Scandinavian DVD importers are strange people. They somehow feel that they have to change the original English title of American movies to make it sell better in the local market, and then manage to give them new titles in English! Hence my rental copy of It's a Boy Girl Thing is called He's the Girl!
The fact is, it could just as well have been called She's the Boy.
This is another comedy with strong transgender elements, although not in the same league as the previous TG comedy I presented: Transamerica.
This is a romantic comedy, a pink and bright blue chick flick, where the bodyswap theme is there to help the makers explore gender stereotypes in an admittedly funny way.
It is all there: the handsome high school working class football player, and the beautiful intelligent, Yale-bound, poetry lover, both struggling with difficult parents and airhead cheerleaders. Yes, there is a prom/homecoming scene, and even we who do not live in the US find it all so predictable.
That being said, I was pleasantly surprised. We are supposed to like chick flicks, remember?
Samaire Armstrong plays both Nell Bedworth and Woody Deane. So does Kevin Zegers. It is a long story. but I cant tell you that an Aztec god and shapeshifter is involved.
Here's the trailer:
And here's the accompanying video set to a song by Leann Rimes:
IMDB on It's a Boy Girl Thing
Official movie site (UK)
Wikipedia on It's a Boy Girl Thing
Buy It's a Boy Girl Thing online!
Here in Germany, there is a similar translation behabvior. So the action movie "Cradle to the grave" became "Born to die". They (the film industry?) say, Gemans like English titles, but only if they understand it. So they use a "simple" vocabulary. :p
ReplyDeleteYou are probably right, although in both cases there are perfectly simple German/Norwegian translations.
ReplyDeleteI do get the need to use original English titles when the title is a strong brand (like Star Wars, Spiderman or Batman), but for more regular movies I do not see the point.
Now, in Germany I believe we can say that you make up for it by dubbing the films. I saw Bad Boys in Germany once, listening to Will Smith speaking in German. Now, that was one bizarre experience!
R
Just thought you might be interested in 2 TV-shows with TG themes which will probably air sometime next season:
ReplyDeleteLalola: http://www.tv.com/lalola/show/75847/summary.html?q=lalola&tag=search_results;title;1
Pretty Handsome: http://www.tv.com/pretty-handsome/show/74691/summary.html?q=pretty%20handsome&tag=search_results;title;1
(the pilot of this one has already leaked and can be found on various torrent-sites)