Batman: Lost in Translation

For the past few months, I’ve been hanging out with a girl who recently moved here from Thailand. Her family fled Burma (Myanmar) when she was really young to escape the government’s persecution of their ethnic group, the Karen people. So she grew up in this Thai refugee camp on the border of Burma, and in February her name was drawn in a lottery and she was able to immigrate to the U.S.

Score.

She loves it here but obviously misses her family. She’s 19, and her family hasn’t yet received the opportunity to move.

Anyway, so the point I want to get across is that she hasn’t experienced a lot of first-world culture, growing up in mud hut and all. Obviously, movie theaters are included in this realm of culture she's never experienced. So last week I took her to see Batman at the Imax. I told her about the movie and its characters prior to the showing.

Now Nue Nu (her name) doesn’t understand English well enough to understand English movies, but she seemed entertained enough throughout – occasionally jumping out of her seat at shocking parts. I was a bit confused though, because she asked me a couple times throughout who was the bad guy, and who was the good guy. Personally, I thought this was rather obvious. So I would tell her “well, Batman is the good guy. Joker is bad because he kills people.” She understood me, but always acknowledged my answer with a confused look.” I think this happened a couple times.

The movie ended, she thought it was loud (as I guess would everyone who’s never really been around speakers before), but had enjoyed the experience. On the way back I’m chatting away about Batman and she stops me: “Wait, how do you spell batman’s name?”

“It’s B-A-T-M-A-N,” I said, “like the animal.” I started flapping my arms in a wing-like motion in case looking like a schizophrenic would in some way clarify my description.

A look of enlightenment literally (ok not really literally) washes over her face. “Ohhhh,” she exclaimed. “Batman….I thought you were saying his name is BADman!!”

We both had a good laugh over that one. No wonder she was so confused the whole movie. She thought the guys name was Badman and yet I’m telling her he’s the good guy. Batman got lost in translation. Oh well, at least Christian Bale’s beauty transcends ALL language and culture. Go Bruce Wayne!