Communication, Culture and Critique ISSN 1753–9129

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

(De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters in Latin

America: The Implications of Mexican
Dubbing for Translating Marginalized

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Identities
Laurena Bernabo *
University of Georgia, Entertainment & Media Studies

This article responds to calls for more detailed analyses of localization around the world
(E. Castelló, 2009; E. Levine, 2009; S. Waisbord & S. Jalfin, 2009) by examining a
Mexican dubbing company and its translation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgen-
der (LGBT) characters for Latin American audiences. Gay, lesbian, and transgender
characters’ identities are alternately maintained and mitigated because of industrial
norms and technical constraints. While LGBT content has been censored in other na-
tional contexts, the current study demonstrates the confluence of factors that result in
non-censorial manipulation of these marginalized identities in Latin America. This
grounded analysis pulls from ethnographic research at the Mexican dubbing studio
New Art Dub and discusses dubbing in terms of industrial practices and decision-
making processes to articulate the ways local and global elements intersect. Dubbing
professionals offer a point of entry to understand localization dynamics by highlighting
to role of cultural mediators whose decisions can reinforce or challenge cultural expecta-
tions of LGBT people.

Keywords: Audiovisual Translation, Dubbing, Mexico, Latin America, Television, lesbian,

gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)

doi:10.1093/ccc/tcab045

Television programs often require localization to reach new global audiences.

Localization, which recognizes the various differences between cultures, refers to
processes whereby foreign media content is made comprehensible to domestic audi-
ences (Chalaby, 2002). Localization frequently includes linguistic translation, pri-
marily dubbing or subtitling, which localizes language as well as cultural references
so that new target audiences can understand and enjoy foreign content. While

*Corresponding author: [email protected]

36 Communication, Culture and Critique 15 (2022) 36–51 V

C The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press

on behalf of International Communication Association. All rights reserved. For permissions,

please email: [email protected]
L. Bernabo (De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters

numerous translation scholars have attended to the technical constraints associated

with dubbing, fewer have addressed the role of translation professionals, the impact
of cultural industrial norms, or the implications of translation for the construction
of marginalized identities. The current study thus brings focus to the translation of
LGBT characters in dubbed content, where aural elements of vocal performance
add a level of complexity to identity translation.

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Translation scholars in Europe have examined how localization impacts or even
eliminates representations of LGBT people. For example, Dı́az-Cintas (2019) identi-
fies ways Spain’s mid-20th-century dubbing industry changed films to suit its dicta-
tor’s moral compass, and Bucaria (2018) addresses the contemporary elimination of
gay references and sex scenes in Italy. However, not all changes to lesbian, gay, bi-
sexual, and transgender (LGBT) characters are so intentional or obvious. This arti-
cle turns our attention to dubbing in Latin America, a region largely overlooked by
translation scholars in favor of European contexts (Fuentes-Luque, 2020). Aside
from Portuguese-speaking Brazil, Latin America is a geolinguistic region
(Straubhaar, 1991) comprised of 18 Spanish-speaking nations that generally receive
a single dubbed version of media imports. Cultural variations throughout Latin
America are set aside as the region is linguistically homogenized by a primarily
Mexican dubbing industry. In this two-step flow of media from the United States to
Mexico and from Mexico throughout Latin America, Mexican translators function
as cultural mediators, determining which elements of LGBT representation will be
understood and what must change—and how. Thus, while dubbing continues to be
subject to technical constraints, the adaptation of LGBT characters is impacted by
casting, vocal performance, queer cultural references, and the subjective perspec-
tives of dubbing professionals.
The current study answers the call for more detailed empirical analyses of how
localization happens (Castelló, 2009; Levine, 2009) by providing a grounded analy-
sis of dubbing and elucidating its significance for the adaptation of LGBT identities
in Latin America, using Glee as a case study. To that end, I privilege research experi-
ence over an extensive theoretical overview to illustrate “the thorny practical conse-
quences of these issues” (Dhoest, Cola, Brusa, & Lemish, 2012, p. 373). I ask: How
are LGBT identities reconstituted through the dubbing process in Latin America?
This article discusses dubbing in terms of industrial practices and decision-making
processes, articulating the ways local and global elements intersect in the represen-
tation of LGBT characters. I conceive of dubbing as a site of cultural production
and dubbing professionals as cultural producers; this cultural production approach
explores how individuals negotiate agency and constraints while navigating inter-
secting political, economic, and cultural elements (Han, 2017). The dubbing process
and dubbing professionals thus offer a point of entry to understand localization dy-
namics by highlighting the role of cultural mediators, namely script translators and
directors, whose decisions can reinforce or challenge cultural expectations of the
LGBT community. By examining workers’ cultural practices and the dubs they pro-
duce, this study interrogates how LGBT characters have been translated and

