Arabic Anime (Alternately: Je Déteste Vous, Gérard Depardieu)

For those of you who know anything about Japanese cartoons, commonly referred to as anime, you know that they enjoy a large popularity in the US under their dubbed versions and that the artistic style incorporates generalized mouth movements so you don't get lip reader's syndrome (did I just make that up? yes I believe I did), which I define as the disconnect between seeing words form on someone's lips but hearing different sounds and different word lengths.

Though I experience this daily with Noor (which as I recently found out is not only dubbed in Syrian Arabic but the character's names have been changed as well -- ex. Noor is actually Gümüş. In Arabic her name means light but in Turkish it means silver...) nothing is as terrible as the French movies. Any and all new releases here are dubbed in French, which means you get terrible lip reader's syndrome AND really awful voice actors. Why do Orlando Bloom and Val Kilmer sound the same??? Probably because they were both dubbed by Gérard Depardieu... The Great French Schnoz.

Seriously, he is the undisputed god of french cinema and I would be hard pressed to name more than ten french movies I have seen without him ("Amélie," "Indochine," "And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen" [which was filmed in Fes and Essaouira!], "Les Choristes", "La Belle et la Bête", "Tout va Bien," "La Cage aux Folles," and "Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran") AND he has also been in quite a few English movies that I've seen (Hamlet, Les Misérables, The Man in the Iron Mask, 102 Dalmatians...) Also, "Manon des Sources" doesn't count as a French movie without Sir Schnoz because he was Jean de Florette in "Jean de Florette", the movie directly preceding "Manon" as Manon's father... plus his wife was in both of them anyway.

That was a pretty lengthy digression. Anyway, what I thought was interesting about cartoons here was that Looney Tunes are played as-is (yay for childhood memories) but anime is dubbed in Arabic. No, I don't get lip reader's syndrome but it does blow my mind that anime can be so popular and, on a slightly more contrite note, it probably sound weird for the Japanese when they hear the English dubs that I am so used to.

I might be just a little more French than I let on....

P.S. - as I was typing this entry, the anime episode ended and now MBC3 is playing Batman... dubbed in Arabic. And the lip movements work suprisingly well. No not that Batman, the cartoon one... Though that is on my top ten list of things to do once I hit American Soil. The other in no particular order are:

• use my own bathroom, including a decadent long, hot shower
• buy & eat a king size hershey's bar and a bag of m&m's
• get a haircut
• hug Matt until it hurts
• catch up with dad about Thailand
• visit Mom & Katie
• eat: homemade spaghetti, a big breakfast, & a steak
• buy a new pair of headphones to replace the ones I blew out in Fes
• drive my car, Vesper, for the first time in 7 weeks
• See: The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, Hancock, Hellboy II, Wanted, Wall-E, Get Smart, Kung Fu Panda, Narnia: Prince Caspian ... hopefully some of those are already at the dollar cinema!
  

Ok, so that may seem like more than ten things but it's my list so... deal with it... or help me do all those things as soon as possible!

Next guy who calls me "gazelle" is getting punched in the face

I know I promised this post awhile ago, but what I was going to write has morphed in to my term paper for the end of the study abroad which is most likely going to be entitled "Sunglasses are my Hijab" so instead enjoy an explanation of what I meant by the title I gave.

Julia Prior wrote
at 3:26pm
can i call you gazelle?

Mely Rabalais wrote
at 4:25pm
do and I'll punch you in the face... oh and it's pronounce "Rha-zelle"

Julia Prior wrote
at 4:26pm
okie rha-zelle.
and i dare you. :-p

Mely Rabalais wrote
at 4:34pm
I'll get right on that... in like a week when I'm back. Watch out or POW right the kisser!

Julia Prior wrote
at 4:37pm
oh i look forward to it. i think i found a new pet name for you. why do they call you gazelle? cause you're so unnaturally tiny? just tell them you're not small, your travel size! which is convinent considering how much traveling you do.

Mely Rabalais wrote
at 4:55pm
gazelle is actually a generic catcall, because in the streets, the men believe that they are lions in the Serengeti and since women don't belong there, they need to be intimidated to stay at home, so we are the prey -- the gazelles -- since we apparently frighten easily but are extremely graceful... and they'd all like to "catch" one of us (read: get our number) since they live in a sexually repressed society and since women are kind of hard to meet due to the rather rigid segregation of the sexes

Oh, and that's the opening line of my term paper for the study abroad *wink*

Julia Prior wrote
at 5:11pm
hahaha im totally going to still call you gazelle. only when i say it, im refering to your tiny-ness... and frighten easily? obviously they don't know you. just take away your midol and theyll be the ones that frighten easily

Mely Rabalais wrote
at 6:50pm
Surprisingly, my best way to counteract the negative rha-zelle vibes is to walk around with my sunglasses on and my headphones in and ignore them while listening to something empowering. When you walk down the street like you own the place and stare down anyone who looks your way, they tend to leave you alone. The one or two times I actually called a guy out who said something to me (like: "ello boo-tiful" because they can't pronounce for shit) they almost immediately say "I'm sorry, please forgive me" or something like that and run away.

Julia Prior wrote
at 6:52pm
theyre not used to women standing up to them. or talking in public.

Mely Rabalais wrote
at 6:54pm
Well, that's true. Ok, seriously how bored are you at work that you have time to respond to each of my posts within five minutes? are you facebook stalking me?

Waste Management In Rabat

Currently in class. My stomach isn't feeling well, so even though Casey's host mom is throwing a wedding party for her former host daughter and we're all invited, I'm not so sure I want to go. Not really interested in the lecture... But Steph seems to be enthralled so someone is getting something out of it.

Tomorrow we have oral presentations in Arabic... I will be talking about the Hassan Tower gardens, my favorite place in Rabat.

So, I updated my iTouch software and got new programs, including this lifecast thing so we'll see how this works. ttfn!

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