Dubbing has been an integral part of releasing the films in foreign countries. There have been plenty of movies and shows which are released in India and are dubbed in Hindi to get a nationwide appeal. With the arrival of OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video in India, the frequency of dubbed shows and movies have increased as these platforms especially Netflix usually puts a Hindi versions for all of its original movies and shows.
Big studios generally want their product to do well in other countries and hence they always go for tried and tested method of casting a big native star to dub the show or movie, or will release the film on their name.
This has been the case for few of hit movie franchises and shows, the makers hire big actors to do the voice over in Hindi so as to gain a large attraction of local audience.
But this case has worked only a few times with actors such as Shah Rukh Khan or Irrfan Khan who have given voices in Disney movies recently. Dubbing is usually done by talented artists of the field and India comprises a lot of these exciting talent. But due to the star factor these budding talents have suffered a lot in times.
Plus with Indian audience getting familiar with the dubbed voices of their favourite stars gives a lot of advantage and confidence to these dubbing artists who gets recognition for being the voice of a particular actor.
And with that being said, people generally like to hear them as it gives them a sense of familiarity. But nowadays due to star factor makers hire celebrities to dub even though their voices doesn’t match with the character. For those who know dubbing isn’t just saying the dialogues in the desired language, it is capturing the essence of the character with his facial expressions and thus delivering the dialogues in same manner. So if anyone thinks that the dialogue are too ordinary, you are wrong, it’s the way of delivering that matters in dubbing.
There have been several cases of miscasting in the field of dubbing as well, with the most recent being the American superhero show The Boys. Here Rajkummar Rao was casted for lending his voice to the character of Homelander. Now Rajkummar being a fantastic actor and performer has given his best, but still the voice doesn’t suit to a intimidating and ruthless character like Homelander.
With Disha Patani dubbing for Starlight, it gives the impression that she’s just reading the dialogues instead of delivering them. Not against anyone but what’s the point of casting an actor/actress who are not able to do justice for the role. And that’s coming with the fact that there are so many talented dub artists who not only can capture the essence but even can manipulate their voices to give a better feel to the given characters.
It’s not like that only big names guarantees success to a dubbed version of, best example is of Deadpool which came in 2016 and surprised everyone with it’s Hindi Dub. While most of the audience already made up their mind to watch the movie in English, the dub from Sanket Mhatre as Deadpool blew everyone and garnered so much praise from everywhere. Such was the impact of that movie that it has become a cult classic especially for it’s Hindi Dub. Sanket Mhatre who has given his voice for many big actors from all over the world that he is a recognisable talent in India.
Unfortunately he was replaced by Ranveer Singh in Deadpool 2 just to create more attention towards the film, but the the dub from his wasn’t received well by the audience.
Hence, with the backlash that The Boys has been receiving just gives a insight of audience’s mind who doesn’t really want the star factor but instead they want a decent outcome which doesn’t disappoint them. The makers too should give chances to deserving and talented voice artists instead of going for the star factor as it doesn’t necessarily churn out the desired results.