Version originale

Here in France, things like movies and TV shows can be classified as the following: V.O. (version originale, meaning that it is shown it its original language); V.F. (version française, meaning that it has been dubbed into French - this is the most common thing here); V.O.S.T.F. (version originale sous-titré français, which means that it is shown in its original language with french subtitles), or the less common V.M. (version multi-langue, which is usually only available on television if you have this thing called the TNT - a sort of decoder like thing which gives you fourteen free channels, and occasionally allows you to watch a foreign movie in either of the previous three modes mentioned).

Lately, the French channel TF1 (the largest state-run channel) has been showing episodes of Grey's Anatomy in V.M. which for me means that I can watch it in all its original language glory! The thing is, I don't even like that show - frankly, I find all the characters to be extremely unlikeable and unrealistic, not to mention extremely whiny and pathetic. Take for example, the character of Addison Montgomery, the OB/GYN played by Kate Walsh. Addison is a really smart woman, and supposedly is one of the best in her field in the world, plus, she's also really pretty and looks like a young Catherine Deneuve. Yet for some reason, she just comes across as really desperate, as though she is not worth anything because she is always obsessing about men and sex and all that stuff.

Anyway, that marvelous show "Heroes" is arriving on TF1 this Saturday! The big mystery as of now is whether or not TF1 will also allow for VM with Heroes. I desperately have my fingers crossed that it will! Despite the fact that the show will be making its French debut this weekend, it is already a cult series because the young French people have been watching/downloading episodes over the internet...in V.O.! A quick glance at some of the TV forums here shows that a majority of the devoted French fans of Heroes are desperately hoping for the show to be available in English.

I personally find this to be wonderful. For a country that has some sort of weird thing with their language (there is always at least one talk show or documentary about how the French language is in danger of being ousted as the official international language - um, hello, but French has already been ousted, way back in like, 1945, so it's time to wake up and get with the program!), it is so great to see that young people really want and prefer to see movies and TV shows in their original languages!

This is really great because the in-laws, for example, NEVER watch ANYTHING in its original language. And when I say NEVER, I really mean, NEVER EVER. Once, FSIL brought over "The Aviator" on DVD to watch that weekend and I made a HUGE fuss about us all watching it in English with the subtitles on and finally the in-laws gave in (but only because they had already watched it dubbed in French). The in-laws sighed with resignation as the opening credits started, then the MIL made a remark about how at least now she could finally hear what Leonardo Di Caprio's real voice sounded like. I remember being totally stunned to realize that she has never heard a non-French actor's real voice before!

I personally just hate watching things that are dubbed into French. I will never forget that time that I watched "Fargo" dubbed into French. I had never seen it before, but everyone told me it was such a great movie, and that it was really funny. Unfortunately, this humor did not come across AT ALL in French and I quickly lost interest. Now I don't even want to see it in English, just because I am so traumatized by how horrible the movie was in French. Plus, everytime I watch something dubbed into French on TV here, I spend the vast majority of my time staring intently at the actor's lips to figure out what they are really saying - it's unbelievably irritating when the lips that are moving are not actually saying the words being heard.