Apparently, a single duplicate of the Wisteria Lane stages has been built near Buenos Aires, and is being used to simultaneously shoot clones of the show for Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador. (Here's an article about it, but it's on ABC news, and so marketing/press-releasey it's disgusting.)
Now, I'm well aware that the hit American TV shows always get dubbed over in countless languages and exported to other countries. And I'm also aware that other countries try to remake hit US shows for local audiences. (Coupling, for example, was essentially the UK's version of Friends. Making it all the more bizarre that we ever tried to re-import that.) But I can't think of any other examples that sound like this -- where a television series is being remade essentially plot-for-plot, week after week, for another country.
What's up with that? What could one read into this? That South America would rather go to all this trouble than look at the faces of Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross, and Eva Longoria? That's messed up.
7 comments:
Behold the power of the mighty corporate octopus that is Disney.
It'll suck in any country. At least foreign actresses tend to have breasts and meat on their bones.
Heh heh...
Actually it's happening right here in the U.S. right now.
If you're "lucky" enough to have a MyTV Network station in your town... they're airing 13-week long mini-soap operas which were originally broadcast on Spanish-language television networks. People are translating the scripts into English and re-shooting them. Now I doubt the sets are exact, but come on, does the bedroom of any given soap opera character look that much different than any other one?
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/283530_tv02.html
If you didn't already know, MyTV Network was created by FOX to air on stations that lost either UPN or WB and didn't get CW. I doubt it will last more than 3 years - if that.
Honestly, the USA have been doing that for at least as long as I've been alive. I've lost track of the number of foreign films (mainly French) that have been essentially reshot for the US with American actors (God forbid anyone on American soil ever went to see a movie that had been dubbed or -- gasp! -- with subtitles!).
You guys might not be aware of this, but it happens all the time.
They even did this with a Loui 19, a québécois movie that got reshot as EDtv.
So there. :)
FKL
Well, if you want to open it up to films, absolutely. One of my favorites, 12 Monkeys, was a full-length film expanded from the short film La Jetée.
They made a shot for shot remake of Psycho for no particularly good reason.
I'm sure the list would be a long one.
But 12 Monkeys was actually an excellent movie that stood on its own and that can very well exist side-by-side with La Jetée.
But movies like Three Men and a Baby were remade à la USA just so Americans could watch American faces.
Damn.
There are a few examples or American films that were remade in France that way, but the titles elude me at the moment. But it happens everywhere, and I'm always puzzled by the phenomenon.
FKL
And there are plenty of TV shows that have been adapted from one country to another with varied success too. Examples include Coupling, The Office, etc...
But it *is* very unusual for a show to almost be exactly translated from one language to another.
I think that's the major point the good doctor was pointing out.
Ah -- then I stand corrected.
(Cured?)
FKL
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