Communication, Culture and Critique 15 (2022) 36–51 37

(De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters L. Bernabo

transformed in the Latin American market. Because Glee lacks a clear articulation
of bisexuality (Miller, 2014), I focus my analysis on the translation of the multiple
gay, lesbian, and transgender characters to offer concrete examples of how the adap-
tation process reconstructs marginalized identities.
This study is based on my experiences at New Art Dub and with its personnel
and is informed by my time living in Central America. New Art Dub is a Mexico

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City dubbing studio where I conducted ethnographic research, interviewing, and
observing script translators, voice actors, directors, technicians, and administrators.
I spent one week in August of 2014 and two weeks in March of 2015 at New Art
Dub with its employees. Because I was observing these people in a professional set-
ting about their work, Institutional Review Board (IRB) granted me an exemption
for my research, and the people I spoke with agreed to be named in any future pub-
lications about my findings. Following my time in Mexico I maintained contact
with key individuals, primarily translator Jesús Vallejo, to gain further insight
through personal correspondence. New Art Dub boasts a large catalog of popular
U.S. films and television series including The Simpsons and The Hunger Games, but
I focus on their dubbing of Glee, known for its many LGBT characters, which aired
on the pan-Latin American paid family television network Canal Fox. I emphasize
the perspectives of the two individuals who have most power in determining the
specifics of Glee’s dubbed translation for Latin America, because they have the
greatest impact on the translation and re-presentation of LGBT characters; these
are Vallejo, who wrote the translated scripts, and Nicolas Frı́as, who directed the
dubbing actors in the studio as they recorded their lines. As Avilés-Santiago and
Báez (2019) demonstrate, a combination of industrial and textual analysis allows in-
dustry scholars to articulate the implications of linguistic practices for popular me-
dia content by enabling insight into the broader terrain of global media. I therefore
supplement the insights afforded by interviews, observations, and correspondence
with textual analysis of scenes that highlight the translation process. Common in
descriptive translation studies, the comparison of original and dubbed scenes allows
for practical descriptions that capture how industrial practices influence texts.
Through a textual analysis of select scenes and dialogue, and industrial analysis of
New Art Dub’s operating procedures and strategies, I demonstrate that many ele-
ments of LGBT identity are lost in translation in Latin American dubbing. Despite
descriptions of Latin America as a region “characterized by a machista culture in
which gender nonconformity has been widely suppressed” (Wilets, 2010, p. 349)
and where “homosexuality continues to be strongly stigmatized” (Pecheny, 2010, p.
105), I argue that the loss of LGBT elements results from numerous industrial and
cultural factors unrelated to ideological censorship.

Mexico’s dubbing industry: translators as cultural intermediaries

Mexico is a media capital (Curtin, 2004) in the international dubbing industry; it is

a center of media activity rich with industrial norms and logics, and services a large

38 Communication, Culture and Critique 15 (2022) 36–51

L. Bernabo (De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters

and diverse population. Mexico has enjoyed this position since replacing Puerto
Rico in the 1980s as the leading location of dubbing for Latin American audiences
(Fuentes-Luque, 2020). As such, the study of Mexican dubbing fosters grounded
analysis within a complex global media environment (Curtin, 2004). Spanish-
speaking Latin America typically receives a single dub for financial reasons, as it is
far less expensive to dub one version and circulate it throughout the region than to

