Journalism of Courage
As the voices behind many famous faces,dubbing artistes have their rights too.
I was dismayed to read a recent news report about how a senior dubbing artist,named Nikki van der Zyl,has been disinvited from attending the 50-year celebrations of the James Bond franchise. This lady,who has dubbed for a series of iconic 007 heroines,beginning with Ursula Andress,has been informed that she is no longer welcome at the festivities simply because one Bond girl,Shirley Eaton,who has a Cockney accent,doesnt want the dubbing artiste to steal her thunder.
Dubbing artistes rarely get their due. They are the faceless,nameless,uncredited specialists who give voice to stunning divas who look luminescent on-screen but either cant speak the language or have weak diction/ modulation.
There is a long tradition of dubbing the voices of Hindi film heroines. Some of our actors have strong regional accents such as Tamil,Bengali,Marathi and Haryanvi,and therefore,require a professional to save the day. Interestingly,Sridevi,Kajol,Ameesha Patel,Rani Mukerji,Bipasha Basu,Lara Dutta,Deepika Padukone have all had their voices dubbed at some point in their careers.
The current trend of importing fair-skinned,non-Hindi speaking heroines from across the world automatically requires their voices be dubbed. All these girls have to do is don the grease paint and parrot some lines of dialogue on camera. It is then left to the dubbing artiste to imbue their performance with a soul in post-production. Katrina Kaif,Nargis Fakhri,Lisa Ray,Jiah Khan,Sunny Leone,Giselli Monteiro the list of firangi imports into Bollywood is endless.
A number of actors from the Hindi belt head south to make their mark in Tamil,Telugu and Kannada films. Again,they simply regurgitate chunks of dialogue in an alien language and leave it to the unsung dubbing artiste to do the rest.
Acting requires emoting not only through facial and physical expression,but also with a nuanced and varied performance through the voice. The timbre,tone and tremor are more vital for a performance than costumes,make-up and histrionics.
The value of the dubbing artistes contribution towards creating a stars persona can never be overstated. But Bollywood,like its western counterpart,seems to have little regard for their worth. They are neither credited nor compensated even a fraction of the obscene sums paid to the stars they give voice to.
Screenplay writers in India were also underpaid. But Bollywood is waking up to their true worth and they are now earning respect and a fatter pay cheque. In a significant move,the Tamil Nadu State Film Awards has instituted a category to recognise excellence in dubbing. I wonder how many of our Bollywood divas will be comfortable with the notion of their voices becoming publicly known and feted.
samarofdiscontent@gmail.com
