When Characters Impact on Dubbing: The Role of Sexual Stereotypes on Voice Actor/Actress’ Preferences

Abstract

Dubbing is a procedure through which an original actor’s voice is replaced with that of a voice actor, usually speaking a different language. Dubbing is not only an adaptation to language but also to cultural beliefs. Across two studies, we analyzed how some Italian participants would prefer a television series’ character to sound. In Study 1, participants read a male/female character description that was manipulated according to gender and sexual stereotypes in order to be masculine, feminine, or gender-neutral. Next, participants were asked to indicate their preference for three voice actors/actresses who sounded heterosexual, gay/lesbian, or ambivalent. Study 2 tested the interplay between a character’s description and the voice of the English-speaking (gay/lesbian vs. heterosexual sounding) actor/actress who played the role in the original television series on dubbing preferences. The results of both studies showed that a character’s description affected dubbing preferences. Participants preferred the gay/lesbian-sounding voice actor/actress to the counter-stereotypical character (i.e., a feminine man or a masculine woman) and the heterosexual-sounding voice actor/actress to the stereotypical character. Interestingly, at least for male targets, the original actor’s voice itself affected the preference for voice actors in the same way. This work suggests that dubbing can maintain and reinforce stereotypes.

Notes

1. Items included in the descriptions were rated (N = 29) on a scale from 1 = typical of men, 4 = typical neither of men nor of women, to 7 = typical of women. The items included in the masculine description were perceived as typically male (M = 2.73, SD = .59), those included in the feminine condition as more typically female (M = 5.04, SD = .55) and those in the non-stereotyped description were rated as neither typical of men nor of women (M = 3.79, SD = .32; pairwise ts > .9.69, ps < .001).

2. Acoustic measures were constructed using PRAAT software (Boersma & Weenink, 2007). The onset and offset of each phoneme of interest in each word was marked in PRAAT by a coder. All acoustic analyses were done automatically in PRAAT using custom-written scripts, which made reference to these labels.

3. In Study 1, both ATG and ATL were more negative in the neutral than in the masculine and feminine conditions (Fs > 3.00, ps < .06). This is in line with literature suggesting that when there are no clues of stereotyping or discrimination (and thus no equality norm is salient) people are more willing to express prejudice (see Devine, 1989).

4. In Study 2a, on average participants had 7.06 (SD = 6.81) homosexual friends, and rarely watched movies in the original language (M = 2.20, SD = .81). Participants in Study 2b reported to have 3.57 (SD = 14.69) homosexual friends and seldom watched movies in the original language (M = 2.47 SD = .94). No differences across conditions emerged on these variables.

5. Participants guessed the name of the speaker and rated him on several dimensions including pleasantness. Selected actors/actresses were not correctly identified and were similarly pleasant with the exception of the lesbian actress (M = 2.26, SD = 1.14) who was rated as less pleasant than the heterosexual one (M = 3.87, SD = 1.14), t(22) = –5.76, p < .001.

6. Regarding attitudes, being exposed to a feminine male character (Study 2a, F(1, 113) = 5.08, p = .03, ή²_p = .04) or a lesbian English-speaking actress (Study 2b, F(1, 109) = 3.50, p = .06, ή²_p = .03) increased negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women, respectively. Hence, gender/sexual counter-stereotypical description or voice enhanced prejudice.

7. Other significant effects were found: A main effect of activities, F(1, 112) = 20.09, p < .001, ή²_p = .15, was qualified by an interaction with stereotypicality, F(1, 112) = 83.67, p < .001, ή²_p = .43. Pairwise comparisons (Bonferroni correction) indicated that, regardless of experimental conditions, participants wanted to see a character perform football (M = 4.18, SD = 1.93) more than being part of a Math Club (M = 3.21, SD = 2.01), but they preferred to see him being part of an Arts and Theater Club (M = 4.90, SD = 1.71) than doing ballet (M = 2.75, SD = 1.97; all ps < .001).

8. In Studies 1 and 2, analyses including only those participants who correctly remembered information provided in the descriptions or those who identify the character’s sexual orientation according to the description led to the same pattern of results obtained when considering the full sample.