Maybe this explains why I usually find TV so boring

[cosmolinguist]

The second episode of Almost Human is audio-described ("the joys of torrenting!"). But actually, this is really awesome! So many things are happening! I had no idea!

(Andrew says audio description has the same prose style as Dan Brown. I haven't read Dan Brown, but I'm kinda worried at how many adjectives there are.

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

It even reads out the subtitles! So my friends don't have to!

[magister]

Perversion is good...

[quirkytizzy]

Boooobs.*sighs*

Just wanted to join the moment. *sighs happily*

[cosmolinguist]

I thought several things about the audio description of this episode were interesting. One was that the "male gaze" didn't really translate very well; all the shots in that opening scene featured gratuitous cleavage and carefully planned angles of a woman in her underwear, but that was never mentioned. No point telling the blind people about her boobs, eh? It'd be funny if it wasn't so frustrating that disabled people are presumed to be asexual and probably prudish too.

There was a lot of "the stunningly gorgeous woman" and "a cute little boy" kind of description that I thought didn't really fit. The little boy didn't seem that cute to me. The supposed gorgeousness of the women was sort of relevant to the story, but I didn't think they were "gorgeous" because the women all seemed so samey and because I just find other things more interesting than tall-and-skinny-and-lots-of-makeup-and-skimpy-clothes. I found myself wondering what I'd think when I heard "gorgeous" if I were watching this with my eyes closed, much less if I were still blind. If I could never see at all (which was the future predicted for me when I was a baby) what would I even think "gorgeous" was? Would I have absorbed the cultural consensus better than I have now, or worse?

And also it irritated me that white skin went uncommented-upon, but brown skin was noted -- and badly: one woman's skin had a "mocha hue." Sigh.

[rmc28]

"white skin went uncommented-upon, but brown skin was noted"

Ew.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah. I got a lot out of the audio description (it was so much easier to tell people apart, and apparently people do a lot more facial expressions than I thought!) but I don't know if I'd want to seek it out even if I owned a TV or watched anything regularly, because I don't think I could get over the privileged perspective it's telling me about.

[rmc28]

It's a bit like, I went through a phase of getting a regular delivery of Mills & Boon Superromances. And they were fun and easy to read and I enjoyed them. It's just that over time I noticed nearly everyone was white, and almost every plot included "woman is saved from money troubles by marrying rich(er) man" and there was conspicuous consumption all over the place. (fancy cars, big houses, expensive gadgets, nice clothes, jewellery etc etc etc)

It's ok now and again, but not All The Time All I Read.

[andrewhickey.info]

As far as the facial expressions go, I think they got those from the shooting script rather than the performance, because a lot of the "he smiles warmly" stuff looked to me like "Karl Urban slightly twitches a muscle in his left cheek"...

[cosmolinguist]

Yes but some of that is because you are autistic, my dear. :)

Actually it wasn't the emotional connotations I was thinking of -- those I do usually pick up on in a film (to the point that I remember thinking when I was watching this that I kept anticipating some of the very words -- stuff like "warmly" -- that were then used in the description. There are other cues for that (especially in TV/films, where there's music and camera angles and stuff) so I think I usually get the emotional ends, just by different means. But there were some times where two people were supposed to be looking at each other, or whatever, that I wouldn't have caught if I hadn't been told. It did add a lot in that respect.

[andrewhickey.info]

I would point out that there was a reason for that specific thing -- the episode in question was about robots who had been covered with human skin, and the detectives were just putting the pieces of that together and noticing that the robot they were talking to supposedly had the same skin colour as a missing woman whose photograph they were looking at (though the woman in the photograph looked significantly darker than the robot to me).

There was actually mention of a white person's skin colour too -- one character was, until his name was established, referred to as "the pale man" -- but no other character's skin colour was mentioned, whatever their race, so I don't think this is an example of treating white people as normative.

As for "mocha hue", that's one of the Dan Brownisms I was referring to. Lots of "the [adjective] man [verbs] the [adjective] thing in an [adjective] manner".

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah but they could've said "the skin's the same color" without this being the only time (except, yes, you're quite right about "the pale man" but while that's a description that I wouldn't expect to be used of anything other than a white person, but it's not the same as saying "the white man", and not just in the Dan-Brown bad-English kind of way, it has social connotations too, especially because the other man was if I remember also white so it's not like that would have been a useful distinction) that anybody's skin color was mentioned.

Part of the issue is that the audio description can't help but be racist/promoting white privileged perspectives since that's what the script is doing, of course: could they have done that "oh look the skin color matches!" if it'd been a white woman? I doubt it!)

It's like when there's a really good narrative reason why the black guy's the first one to die; it still stands out as a sucky thing no matter how it can be justified, and that's because there is usually only one black guy (or woman/queer/whatever), so when that person get redshirted or fridged, that's the only impression that is given of that whole group they supposedly belong to.

[quuf.livejournal.com]

Have a taste of Dan Brown:

Captain Bezu Fache carried himself like an angry ox, with his wide shoulders thrown back and his chin tucked hard into his chest. His dark hair was slicked back with oil, accentuating an arrow-like widow's peak that divided his jutting brow and preceded him like the prow of a battleship. As he advanced, his dark eyes seemed to scorch the earth before him, radiating a fiery clarity that forecast his reputation for unblinking severity in all matters.

[quuf.livejournal.com]

It's the first paragraph of Chapter Four of The Da Vinci Code.

What do you mean, "a parody"? Don't you know deathless prose when you see it? :)

[diffrentcolours]

I get the feeling I need to record some pervy audio description tracks for TV and film.

"She's bending over now, showing off her cleavage. Yeah, go on, show us those puppies...."

[cosmolinguist]

You totally need to do that.