Is dubbing foreign films good or bad for society?

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta Post put forward two important questions in its editorial on Aug. 11, 1997. "Is the practice of dubbing foreign films good or bad for our national culture and values?" and "what is meant by 'national culture'?"

These are difficult questions. To answer them in a sensible manner it is necessary, I think, for these questions to be dissected. For this purpose I shall follow the systematic definitions of anthropologist Timothy C. Weiskell. He makes a distinction between "high culture" and "culture in the anthropological sense".

High culture is defined, by Weiskell, as: "the self-conscious creations of artists, musicians and literary figures as they seek to express personal or collective understandings, insights or emotions concerning their position in the world or their inner creative processes." While culture in the anthropological sense is defined as "the totality of learned behavior that has become habitual in a given society or social subgroup."

In other words, culture in the anthropological sense is culture of the ordinary people or "people's culture".

To quote Weiskell again, this ordinary culture primarily consists of "whole sets of common habits of thought and of perception that people learn as a natural part of growing up in any culture and they continue to share these assumptions and conceptions with others of that culture for the rest of their lives."

This is, to be sure, not the only valid definition of "culture". I choose Weiskell's definitions for the purpose of delimiting accurately the intended meaning of the phrase "our national culture and values". Seen within the context of the above editorial there can be no doubt that what is meant by culture is "people's culture". This is the culture that shapes the behavior of the people who are watching those dubbed foreign films.

Within this context, to ask whether dubbing foreign films is good or bad for our national culture and values means asking whether watching such films makes the habitual behavior of the viewers become noble or vulgar. If watching dubbed foreign films brings about good behavioral patterns among the viewers then maybe dubbing foreign films is a good thing. If it turns out, however, that those who regularly watch dubbed foreign films develop undesirable behavior, then maybe the opposite is true.

It should be noted in this regard that changes in behavioral patterns among members of a society indicate changes in values and value systems in that society. The increasing incidence of violence in our society, for instance, is an indication that changes have taken place in the values that people actually uphold. There is no change in people's behavior which is not rooted in changes of accepted values.

What is the probable impact of watching dubbed foreign films? Good or bad? I think it depends on the film and not whether the film is dubbed or subtitled.

Bad foreign films, whether dubbed or subtitled, will have a negative impact on those who watch them, while good foreign films will have a positive impact. Thus if we are really concerned about the impact of foreign films on our culture, then it is the quality of foreign films that should be the focus of regulation, and not their dubbing.

Dubbing foreign films is an activity, I think, spurred more by commercial considerations than cultural ones. From a cultural point of view it is the quality of imported films that should constitute the main issue. Bad films which displays vulgar and violent behavior should not be imported. Good films which help us enrich and ennoble our national culture should be allowed to come into the country.

But will "good films" sell? Here we see again that the issue is primarily commercial and not cultural. Are we really willing to treat the problem of importing foreign films as a cultural matter? I doubt it!

I think that what can still be done, in this instance, is to find a better balance between economic and cultural considerations in viewing and treating foreign films. At the moment the emphasis is very much on the economic side and we are not too happy with the resulting situation.

We come now to the second question: What is national culture? The definition that national culture is the totality of the peaks of regional cultures is an old definition, stemming from a "summative view" of our nation and our culture.

It was formulated by the late Ki Hadjar Dewantoro in 1938, if I am not mistaken, when we still viewed the Indonesian nation as the sum of all ethnic entities in the country. Gradually this view progressed to become what may be called a "unionist view", a view emphasizing the unity of our nation in spite of the apparent differences among the various parts of the nation. This view also emphasizes the need for interaction.

Subsequently this view gave birth to our national motto: unity in diversity. The problem with this motto at the moment is implementation. Many groups of people have felt that our way of implementing this motto is unbalanced. The unity element has received much greater emphasis than the diversity element. Can this unionist view guide us to solve the problem?

Again, I do not know! My impression is that our present unionist view is gradually, if silently, growing to become a new view: an "integrative view". In this way the existence of the various parts of the nation and their respective cultures are more strongly acknowledged and recognized. While the oneness of the nation is viewed as the result of integrative interactions taking place among the various regions and their subcultures.

If this perception is correct, then the development of our culture depends on our ability to generate and sustain these integrative interactions. I do not think that such interactions occur at random.

If we try now to answer our main question -- are dubbed foreign films good or bad for our national culture and values?-- in terms of the above analyses, then the answer will depend upon our judgment concerning two things. One, whether foreign films will stimulate good or despicable behavior among the viewers, and two, whether such films will promote or hinder integrative interactions among our subcultures.

Good foreign films should generate what Weiskell calls "transcultural experiences" among the viewers, and strengthen their capacity for "cultural transcendence."

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.