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create a different dub for each country. However, this financial prudence comes at a
cost in that the single dub must be generic, using vocabulary that will be accessible
across national boundaries in lieu of regional slang or idioms that might better
communicate elements of LGBT identities. Vallejo, a script translator at New Art
Dub, must rely on his knowledge of the most common vocabulary throughout the
region to create a dub that is equally foreign and domestic.
Beyond homogenization, dubbing is also potentially subject to “ideology and
censorial forces” (Dı́az-Cintas, 2019, p. 182) which may crucially impact a text’s
translation. Vallejo characterizes this potential translator as “tradutore traitore,” an
Italian expression capturing translators’ ability to willfully change a text’s message
in the ways Ferrari (2010, 2015) has illustrated. The prospect of being such a
“traitor” is abhorrent to Vallejo, who is committed to serving the client—in this
case, Fox. As Vallejo explains it, he does his best to convey the messages of the
show as he understands them, “no matter [his] personal opinions” about the views
presented. However, changes made in translations may or may not be censorial.
Rather, they may be mere manipulation (Bucaria, 2018; Dı́az-Cintas, 2019).
Conceptually, manipulation more suitably applies to the dubbing process because it
accounts for ways that scripts and messages are changed. While censorship in dub-
bing constitutes manipulation, not all manipulations constitute censorship. For ex-
ample, changes may serve to synchronize lips, manipulating but not ideologically
censoring content.
Translation is thus steeped in issues of ethics, and anyone who has a say in
translation is ethically accountable (Greenall, Alvstad, Jansen, & Taivalkoski-Shilov,
2019). When it comes to translating LGBT characters, we are logically compelled to
consider the ethics of communication, or the ways translation respectfully handles
the “otherness” of the source’s culture, author, or text (Chesterman, 2014). The
translator who writes the dubbing script is perhaps the most important figure, ethi-
cally speaking, because they above all others exert control over the original text
(Cronin, 2006) as they mediate between the source (United States) and target (Latin
American) cultures, attempting to overcome incompatibilities which impede under-
standing in the dub (Hatim & Mason, 1990). Translators must both be bilingual
and have bicultural vision (Pettit, 2009) and as such hold great power, particularly
when they are the only bilingual individual among a dubbing team.
In addition to the intercultural work of creating translations, translators present
an avenue for examining how the construction of a cultural audience affects pro-
duction practices (Straubhaar, 2007). Gray (2016) thus advocates delving into trans-
lators’ understanding of themselves as well as how their identity impacts their work;

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(De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters L. Bernabo

the present study explores how dubbing professionals add to and complicate the
construction of identity. Translators complete their work by strategically utilizing
experiential methods (Patou-Patucchi, 2009) as they “relay perceived meaning val-
ues” (Hatim & Mason, 1997, p. vi) and make decisions according to a complex web
of industrial norms and institutional constrictions. For example, while Ferrari
(2010, 2015) chronicles the drastic manipulations rampant throughout Italian dub-

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bing, Vallejo’s work in Mexico privileges textual fidelity over protectionism against
U.S. influence. This approach aligns with the long history of U.S. soft imperialism
in, and even exploitation of, Latin America, whereby various transnational policies
facilitated the flow of finances and media from the United States throughout the re-
gion (Fox, 1988). This history underlies the industrial logics by which New Art Dub
emphasizes fidelity to the source material, thus maintaining successful relationships
with U.S. clients. The sharp contrast between the Italian and Mexican contexts illus-
trates how translators’ power relations and resistance figure into program
localization.
Translation is inherently subjective, and translations are invariably informed by
translators’ values. As Han (2017) articulates, it is important to examine how cul-
tural translators negotiate social relations and construct their roles through their
work. Vallejo’s identity and background undoubtedly inform his understanding of
LGBT characters, as well as his conceptualizations of himself and of the Latin
American audience. Vallejo received a bilingual education in Mexico and later went
on to live in the United States and England. In addition to earning Certificates of
Proficiency in English from the University of Michigan and the University of
Cambridge, Vallejo passed the University of Oxford’s high-level Examination in
English. Finally, he received the Diploma of Translator/Interpreter in English from
Berlitz, an organization established in 1878 and certified by the U.S. Government
Agencies Administration. Vallejo underwent more than 50 hours of training to
learn how to dub media texts from the United States and has translated more than
3,500 episodes to date. His Royal Academy of the Spanish Language dictionary now
gathers dust as Vallejo is typically able to translate scripts without consulting refer-
ence materials, due in part to his experience and familiarity with regional vocabu-
laries. As the sole bilingual individual directly involved in Glee’s dub, Vallejo enjoys
a considerable amount of agency and a minimal degree of oversight in linguistically
and culturally translating the series.
Vallejo and Argentinian director Nicolas Frı́as share a conceptualization of the
Latin American audience. While U.S. television series are typically written and di-
rected by numerous individuals, Mexican-dubbed programs are more likely to have
just one or two writers and directors over the course of the series, and so Vallejo
and Frı́as bring a degree of internal consistency and coherence. Vallejo writes the
dubbing script for each episode, not just translating the dialogue from English to
Spanish but making choices about what references or topics will be understood and
what must change in order for Latin American viewers to understand Glee. After
Vallejo submits a script, Frı́as leads dubbing actors through their lines, directing

