Americanizing Other Nation's Shows: BBC Being Human vs. SyFy Being Human?

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by Linus

It's along the same avenue of how I feel about Steig Larsson's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo et al. original Swedish versions vs. the soon-to-be released American version (which apparently will have a different ending )

So how do you feel about it? Good? bad? Ugly?

Ok, this is something I'm going to complain about. It seems like lately American television/film industry has been butchering a lot European TV shows and films as well as films/TV shows from other countries. Before Hollywood decided to butcher Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there was also another American remake of another Swedish book/film called Låt den rätte komma in (Let Me In was the horrible remake). The film is a vampire film but not of the stereotypical variety. It deals with themes of bullying as well as the relationship between a boy and a vampire who's gender is a bit ambiguous. The vampire is presumed to be female in the film, but actually because the director wanted the vampire's voice to be more androgynous they did not use the actress' real voice in the film. Basically she acted and spoke the lines, but another person's voice was dubbed over because the director wanted a more gender ambiguous voice. Overall pretty awesome film.

Of course Oskar and Eli were replaced by Owen and Abby from New Mexico, gender ambiguity and other themes pretty much obliterated from the remake. Which seems to be a pattern, considering I've heard that Girl With the Dragon Tattoo remake hasn't taken on the strong themes of violence and vengeance of the victim on the rapist that the original novel intended.

Kind of same with the American remake of Prime Suspect, where it feel like issues of sexism and other issues of oppression are a bit watered down when compared to the original. And why does it seem US TV shows are unable to make films/TV shows about strong women/feminist values without sexualising female protagonists to silly degrees.

I don't see why American audiences can't just watch non-American films and TV shows the way others around the world watch films/TV shows not from their own countries. It's like anything an American audience "might like" Hollywood needs to remake and, consequently, water down. It looks like Hollywood/American television has just been running out of ideas the last ten years, and so remakes shit or defaults on stupid comedies or "reality" shows.

In continental Europe/Scandinavia foreign films are shown in major movie theatres with the option of subtitles or in original language. US should start doing the same, instead of remaking everything.