Arab language MBC TV will be starting an arabized version of The Simpsons, Al Shamshoon, during Ramadan this year. It's dubbed into Arabic and there have been changes to fit Islamic sensibilities: Homer (now Omar) will drink coke instead of beer. All pork related products have been banished.
There was an article about it in the WSJ the morning, but it's not available online. Here's an Egyptian blog discussing it.
Sheesh, even I find it easy the hate America when watching The Simpsons, which is why I hadn't done it in ten years or so.
Of course, maybe we're not all as different as you'd think. All the people the WSJ article quoted who were angry were angry because they thought arabizing the series would 'ruin it'.
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4 comments:
Now don't start in on The Simpsons ... just when I thought that you really had a mind of your own. :-0
There are two types of people: those who prefer The Simpsons, and those who prefer Futurama. We're definitely in the Futurama camp.
(And then there are those people who could care less, but we're not talking about them.)
But where does that leave us? We LOVE them both!
I guess we're just special (and I'm not gonna go into the definition of "special" right now. Ahem.) :-0
Speaking for myself, I think the reason I can enjoy Futurama but not Simpsons is that I know the SF, movie and history references that feed most of the situations in Futurama, but could care less about the American culture and American family life themes that seem to feed The Simpsons.
I don't necessarily loath the Simpsons (it'd be hard to given I've only seen one episode in the last ten years -- though I think I say most of the first two seasons back in the day) but mostly just don't have any interest in them...
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