Translating intercultural interactions in the Netflix-branded film American Factory

Abstract

The Netflix-branded film American Factory glaringly illustrates China’s and the United States’s contrasting views on capitalism, propaganda, and labour rights. The film directors have argued that the entangling of clashing civilisations that permeates numerous layers of the documentary is delivered in a subtle and nuanced manner. However, the English and Chinese subtitles of the multilingual film’s bilingual dialogue are found to frequently, and usually implicitly, show varying levels of translator intervention that may alter the degree of cultural difference and opposition. By investigating the inherent translator interventions in the presentation of cultural allusions in Netflix’s English- and Chinese-translated subtitles of the bilingual dialogue in the film, this study focuses on the extent to which these interventions are discursively juxtaposed with Netflix’s media logic. Special attention is paid to how intercultural positions are perceived by heterogeneous viewers in China and the United States. This article argues that streaming media giants, such as Netflix, exert an influence on the representation of cultural nuances in multilingual films. Hence, the study calls for a reflexive view of streaming media translation research that acknowledges the complex power dynamics resulting from audio-visual intercultural communication and its corresponding implications for intercultural relations.