Translating Wordplay in Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs and Robin Hood: Men In Tights

ABSTRACT
The present thesis aims at presenting wordplay in selected films by an American director Mel
Brooks and comparing the original items with their Polish translations found in the dialogue lists
prepared for the needs of Polish television and DVD edition by Elżbieta Gałązka-Salamon (TV version
of both films), Janusz Kiezik (the DVD edition of “Robin Hood: Men in Tights”) and Gelula and Co.,
Inc. (DVD edition of “Spaceballs”). The films chosen for the needs of the analysis are “Spaceballs”
released in 1987 and “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” released in 1993. The first one is a science-fiction
story of a space pilot and his crew fighting against evil creatures in order to save a peace-loving planet
and its beautiful princess. The main plot is enriched by witty observations on the problem of
merchandizing and cowardly presidents of the whole nations as well as popular motives of power,
friendship and love. The other film exploits an ageless story of a famous English hero of Sherwood who
defended the poor, robbed the rich and opposed Prince John the Lackland’s brutal policy. Although the
story follows well-known legends and stories along with Maid Marian and a famous fight over the toll,
it is somehow twisted to suit contemporary viewers’ tastes by removing dark features of mediaeval times
such as cruelty, religious intolerance or overwhelming dirt and introducing characters not commonly
associated with Robin Hood like Arab exchange students or a witch called Latrine. Apart from the name
of the director and the screenwriter Mel Brooks, both of the discussed films have several other features
in common. Firstly, they are parodies of certain types of popular films and therefore present a lot of
verbal and situational humour. This generic feature makes them a reasonable choice as it is the word
games that mostly contribute to the idea of verbal humour and a lot of such structures can be found in
those two films. Secondly, the films selected as the basis of Mel Brooks’ parodies were huge
blockbusters at certain times and the majority of movie-goers will probably be familiar with them. This
can be noticed in the case of the jokes which make fun of George Lucas’ “Star Wars” or Ridley Scott’s
“Alien” in “Spaceballs” or Kevin Costner’s “Prince of Thieves” which is the foundation for “Robin
Hood: Men in Tights”. Finally, the majority of Mel Brooks’ works follow the same pattern when forming
puns or other types of jokes. Thus, the choice of the films can be considered justified. The author of the
present thesis is going to examine the most representative examples of word games selected from the
two films and compare them with their Polish equivalents focusing on the translation strategies and the
differences between voice-over and subtitles forms of the same wordplay. The author’s reasons for
choosing this topic are twofold. Firstly, it is the scientific motive as not too much literature concerning
the issue can be found in Poland. Although the name of Mel Brooks and the titles of his most famous
films are easily recognizable as they have been shown on TV several times, no study on the difficulties
a translator can encounter while working on humour-based items in the discussed productions has been
found by the author. Therefore, one can hope the thesis will help to call scholars’ attention to the
problem. Secondly, it is an opportunity to analyze various types of wordplay and discuss the proficiency
of Polish professional translators at remaining true to the original literal meaning of the item but
simultaneously evoking the same joyful reaction from Polish viewers as it is in the case of source
language ones. The personal reasons for choosing the topic of translating word games in Mel Brooks’
films are simple. Comedies are meant to be funny and make people laugh, but the reactions certain films
evoked in different cultures, which the author had opportunity to observe, made her wonder how much
the translation strategies applied for the needs of particular word games change the implicit meaning of
the discussed items and consequently trigger different responses. The character of the following thesis
will be strictly descriptive. The theoretical part is going to be divided into two chapters. The first chapter
will be devoted to the notion of audiovisual translation. As the features of various types of AVT greatly
influence the way the translation is carried out, voice-over, subtitling and dubbing will be
circumstantiated, focusing on their advantages and constrains. The next chapter will deal with the issue
of wordplay. The author is going to concentrate on the definition and numerous classifications found in
the literature pointing out their use for the needs of the present thesis. This will be promptly followed
by the notion of untranslatability and the strategies applied for translating wordplay as they are presented
in numerous works by prominent linguists and theoreticians of translation. Those two chapters are to
form a theoretical background needed for the next section. The third chapter will introduce a detailed
analysis of selected word games focusing on their meaning to the plot, the techniques used for creating
a humorous effect on source language viewers and then comparing them with the Polish translation. As
two types of audiovisual translation will be discussed here, the differences between subtitles and the
voice-over version will be considered as well. Finally, the conclusions will be drawn based on the
previous discussion along with the brief summary of the findings. It will also provide an opportunity for
the author of the thesis to reflect on the value of good film translation and to attempt the comparison of
the works of Polish specialists in the field of AVT.

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Brooks M., Spaceballs, DVD edition, 1987, Imperial Entertainment Home Video
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Home Video

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