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L. Bernabo (De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters

their performances to communicate their characters as he sees fit. Their specific

duties are variously affected by fidelity, casting, and other industrial factors, but
their approach is shaped in part by their perception of what the audience will un-
derstand and how they will decode a dubbed series. Both Vallejo and Frı́as are edu-
cated, middle-/upper-class urban professionals who describe Latin America as a
socially progressive region. Reflecting on his time living in the United States,

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Vallejo describes himself as accustomed to U.S. culture and literate in cultural icons;
accordingly, Vallejo feels confident speaking authoritatively on matters of cultural
difference between the United States and Latin America.
In watching a dub, Latin American audiences do not consume a U.S. program
but rather the translator’s and director’s interpretation of it, with these men serving
as surrogate consumers (Harrington & Bielby, 2005) in the chain of consumption.
Vallejo and Frı́as filter information and make linguistic and cultural changes on be-
half of their imagined audience, through the lens of their urban, financially secure
positions—two factors typically associated with more LGBT-friendly perspectives
(Murray, 2010). Because of their backgrounds and progressive imagined audience,
Vallejo and Frı́as make decisions that, for instance, embrace the depiction of bigots
as ugly and socially inferior, and work to maintain respectful representations of ho-
mosexuality. The progressive picture they paint is in sharp contrast to reports of vi-
olence and discrimination against LGBT people throughout Latin America (e.g.,
Merentes, 2010; Wilets, 2010). This is not to say that Latin Americans are indis-
criminately homophobic or that conditions have not improved over time, but that
progress has not been swift or uniform but, instead, sporadic (Wilets, 2010). As
such, the representation of LGBT characters in Latin America remains culturally
significant because such representations, whether domestic or dubbed imports, po-
tentially influences common discourses surrounding marginalized sexualities in the
region.

Translating LGBT identities in Latin America

While a detailed history of LGBT people in Latin America is beyond the scope of
this study, this brief introduction to gay identity constructions in the region serves
to highlight the complexity of translating LGBT identities for Latin America.
Sexuality is culturally specific (Obermeyer, 2000; Oswin, 2006; Phua, 2010), making
it difficult to write conclusively about gays or lesbians in a global context. For exam-
ple, gay men in the United States should not be homogenously grouped with gay
Italian, Thai, or Indonesian men, because the label works differently within each
country in which it is used (Obermeyer, 2000; Oswin, 2006) . The construction of
sexuality in Latin America is tied to its regional history, and Glee is positioned to
challenge the region’s more essentialized, gender-based sexual stereotypes. In vari-
ous studies of Latino homosexuality, the label refers to those who are penetrated
and thus feminized (Ocampo, 2012; Phua, 2010); they are the members of any
same-sex dyad who will identify as “gay,” with regional words for “top” (activo) and

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(De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters L. Bernabo

“bottom” (pasivo) further demonstrating the binary paradigm of sexual identities

(Chant & Craske, 2003; Jeffries, 2009). The top/bottom binary is historically present
throughout Latin America, and within this framework gayness has gendered and re-
ductionist connotations that conflict with a more masculine gender presentation, so
that the more masculine partner experiences less stigma than the more feminine
partner (Jeffries, 2009; Ocampo, 2012).

