CD stores and stalls are freely selling and taking in great profits from unlicensed DVDs, including “Shrek,” “Madagascar,” and “El Dorado.” You don’t have to spend that much money to translate and “duplicate” cartoons in basements. Selling these cartoons are very popular among children. Russian translations are sometimes hard for children and teenagers to understand. They prefer to watch the same cartoons in Armenian and, since there is a demand to watch cartoons in Armenian, the “pirate” market reacts to this demand quickly, however, the market lacks quality by filling Yerevan with DVDs which may contain different contents. It is impossible to watch any of those DVDs and find information about the translation or the people that made the cartoon.
Recently, “HyeArt” held a discussion aimed at drawing the people’s attention to the creation, dissemination and the consequences of those cartoons. Those cartoons are awful in all aspects. “No foreign influence can harm us as much as we do to ourselves,” says actor Sos Sargsyan. True, we can already see the bad influence of those cartoons. It’s a fact that our young generation is spoiled. They often use such expressions from the cartoons as, “roll a joint,” “sniff the coke,” and “party.” This is the exaggerated image of our society, which we sometimes try to conceal. Slang has always existed, however, recently it is used on TV as well. The gap between the literate language and slang has increased so much, that sometimes we use more slang in our daily life than literate language. Main-characters from cartoons also speak that way, for example, the zebra, lion, Shrek, different insects, other characters. These characters start to act like Armenians. No matter how much we speak about our centuries old history and rich culture, that has nothing to do with the young generation because they don’t see the consequences of that culture in Armenian TV shows, films and “Armenianized” cartoons. These cartoons may have a destructive influence on children’s psychology because they are not mature enough to differentiate. That’s why they copy what the cartoon characters do or say. Many children are using slang words and street language heard from a number of TV commercials. According to psychologist Martin Vardanyan, these cartoons have a significant impact on children’s literacy. By watching their favorite characters using slang they think that it’s totally acceptable to talk like that. Cartoons are made to properly educate kids, according to which kind of characters always win over the bad ones, and since good wins over evil. The “Armenianized” cartoons do not fit those criteria. People who watch the original versions of those cartoons may notice that the Armenian version has a totally different plot and the music is different as well, the names of the main characters are also different, for example, Shrek becames Zhorig, Fieonna -Phlorik, etc. The music of the cartoon has totally been changed into low-quality songs. And there is no law that goes against the sale of these DVDs.
Is there an alternative?
There probably isn’t an alternative. Although there is legislation regulating the pirate market, we are convinced that those laws are not applied. Or the laws are applied only when the perpetrators are caught. It is possible to punish the ones who sell illegal goods because it is obvious that the ones who duplicated and translated the cartoons do not have license from the original authors. “Hay Art” has written a letter and sent it to six police departments. They are waiting for a response. The perpetrators must be punished, however, that doesn’t really solve the issue. It is not even important who the “ pirates” are. If they sell their products, then that means that there is a demand. But who should be working on a more literate and professional translation of the cartoons? After all, we know how difficult it is to get a license for translating and broadcasting the cartoons. The answer is obvious- the pirates have found out that there is a demand in the market and it will be very difficult to stop them unless there is a demand for better quality. Representative of the RA Ministry of Culture, Karo Vardanyan, thinks that those cartoons are barbaric, however, he cannot offer a solution, “This is not our job. If any individual proposes a plan to translate a cartoon, we may discuss that.” And the head of the State Language Department Lavrenti Mirzoyan doesn’t see a law defining translations, adding that the department can demand that the translation be in Armenian, however, they cannot check how the translation is being done. It doesn’t really matter because the cartoons are in Armenian. Sos Sargsyan’s question was very correct, “If you can’t do anything about this, then why are you called a Language Department in the first place? It turns out that no one is responsible for anything”.
The above-mentioned three American cartoons have been shown all over the world and their aim is to teach children lessons besides commercial purposes. Many of the participants of the discussion were saying that we only get the “American and European garbage”. However, the original versions of those cartoons are far from garbage. They are some of the classic cartoons.
Also, a new American cartoon will be shown called “Fiancée’s dead body”. This cartoon is about the unhappy life and love of the half-rotten girl. The author of the cartoon is Tim Barton, who’s known for his peculiar taste. His funny and vulnerable characters, which are not human but wish to live like human beings, may also be “Armenianized”. What will our authorities say about this cartoon, the authorities that do not accept anything that is not Armenian? They don’t understand that the world is moving on and that Armenia cannot stay behind. Children need high-quality cartoons because those cartoons have a good psychological influence. It turns out that children don’t have much to do besides watch TV shows and cartoons. Thanks to the “pirates”, they have to watch lame cartoons and instead of learning the moral of the cartoon, they will sit and laugh for hours just like the cartoon heroes of the Armenian version cartoons of today and the future.