Misunderstood Armitage

I am one of those damaged individuals who like bad puns and love a mondegreen. They occur in every language, and I find the old saw about “José, can you see?” hilarious. So I find stuff like the video below  inventive, particularly in light of a recent self-revelation that Mr. Armitage may have played a bit part as a dancing banana at the Birmingham Rep, early on in his career. (It’s an example of “misheard lyrics,” a variation on the genre of literal music video, which in turn is an instance of the ancient practice of contrafactum — something you’d learn a lot about if you took one of my upper-division lectures.) Your mileage may vary — I’m sure many people will only find it weird.

Misheard lyrics to Caramell, Caramelldansen (2001). The wikipedia article suggests that this is one example of an internet meme of which I was entirely unaware.

When it comes to the U.K., I really do struggle. For instance, when I look at the written version of Mr. Armitage’s name, I notice that it has three R’s (RichaRd aRmitage) but when I hear him pronouncing it himself I only hear the first one. To me, it sounds like “Ritched Ahmitidge.” That’s not a complaint, I mean, the man must know how to pronounce his own name, right? So the problem is clearly on my side. I’m not criticizing his pronunciation, only poking fun at my poor comprehension. I may be fatally challenged in this regard. I once visited Edinburgh with a German friend and he understood what people were saying to us much better than I did.

So one reason I remain committed to actually purchasing DVDs of Mr. Armitage’s work as opposed to looking only at internet copies is that the DVDs are usually closed-captioned. For “hearing impaired” people like me — those of us who don’t automatically assimilate to the fascinating world of the accents of great Britain — this feature is important. As I noted, I finally heard understood what Lee said to Ramona in their first scene together in Cold Feet 5. I haven’t watched the last two hours of Strike Back from the DVD yet, but I fully anticipate that actually understanding what Ewen Bremner is saying could substantially change my understanding of the plot of the piece. (Also true for his role Spooks 8.6, but those DVDs won’t be here for a few more weeks.)

A clash of confusing accents: Sarah Caulfield (Genevieve O’Reilly) tries to get information out of Ryan Baisley (Ewen Bremner) while Ros (Hermione Norris) looks on, in Spooks 8.6. My cap.

Some times these things are useful, because I just have no idea exactly what is being said. For instance, here, as Porter attempts to reassure his daughter about their forthcoming move, he’s clearly telling her to move over so he can lie down next to her, but I had no idea what he said.

“Budge up,” John Porter (Richard Armitage) says to his daughter, Alexandra (Lauren das Neves) as he cuddles up with her in Strike Back 1.1. My cap. Now I know! (I’ll also mention that it’s a remarkably graceful move to swing your legs up onto a bed from a standing position when you can’t use your left arm to support yourself. Alexandra has a remarkably elegant daddy at this point. Why couldn’t this production have included a military ball? I’d have paid a lot to have seen Porter ballroom dancing with Diane.)

What a relief. I now know that you don’t say “move over” in England. This is the kind of detail that can keep me awake at night. But sometimes I am relieved to discover the captioners are even more at sea than I am. For instance, in this scene, where Collinson has just ordered the helicopter pilot to leave As’ad in Iraq and Porter is angry and yells something at Collinson over the video link. Actually I was pretty sure I understood what Porter said here.

“You’re busted!” John Porter (Richard Armitage) yells after Hugh Collinson (Andrew Lincoln) when Collinson refuses to extract As’ad in Strike Back 1.2. My cap.

I don’t think so. I think the closed-captioner is the one who’s busted here. Of course, it would be indelicate to write what Porter shouts at Collinson, even if noticing this error amused the heck out of me.

(Don’t tell me that this caption is an intentional euphemism. That would spoil a lot of my sense of know-it-all superiority. Grin!)

~ by Servetus on September 5, 2010.