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While this binary paradigm has evolved, it has not done so consistently
throughout Latin America (Phua, 2010). Some scholars identify a growing popula-
tion of versatile gay men who switch between the active and passive role (Carballo-
Diéguez et al., 2004; Carrillo, 1999), but others note that Latino men prefer tradi-
tional sex roles within same-sex relationships (Cáceres & Rosasco, 1999; Jeffries,
2009). One explanation for this development is the differing social context in which
newer generations have developed their sexual identities, with younger participants
identifying more opportunities to interact with LGBT individuals and communities,
as well as increased queer visibility which makes it easier to come out at a younger
age (Severson et al., 2013). Thus, queer Latin American identities are complex, nu-
anced, and variable; sexual roles, practices, and identities are linked or even con-
flated to different degrees from one cultural context to the next.
We must therefore understand that dubbed programs produce different identi-
ties across these varied contexts. For example, when the macho, closeted football
player Dave Karofsky is outed and his teammates bully him by spray painting “fag”
(dubbed in the voiceover as maricón) on his locker, there are ways in which Dave’s
status as a gay man is challenged, or differently understood, by various Latin
American conceptions of sexualities. Both Parker’s (1999) and Carrillo’s (1999)
studies suggest that Dave is marked homosexual in the Mexican context based on
his attraction to men, as it would be in the U.S. context. However, his masculine de-
meanor does not produce or communicate an identity of difference throughout
Latin America, specifically in countries with sexual systems that privilege a man’s
masculine performance over the sex of his partner (Phua, 2010). In other words,
some Latin American nations would understand Dave to be a gay man, but others
would not. While Dave’s angst points to the social risks tied to the unapologetic
open assertion of gay identity, the openly-gay character Kurt Hummel, who per-
forms gender fluidity and relative femininity, aligns with Clark et al.’s (2013) asser-
tion that the feminine gender performance and passive role are often blurred; as a
result, Kurt’s homosexual identity is more consistently reproduced throughout
Latin America.
Glee’s dub thus provides a single translation to a complex region containing nu-
merous understandings of LGBT identities. Various factors influence the re-
construction of these identities; exploring three such factors illuminates both the
opportunities to reinforce LGBT characters’ identities and the ways LGBT identities
may be lost in translation, while demonstrating that such losses do not result from
ideological censorship. The first factor is the casting process and dubbing actors’

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L. Bernabo (De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters

vocal performances. The second factor is the adaptation of stereotypes and cultural
references. The third factor is the gendered nature of the Spanish language.

The casting process and vocal performances

Scholarship on the aural dimensions of sexuality and gender, while less common
than visual elements (Peraino, 2007), nevertheless provide some insight into how

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these identities are vocally performed. Like traditional notions of women’s speech
(Smyth, Jacobs, & Rogers, 2003), gay men’s speech is stereotypically characterized
by a higher pitch and melodious flow (Swanson, 2015), as well as swooning intona-
tion, clipped tones, vocal fry, upspeak, and stretched sibilant consonants which are
often mistaken for a lisp (Shariatmadari, 2015). These characteristics are perform-
ances rather than indicative of biologically determined speech patterns, but com-
ments from New Art employees suggest their consistency throughout Latin
America. It would be imprudent to assert that U.S. stereotypes of gay men’s speech
have shaped gay Latino speech patterns, but New Art employees nonetheless indi-
cate cross-cultural consistencies in the form of more feminized styles, as indicated
by their characterization of Kurt’s dub.
As is often the case with gay characters, Kurt’s vocal performance serves as an
aural marker of his sexuality, but this is not maintained by the dub. The voice of the
original actor, Chris Colfer, is high, soft, and airy, unlike that of the dubbing actor,
Diego Angeles. New Art employees seemed to agree that Angeles was a poor casting
choice, with a key administrator lamenting that the dubbed Kurt “speaks like any
other guy” and thus fails to capture Kurt’s decidedly flamboyant personality.
However, this was beyond Frı́as’s control as director because of the casting process
for Glee’s dub. Angeles had in fact been selected by the client (Fox) after hearing
recordings of potential actors; it is possible they specifically chose an actor with a
deeper voice for fear of how an audibly gay character would fare in the Latin
American context. Whatever the reason, the result was a drastic change to the
“spirit” of Kurt’s character in the dub. The industrial imperative of internal consis-
tency over the course of the series precluded Frı́as from recasting the role or dra-
matically altering Angeles’s performance when he became the series director in the
third season. While Frı́as insists that Angeles is a marvelous voice actor in his own
right, the director also laments the actor’s inability to do justice to Colfer’s natural
tone or to capture his dynamic speech style. Thus, Kurt’s flamboyance is effectively
muted in the dub. This is amplified by the later casting of Edson Matus to dub
Kurt’s love interest Blaine, played by Darren Criss. While Blaine (Criss) has a much
deeper voice and more masculine tone than Kurt (Colfer), the reverse is true in the
dub. The result is a peculiar aural switch between the two characters from the origi-
nal to the dub. In the dub, Kurt’s effeminate identity performance is mitigated by
the deepening of his voice, both unto itself and compared to Blaine.
While his hands were tied by casting and the imperative towards consistency,
Frı́as attempted to combat these constraints through stereotypically gay

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(De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters L. Bernabo

paralinguistic elements. Frı́as finesses an airier vocal performance out of Angeles,

much like a breathy falsetto; this directorial choice works strategically, within com-
peting cultural and industrial imperatives, to capture the gay sensibility and respect-
fully emulate Colfer’s voice without sacrificing the Glee dub’s internal consistency.
Frı́as also directed Angeles to alter his tone in response to the dialogue’s content so
that the character sounds more grounded when discussing serious issues.

