Are dubbed teen films (still) censored?

Abstract

The dubbing of teen films is claimed to be harshly censored and manipulated in view of the target audience. In particular, the teen films of the 1970s touching upon certain taboo topics, such as sex, drugs and violence are argued to be modified extensively in order to become less disturbing. The aim of this paper is to explore whether these claims are still true, especially in view of recent films addressing sex and drugs. In this respect, a corpus of 14 films (from 1983 to 2015) has been implemented. The first striking difference that this analysis will bring to the fore, is the film rating, being R in North America and G, or a sort of NC-14, in Italy. This paper will then analyze the Italian renderings of the most recurrent swearwords uttered in the corpus. Finally, an analysis of random film phrases will underpin that in the 1980s and 1990s the characters' utterances were heavily manipulated. On the contrary, as far as NC-14 films and more recent films are concerned, not only do they not censor words or utterances, but they even add extra taboo words. This analysis will hence highlight that NC-14 and more recent teen films are far less manipulated and censored than the films of the 1980s and 1990s.