Foreign Bodies, Local Language: Voicing Foreignness in a Casablanca Dubbing Studio

ABSTRACTSoap operas have been shown to play a key role in the production of national publics. Yet what happens if the lifestyles and actors they feature are distinctly not national? This article examines the role of foreign (Mexican, Turkish, Brazilian) soap operas in producing new national imaginations in Morocco. Through an ethnography of Plug-In studios, the Casablanca recording studio where these soap operas are dubbed in colloquial Moroccan Arabic (Darija), I explore the discomfort experienced by studio employees (translators, voice actors, sound engineers) when laminating this highly local language onto visibly foreign bodies. Through an analysis of discussions between employees, I show how they negotiate this discomfort by bifurcating the national language into two registers: a neutral register that could plausibly be spoken by anybody; and a “real” register that indexes ethnic Moroccanness. This bifurcation, I argue, produces new possibilities for imagining foreigners as part of the Moroccan nation, while simultaneously keeping them at arm’s length.أجسام أجنبية، لغة محلية: صياغة أصوات أجنبية في استوديو للدبلجة بالدار البيضاءالمسلسلات الدرامية تلعب دورًا رئيسيًا في إنتاج الجمهور الوطني . ولكن ماذا يحدث عندما تكون أنماط الحياة والممثلين التي تتميز بها هاته المسلسلات ليست وطنية؟ يبحث هذا المقال عن دور المسلسلات الأجنبية (المكسيكية والتركية والبرازيلية) في إنتاج مخيلات وطنية جديدة في المغرب . عبر دراسة إثنوغرافية لأستوديو پلوگ إن، استوديو للتسجيل بالدار البيضاء حيث يتم دبلجة هذه المسلسلات من لغتها الأصلية إلى اللغة المغربية العامية (الدارجة)، أستكشف الانزعاج الذي يعاني منه موظفو الاستوديو (المترجمون والمدبلجون ومهندسو الصوت ) عند تغليف هذه الأجسام الأجنبية باللغة المحلية . عبر تحليل المناقشات بين موظفي الاستوديو، أظهر كيف يتعاملون مع هذا الانزعاج من خلال تقسيم اللغة الوطنية إلى سجلين : سجل محايد يمكن أن يتكلم به أي شخص وأي جسد، وسجل “حقيقي ” يشير إلى الهوية المغربية القحة . أجادل أن هذا التقسيم ينتج إمكانيات جديدة لتخيل الأجانب كجزء من الوطن المغربي، مع إبقاء مسافة بينهم وبين المغاربة .‏KEYWORDS: MoroccodubbinglanguagevoicetelevisionforeignnessArabic : المغربالدبلجةلغةصوتالتلفزةالأجنبيةالعربية AcknowledgmentsThis article benefitted immensely from discussions at the 2016 Moroccan Studies Symposium in Rabat and the “Race, Blackness, and Africa” panel at the 2018 annual meeting of the African Studies Association. I would also like to extend a special thank you to Mounir Ouzine for answering all my language-related questions, and Hajar Moudni for help with translation.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The Darija-language scripts at Plug-In studios were always written in Arabic script. See Caubet (Citation2018b) on the use of different scripts to write Darija.2 For a discussion of the Casablancan dialect and how various speakers align themselves with it, or distance themselves from it, see Atiqa Hachimi (Citation2007).3 One exception is a recent article by Hachimi (Citation2022), which examines Moroccans’ attitudes towards the use of Darija by Middle Eastern singers. Also see Abdelfattah Kilito’s (Citation2017) fascinating reflections on his discomfort with speaking to an American woman in Darija.4 Reem Bassiouney (Citation2014, 185), for example, discusses an Egyptian film in which an Indian character (played by an Emirati actor) speaks in “pidgin Arabic.”5 The clearest example of this is the character Hoshiyar Qadin, played by Egyptian actress Yousra.6 Hicham Chraïbi, co-director of Plug-In, described the intended result as being “a new Darija, that is not too Casablancan, not too Fassi [from Fez], not too northern, not too vulgar” (cited in Miller Citation2012, 7). However, sociolinguistic analyses of Plug-In’s dubbed shows suggest that the language used veers towards Casablancan (Bensoukas and Blila Citation2013; Ziamari and Barontini Citation2013). Of particular interest is a recent study by Jacopo Falchetta (Citation2022), which argues that the register of Darija used in dubbed shows indexes a “de-localised individual.”7 Hall (Citation2015) describes encountering similar responses during her fieldwork in Morocco.8 For a detailed discussion of the development of Moroccan television and audience ratings from 2003 to 2012, see Miller (Citation2017).9 “Look Isabella, I love you to death, I swear … I can’t imagine life without you, it’s too much.”10 “I’m not some toy, if you want something real then talk to father and find a solution …” 11 In a review of reactions on the internet, Miller (Citation2017) reports that many felt that the Darija used for dubbing was “ridiculous” and sounded like an advertisement.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Fulbright U.S. Student Program and the American Institute for Maghrib Studies.