Transfeminine Identity and HIV/AIDS in Audiovisual Translation Dallas Buyers Club and its Italian Subtitled Versions

The scope of this study is twofold. On the one hand, we seek to investigate the way gender roles are negotiated and how the transgender feminine identity is (re)affirmed within a difficult health context such as HIV/AIDS. We examine how issues such as homosexuality, sickness due to HIV/AIDS and identity are developed and constantly negotiated by the two main characters, Ron Woodroof and Rayon. Their language, the way it develops throughout their friendship and how it shapes their need to assert their own identities is investigated in all three datasets. On the other hand, the comparison of the two Italian TTs seeks to shed light on how professional and amateur subtitlers have tackled gayness, transgenderism and linguistic issues such as camp talk (or gayspeak in Heyes’ terminology, 1976/2006, quoted in Ranzato, 2012, p. 371), which has been defined as “a product of the gay sensibility” (Babuscio, 1993). Surprisingly, the fansubbed TT proves to be more censored than the official subtitled version, despite the general assumption that fansubbing tends to be freer and more prone to subverting conventions (Bogucki, 2009; Dwyer, 2017). All in all, both TTs appear to use a sanitising approach to homosexual language, yet the official version seems more creative than the amateur one.