This morning I read in the newspaper that the Dutch Comedy Central was going to produce and host a Dutch version of the American The Daily Show with Jon Stuart. Although I don't know enough about the United States to fully comprehend every single joke that is made, I see how the way Stuart hosts his show is funny. He has his own way with the English language that makes it all humorous in a certain sense.
So now the entire format has been 'translated' into Dutch, and it made me wonder if that sort of thing works out. Because I always thought that the nature of English language is one of the reasons that The Daily Show 'works'. Can you translate an entire television show into another language and another culture?
I think that you'll run into some problems eventually. In this case it already happened with coming up with a suitable name, it's going to be broadcast as The Daily Show: Nederlandse Editie. That isn't going to work, the colon in the name directly suggests that it's a derivative of a superior show. If that isn't worse enough, the name is constructed from two languages and it says 'Nederlandse Editie' (Dutch Edition), which implies that the producers wanted the main language to be English but that they hesitated (because they were Dutch) and went for a midway option. They should have named it The Daily Show With [Host name goes here, I'll spare you from it], I reckon that a Dutch name in an English title doesn't look good, but it's better then to translate the entire title into Dutch.
If the only problem were in the name, it wouldn't be that bad. But I think that the entire format won't work in Dutch. Whether you like him or not, Jon Stuart is an expert at playing with his language, he speaks very quickly, whispers or does a fun accent which accounts for half of the jokes. If you speak quickly in Dutch it's incomprehensible, if you whisper you sound like a dirty old man and the only known accents are directly associated with hillbillies. So I think it's pretty hard to make jokes with intonation only.
Another nice thing about The Daily Show is that it makes fun of the way news is brought. In the Netherlands there isn't enough news brought to be made fun of. In the U.S. there are multiple news stations that broadcast news all day long, in the Netherlands there isn't enough news to fill a day with.
Recent adaptions of U.S. television formats have been reasonably successful. The public cheered when a spin-off of Jersey Shore was made, the difference is that this show doesn't rely on language but on people's actions. I wonder how the Dutch Daily Show is going to play out, for it will definitely say something about the importance of a very specific culture for the popularity of a show. It might even explain why American hits like Lost, Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Nip / Tuck got slots far away from prime-time or didn't get broadcast at all.
That's a really interesting observation, and I'm really curious to see of the outcomes as well. Personally, I watch Jon Stewart every night, I have both his books, and I'm a huge fan of everything he does. Which I thought would make it really difficult for me to try and figure out the "secret ingredient" to making the show a success but in giving it some thought, I realized that wasn't the case. Because quite simply, Jon Stewart IS the secret ingredient. A jewish-american comedian from new jersey isn't that hard to come by but Jon is different. Jon is a genius. He is able to broadcast the news while simultaneously broadcasting the problems with our political system, our media system, our world governments, and at the same time make it funny.
ReplyDeleteCreating a Dutch satire-news program shouldn't be too difficult, but creating a Dutch "Daily Show" will, and that's mostly because the host will have some huge shoes to fill.
Still excited to hear how it works out though and whether they can make it a success!