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As with Kurt, the transgender character Unique is directed in ways that aim to
capture the character’s spirit and be true to the original while maintaining a respect
for LGBT people. Originally introduced as a teenage boy named Wade, this charac-
ter soon discloses that they are transgender and go by the name Unique. Miguel
Ruiz’s dubbing performance of Unique emulates that of the original actor, Alex
Newell, in that he vocalizes Unique and Wade differently. Wade is shy and soft-
spoken whereas Unique is confident and assertive. Ruiz expressed a commitment to
being respectful to the trans community in his performance, to ensure that it did
not ridicule the character and that his performance was not farcical. Frı́as assisted
him in achieving the distinction between Wade’s and Unique’s speech styles by
working to replicate Newell’s aural dichotomy. Frı́as directed Ruiz to speak proudly
when Unique is on screen, and when Ruiz’s voice would slip out of the more effemi-
nate register, reminded the actor to go higher and breathier in delivering his lines.

Stereotypes and cultural references

Identity is sometimes conveyed visually, and these elements tend to survive the
translation process. For example, while he does not verbalize his gayness until the
third episode, Kurt is immediately marked as gay through his porcelain skin and
fashionable outfit. When asked about this, Vallejo at first claimed that Latin
Americans do not stereotype gay men, but moments later conceded that he imme-
diately knew Kurt to be gay because of his general appearance and his fixation on
his Marc Jacobs jacket, demonstrating the translatability of these nonverbal cues.
Kurt thus provides a rather narrow, stereotypical depiction of gay masculinity.
However, the existence of other gay characters in Glee makes this depiction less
problematic and merely important because the series does not rely exclusively on
such stereotypes. His love interest Blaine first appears in a school uniform free of
sexual connotations, only to verbally identify as gay within minutes of his
introduction.
It is worth noting that the ubiquity of visual stereotypes and verbal indicators of
Kurt’s sexuality perhaps mitigates the need for the level of attention Frı́as gives to
commanding an aurally gay performance from Angeles. Though various studies
suggest that listeners are generally able to judge a speaker’s sexual orientation
(Linville, 1998; Smyth et al., 2003)—a trend complicated by Kurt’s dubbing—visual
elements influence these judgements (Smyth et al., 2003). Viewers might also pick
up on the small choices Vallejo makes that showcase Kurt’s sexuality vis-à-vis vo-
cabulary. In an example from early in the series, Kurt thanks Finn for helping him

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L. Bernabo (De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters

to prepare for his role as kicker on the high school football team. Kurt originally
tells Finn, “You’re really cool,” but Vallejo changes this to “Eres fabuloso,” fabulous
being a word with decidedly queer connotations. Other expressions, however, are
difficult to translate because of their peculiar phrasing, such as when Kurt’s father
fondly refers to him as “queer as a three-dollar bill.” Vallejo translates this into
“bastante afeminado” (“quite feminine”) and contends that this expression doesn’t

