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Gossip Girl and National Identity
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Yesterday when I was looking for a film grant application from TG4, the Irish television channel that broadcasts as gaeilge (in the Irish language) I found a couple of things that really surprised me and got me thinking about larger issues of cultural and national identity. The first of these was the prominence of an Irish country music programme. Essentially it is a group of people around my mum's age that sing really twangy country western songs for an hours a few times every week. The second thing was that the channel, once renowned for its homegrown entertainment and news/public affairs programmes was carrying dubbed versions of popular American shows such as Dora the Explorer, One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl. This got me thinking, how does theAmericanisation of Irish television affect cultural identity on a broader scale.

While I can see the value in the dubbing of Dora the Explorer (I mean who doesn't want a trilingual child that can move seamlessly between gaelige, English and Spanish) I have to admit I was confused by the presence of a country music program and initially upset over the broadcasting of Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill (it should be noted that while I can't stand the show Gossip Girl, I am a big fan of One Tree Hill so the bias gets balanced out). At a time when my generation is being told constantly that we are at risk of losing our culture (especially our language) and that we need to hold onto it now tighter than ever for its survival, we find it being watered down. If a dubbed version of some American sitcom is what we are trying to protect is it really worth fighting for? Shouldn't the television channel that is best placed to help us protect this culture that we are being told is being eroded by immigration, westernisation, secularisation, globalisation (and a whole bunch other -isations) have a responsibility to preserve Irish culture as opposed to further adding to this Americanisation? Shouldn't TG4 promote the idea of "we ourselves" as opposed to "us only a little bit different from the rest of 'em"?

A bit bitter, and nostalgic for times when TG4 was full of grandfatherly men with flat-caps talking about sheep, I phoned a mate of mine still living in the Republic for his take on the matter and the perspective he offered surprised me even more than the thought of a ginger mum-look alike strumming a bango and attempting to yodel a Dolly Parton song on a Wednesday afternoon. He actually saw the dubbing of American programmes as a positive thing and a way for us to protect our culture by making it easier for us to engage with something that may seem distant and foreign at times, a relic of the past lost within the lights and sounds of the modern world. It is the Gossip Girl generation that (frighteningly enough) that is entrusted with the responsibility of pulling gaelige back from the brink of extinction. So, Colm argued, if the youth are going to be watching Gossip Girl anyways, wouldn't you rather have them watch it as gaeilge where they can reinforce their language skills rather than in English? Furthermore when they dub these programmes, Irish speaking youth get the sense that both they and their language are important and worth making an effort for. While I still think that it would be better if TG4 were to make an effort to create some worthwhile Irish programming that would speak more directly to this generation (preferably without all the consumerism or glorification of teen sex and drug abuse), I think now I see the value in the dubbing. I just wish if they were going to dub they would dub some different shows - maybe a little House, some Scrubs maybe? It's just too bad that I'm not in the Republic, because I'd like to think that if given the option of watching One Tree Hill as gaeilge every week as opposed to English I would take it.

As I live in Canada, it also got me thinking about the whole Québec situation. Is this what it felt like before the Quiet Revolution. Are the parents and youth of Québec struggling with the idea of watching Gossip Girl en français? Maybe with this whole globalization thing we are more connected than we think.

March 24, 2009 | 2:56 PM Comments  0 comments

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