“Born This Way,” but Maybe Not Gay

If you watched the ball drop in Times Square, you probably think you know how Lady Gaga spent her New Years eve. What you might not know, though, is that, thanks to a bit of prerecorded magic, she was also the headline performer for the Japanese national broadcaster’s New Years special.

To say NHK’s annual Kohaku music competition is big in Japan would be an understatement. It’s huge. It’s been around since 1951 and it’s hard to consider anyone a major Japanese artist if they haven’t appeared on it. It’s easily the top rated music show of the year on any channel. If you were in Japan there’s a good chance you, or your friends, or your parents, or your grandparents were watching it.

For the gay community in Japan, the possibility of Lady Gaga performing “Born This Way” on the Kohaku competition was electrifying. “Born This Way” is a powerful anthem for gay people around the world. This isn’t Katy Perry, who “kissed a girl” but wants to remind us that 1. she was drunk (“drink in hand, lost my discretion”) and 2. she’s not a lesbian (“I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it”). This also isn’t “I Will Survive” or “Y.M.C.A,” neither of which make explicit reference to L, G, B, or T people. The lyrics in “Born This Way” are unequivocal:

No matter gay, straight or bi
lesbian, transgendered life
I’m on the right track, baby
I was born to survive

Unfortunately, if you were reading the subtitles on that NHK used for the song on Dec. 31 you would probably think it was about something else entirely. While there are two generally accepted ways one could translate “gay, straight or bi, lesbian, transgendered” into Japanese (either using English lone-words or the slightly less accurate but more readily understood kanji characters), NHK decided to create something entirely new and original:

性的好みなんてどうでもいい [I don't care what kind of sex you like]
私は正しい道を進んでいる [I'm on the right path]
どんな困難も乗り越える [I will overcome any difficulties]

Wha—what the?!?!? And “I don’t care what kind of sex you like” is actually a charitable translation! The nuance is really more “I could care less what your sexual fetish is.” (Definitions of 好み in both 大辞泉 and 大辞林 use the term 嗜好, which appears in all sorts of words that English speakers might end in “-philia.” 英辞郎 also even includes an English translation of a very similar phrase [性的嗜好] to the one used in the NHK translation.) In short, it makes it sound like the “right path” that Lady Gaga is on probably leads to an S&M club or some sort of fetish party.

Witness a collective sigh from every L, G, B, and T person in Japan.

This isn’t just a bad translation, it’s an incorrect translation. It’s a translation that reinforces the invisibility of the gay community, a translation that confuses identity with fetish, and a translation that disempowers Lady Gaga herself as someone who has helped make LGBT people more visible, transforming her into little more than a sexually deviant circus freak.

It’s also an unnecessarily incorrect translation. NHK is the home to Hāto wo Tunagō, a serious program that deals with gay, lesbian, and trans issues, and one would expect the channel to provide a reasonably accurate translation of lyrics referencing L, G, B, and T. Ironically, though, it was Fuji TV that accurately translated the lyrics when Lady Gaga appeared on SMAPxSMAP on July 11.

Lady Gaga has ignored the issue thus far, despite heavy coverage in Japanese social media.

Update (Jan 12, 2012): Did Lady Gaga Approve an LGBT-free Translation of “Born This Way”?

Links:

• Crasstalk: Lady Gaga Censored on Japanese New Year’s Show [English]
• Hiroko Tabuchi on Twitter: [Tweet ] [English]
• Dokohesanpo, Naniwosampo (detailed analysis of the lyrics): On the Subtitles for Lady Gaga’s Lyrics on NHK’s Kohaku [Japanese]
• gladxx (gay perspective): Lady Gaga Sings “Born This Way” on New Years Eve in Japan and the US [Japanese]

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