Queer terms on RuPaul's Drag Race: an analysis of how american queer culture is translated to brazilian portuguese

Abstract

This graduation conclusion work aims to discuss queer language and culture and praise the art of drag, which is practiced by the author of this work, through the subtitles of the American reality show, RuPaul’s Drag Race. The general objective is to celebrate such culture by analyzing how the queer terms present in the program's subtitles were translated from English to Brazilian Portuguese. To reach this goal, first, there is a theoretical framework on Audiovisual Translation, focusing on the subtitles segment, using the translation techniques of Molina and Hurtado (2001) as the main guide, and citing other authors, such as Cintas and Remael (2007) and Rosa (2001). In addition to the theory of Audiovisual Translation, the origin of queer language in the United States and Brazil is also discussed. This work has a qualitative nature and a corpus made up of images and tables containing captions extracted from the reality show. For data collection, the first episode of the sixteenth season of the program was selected, and excerpts of moments of interactions between the competitors where terms considered queer were being used were prioritized. In total, twelve terms were analyzed. As well as how they were translated into Portuguese, and the possible justifications for that. After the conclusion of the analysis, it was possible to understand how such terms were translated and what techniques were used, and it was also possible to conclude that the reality show translators are familiar with the language used in the program and are concerned with adapting it to a reality very close to the Brazilian context.