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translate well and may be deemed offensive.
LGBT performance might depend on cultural references in addition to, or in
place of, aural indicators and visual stereotypes. For example, the character of
Santana is a lesbian whose sexuality is not communicated aurally or visually; rather,
Santana is represented as queer-femme, blending into a heterosexual mainstream
through her performance of stereotypically normative femininity (Hobson, 2015).
This contrasts with the traditional visual markings that stereotypes queer femininity
as white, androgynous, short-haired, middle-class, flannel-clad, and unfeminine. As
a queer femme, Santana wears feminine clothing, sports long hair and painted nails,
and generally performs the Hollywood trope of the sexualized Latina vamp
(Merskin, 2007). Her lesbian identity is largely performed through queer cultural
references that Latin American viewers may or may not recognize.
Extralinguistic cultural references (Pedersen, 2007), including the names of peo-
ple, places and institutions, may be monocultural, meaning they are likely not un-
derstood by the Latin American audience, or transcultural, in which they are likely
as accessible to Spanish-speakers as they are to English-speaking viewers of the
original program in the United States. Roughly 80% of extralinguistic cultural refer-
ences are proper names (Tomaszkiewicz, 2011), and Vallejo, the sole arbiter of these
references, frequently treats them as transcultural and leaves them as they are in the
dub. Vallejo has the option of utilizing references that are somehow localized equiv-
alents, but often opts not to do so. Depending on their familiarity with U.S. LGBT
popular culture, Latin American viewers may be left with unfamiliar cultural refer-
ences, with implications for their understanding of LGBT characters. For example,
viewers who do not recognize the Melissa Etheridge and the Indigo Girls as lesbian
musical icons may not understand their evocation as a performance of lesbian iden-
tity; they may also fail to understand Santana’s reference to the “flannel closet” or
the notion that she “get a flat top.” Without the audience’s understanding of these
references, Santana’s communication of her lesbian identity is mitigated, though
not exactly censored.
Vallejo’s decision to maintain these references in the dub, rather than replace
them with local equivalents, may be attributed to any number of factors. Certainly,
maintaining a name like “Melissa Etheridge” achieves both fidelity to the original
and lip synchronization, as the dubbed voice easily lays over the on-screen move-
ment of the U.S. actor’s lips. It may be the case that Vallejo believes that these refer-
ences will be understood and accessible to Latin American viewers; after all, he
immediately replaced a reference to the Amish with a reference to Mennonites,
explaining that “Latinos do not know who the Amish are” but that Mennonites “are

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(De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters L. Bernabo

everywhere and are known for selling cheese.” It would thus make sense if this cos-
mopolitan, U.S.-educated translator deemed Melissa Etheridge a transcultural refer-
ence. By maintaining these references, however, Vallejo misses the opportunity to
highlight queer Latin American icons who could stand in as local, terminological
equivalents (Tomaszkiewicz, 2011). His choice does not appear to be ideologically
censorial, and yet it effectively strips these references of their queer potential for

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many viewers in the Latin American context.
Manipulations sometimes occur not in the script but in the dubbing booth and
may work to exaggerate difference rather than mitigate it. Various scenes containing
bullying and violence are changed during the recording to augment the vilification
of toxic, homophobic men. In both the first and second seasons, a bully yells at
Kurt and addresses him by his last name, but in both cases “Hummel” was replaced
with the slur “marica.” Similarly, in a fifth season scene in which Kurt rushes to the
defense of a gay man being beaten by violent thugs yelling “Shut up, faggot!” the
dub includes one yelling “Te lo mereces!” (You deserve it!). In discussing this pat-
tern, Vallejo maintains that he did not make these changes in translating the script,
rather they were the results of decisions made in the recording booth. We must
conclude, then, that the director elected to make these changes; embellishing these
instances of hate speech serves to reinforce and even intensify the rhetorical fram-
ing of homophobes as despicable and threatening. The aggressors in these scenes
are already overtly villainous, but by subtly implementing their own bias against
bigotry, the directors make it even more impressive when Kurt stands up for him-
self and others.

Spanish as a gendered language

A final factor that comes into play in the dubbing of LGBT characters is the gen-
dered nature of Spanish (Beller, Brattebø, Lavik, Reigstad, & Bender, 2015). English
contains lexical gender, distinguishing between words like “aunt” and “uncle,” but
in Spanish these words—“tı́a” and “tı́o”—have both lexical and grammatical gender.
Words thus have masculine (-o) or feminine (-a) connotations and employ referen-
tial gender through pronouns (Hellinger & Bußmann, 2002). As is often the case
with gendered languages, Spanish utilizes a false generic wherein mixed and unspe-
cified groups are described with masculine language. There are added complications
when dubbing from English into Spanish because English lacks grammatical gen-
der, and the resulting translation can result in gendered connotations (Nissen,
2002). This becomes relevant in discussing Rachel’s parents, as she was adopted
and raised by two gay men. Rachel regularly references her “dads,” and in the pilot
her voiceover states that she has “two gay dads” as she looks at family photos of
herself with two adult men. Because of grammatical gender, the words for “parents”
and “fathers” or “dads” are identical: padres. Vallejo translates this initial disclosure
directly as “dos padres gay.” However, Rachel does not typically refer to them as
“gay dads” but merely “dads,” which translates to “padres” and can therefore be

