by the director. But instead of making improvised threats, he broke the 4th wall and apologized on-screen to the Korean viewers while saying that the acting life in the US is sh!t. This got into the final cut because the director didn't understand what he said anyway. The redemption we got from bad English in Squid Game was so satisfying, I hope Hollywood filmmakers got the message.

I come from a Russian background, so anytime "Russian" is spoken on screen my brain automatically goes into "it's gibberish time." I feel like language needs to be treated like training for a fight scene. You can't just practice for a week and expect to get the flow right. I think a lot of American culture involves assimilation, so whenever you keep your ethnic roots, you're viewed as an outsider. Considering the amount of literal exclusion Chinese people had to deal with in American history, it's no wonder that Chinese, and really all East Asian, culture and language is exoticized to this day.

as a person whose first language is cantonese and is fluent in mandarin, i still appreciate the effort, and i can understand them [with subtitles lol] meaning they don't speak gibberish. I am especially happy when i hear cantonese!

I didn't watch Dune the whole way through, I thought it was boring at the beginning, but man Timothée Chalamet's deliver of that line give me literal chills. It's not that they all should be speaking perfect Chinese/Korean/Russian, it just has to be best suited for the character. It all depends on the character's background. If your character's is supposed to be a native or just a well educated, eloquent speaker, even if the actor doesn't speak it, you should get a proper language coach to help the actor nail the fundamentals down. If you don't, this whole character's setting is ruined. But if you do, oh man, it's going to hit so hard, like a fine stroke on a beautiful painting. These details do add up. This also reminds me of actors who don't know a thing about playing on screen music instruments: a character supposed to be a genius at playing them, fumbling with them like a maniac. That doesn't show genius or intelligence or passion, that makes all of us look stupid: the actor, the audience and the film maker.

It's the same with other languages: for example German. When they've got dialogue in German in an English language film (let's be honest, it's mostly in scenes with Nazis lol), it always confuses the heck out of me and I sometimes have to turn on the subtitles to understand what they're supposed to say. Like, they do have vocal coaches and people speaking those languages and dialects, don't they?

Back when Life of Pi was in theaters, I remember watching the scene where Pi's mom reads him a story in Tamil and my cousins and I were laughing our asses off. The actress who spoke it (Tabu) may have been fluent in the language herself, but because the screenwriter clearly hadn't consulted a native speaker, the dialogue sounded like it was from Google Translate.

I watch a lot of Chinese films and television, and do notice that, on a related note, many of the same type of issues are present in scenes with English-speaking actors, as well. It can make it difficult at times to get my (English-speaking) friends into certain dramas and films because, of course, they tend to be very critical of the at times stilted English dialogue, writing, and incorrect accents. Usually my go-to is to explain to them that American movies almost always do a very shoddy job with Chinese language and culture, but we just don't notice it, of course. I think that puts in perspective why some of the English acting and dialogue may feel stiff or improper at times in Chinese movies, in return, because its simply not the native language of the creators or primary audience so, to most of them, these issues don't glare any more than all the shoddy Chinese dialouge in American films do to the English-speaking audience.