voice-overs in TV-dramas
Aaron Gerow
gerow
Mon Nov 30 00:15:09 EST 1998
>How come that Japanese TV-dramas place so much emphasis on voice-over
>narration? (Schoolgirl stares into the camera; voice-over: "Hiroko,
>looking disappointed"; schoolgirl A walks away from schoolgirl B after a
>brief conversation; voice-over "schoolgirl A, walking away; schoolgirl
>B, watching schoolgirl A walking away", and so on, and so on.) One feels
>tempted to explain this as a device to make up for bad acting or
>directing, but perhaps there are other reasons.
A very good question and one that has been asked for many years in
relation to cinema as well, especially given the existence of the benshi.
There have been the trite culturalist explanations--"Japanese like to
have things explained to them"--but it is an interesting issue that is
increasingly becoming central to current TV. As I have said before in
several posts, one of the other big trends in recent TV, especially in
variety shows, is to print the words being spoken on screen (usually only
major lines or gags, but sometimes--as in one of Uthcan Nanchan's
shows--EVERY line of dialogue). It's great for those of us who can't
always catch the words, but why do those with Japanese as their native
language need/like this? It can easily be related to the use of
voice-over.
I think the words-on-screen issue relates in part to manga, but it and
the voice-over are definitely part of a long history of managing and
regulating reception of the image (something I've discussed in many
places). But it also raises many narrative issues: "Whose" voice is it
when the words appear on screen (it is not simply that of the person
saying them since their speech has been doubled and part of it divorced
from them)? Some of the words are closer to third-person
commentary--like a voice-over--so what is the status of that voice?
Given that some of the words are themselves rendered meaningful as images
(some are in larger print to emphasis particular words, others animated),
there is an effort to analyze the dialog, comment on it, and to make the
words part of the image, but "who" is doing that? What do these words do
to help the narrative, especially if they are mostly redundant? How do
viewers relate to this voice? Given that the word-thang is not done in
dramas--only in variety or news shows--what can we then say about the
enunciation of narrative in drama? Why voice-overs there but not words on
screen? Etc. etc.
Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
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