46 Communication, Culture and Critique 15 (2022) 36–51

L. Bernabo (De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters

easily read as “parents” by those who have forgotten Rachel’s background. Without
direct intervention from Vallejo to explicitly mark Rachel’s fathers as gay, her refer-
ence to her “padres” might be decoded to refer to her mother and father. While
viewers see her family photos in the pilot and eventually meet Rachel’s dads, their
gay identity, communicated to U.S. viewers with every utterance of “dads,” is muted
in the dub.

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Grammatical gender also complicates the translation of transgender characters.
When a character transitions from Shannon (woman) to Sheldon (man) in the final
season, neither the actress nor the dubbing actress was recast. Indeed, the actress’s
naturally deep voice works well for Sheldon and did not warrant modification in
the original, and so the dubbing actress, Gabriela Gomez, continued to perform at
this deeper, more masculine register than her normal speaking voice. The complica-
tion arose from Gomez’s and Frı́as’s unfamiliarity with, or inattention to, transgen-
der communication practices. While the utterance “I’m ready” is identical when
spoken by woman or man in English, it changes from “estoy lista” (feminine) to
“estoy listo” (masculine) in Spanish. One’s self-references in Spanish are gendered
through such indicators, and Gomez was used to referring to herself, and to her
characters, as women. Thus, when Sheldon declares in his voiceover that he is
“ready” to be his true self, Gomez misread Vallejo’s script translation (“listo”) and
read the line in the feminine form (“lista”), and neither Frı́as nor the sound engi-
neer noticed the error. This instance illustrates how translation errors can result not
from a malicious or censorial denial of transgender identity, but from dubbing pro-
fessionals’ lack of familiarity with transgender identities and communicative
practices.

Conclusion

The representation of LGBT characters is important, both in U.S. television pro-

grams and their dubbed counterparts. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation (GLAAD) has long reported on the implications of these representa-
tions, for example, in fueling tolerance (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation, 2010). Glee’s depictions of, and messages about, sexually marginalized
people should thus be considered in the context of global media flows and the ex-
portation and translation of ideologically progressive programming. Because Glee
contains a range of LGBT characters, its dubbing provides valuable insight into
LGBT translation practices. Through this product- and process-oriented translation
analysis, I have demonstrated how numerous factors interact to affect the dubbing
of LGBT characters and offered insights into the ways dubbed programs shape the
messages contained therein. The dubbing of these identities illustrates how identity-
based stereotypes can be exported, perpetuated, and cultivated or, conversely, miti-
gated. While previous Europe-based studies have compared media texts and their
dubs to demonstrate how dubbing professionals censor LGBT-themed content, the
current study’s emphasis on production practices provides empirical evidence for

Communication, Culture and Critique 15 (2022) 36–51 47

(De/Re)Constructing LGBT Characters L. Bernabo

my argument that textual manipulations can result instead from a combination of

industrial norms, technical constraints, and human error.
Translation is a complex and understudied area of analysis within global media,
with implications for numerous facets of identity politics. By exploring the dubbing
process in varying contexts and emphasizing different ways translators address di-
verse identities, we can begin to develop theories that “account for a fractured, in-

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termittent, yet powerfully influential relationship between globalization and
subjectivities” (Boellstorff, 2003, p. 225). Dubbing professionals around the globe
work to merge media texts’ visuals and ideological elements with new languages
and cultures, thus affecting the communication of ideological values and diverse
identities. This process is rife with opportunities for cultural influence that can
shape the reconstruction of religious (Ferrari, 2010), racial (Bernabo, 2021), and
sexual (Malici, 2011) identities for new audiences. While production norms are cul-
turally contextual, they are also hybrids, influenced by producers in both the source
and target cultures. The context in which dubbing occurs, including the extent to
which translators are creating dubs for either a single country or a large geolinguis-
tic region, means that dubbers’ production norms are themselves localized products
of global media flows. In the case of Latin America’s single Spanish-language dub,
the financially-motivated reduction of a diverse population to a readily decipherable
linguistic marker complicates the translation of marginalized identities by limiting
the opportunities for localization beyond the broad strokes of a homogenized Latin
American population .

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