By Jack Bouchard
Translators repeatedly neglect the importance of profanity when subtitling for non-Anglophone audiences. Indeed, the mistranslation of a word like “fuck” usually does not substantially change the thematic or dramatic significance of a line. The Wolf of Wall Street, however, is a glaring exception to this rule. Scorsese’s film utilizes the three formal uses of profanity suggested by Ana Fernández Dobao: characterization, the addition of humor, and the addition of emotion (2006). I argue that The Wolf of Wall Street’s incessant use of profanity (the word “fuck” appears over five hundred times in the screenplay) literally gets lost in translation, and, consequently, causes French audiences to misunderstand and misinterpret the film. Through its mistranslation of curse words, the film renders itself inaccessible to Francophone audiences and fosters an Anglocentric viewing experience. To support my argument, I will briefly detail the three strategies used by translators to express English profanity in French, ultimately demonstrating how they limit the film’s accessibility to French audiences.1
Translators use three different techniques when translating profanity2. The first of these is omission. Oftentimes, when a curse word is deemed to be unnecessary, translators completely omit it from a line of dialogue. For example, the line “I fucking love that” appears onscreen as “J’adore,” or, simply, “I love that” (Scorsese, 0:06:44). A second technique used by translators is what I have called denotational translation. Using denotational translation, translators will replace profanity with a word or sentence that maintains the same denotation as the curse word, without being explicit. For example, the line “Fuck him” will become “qu’il aille au diable” or, “may he go to hell” (Scorcese, 0:06:32). The two lines denote the same anger, yet the source language is much more explicit than the translated version. Finally, I have named the third strategy connotational translation, whereby translators replace profanity with a sentence that maintains the same connotation yet differs in denotation. When Mark Hanna says that he masturbates twice a day because he “fuckin needs to,” the line is translated as “parce que j’en ai foutrement besoin” or, “because I really need to” (Scorcese, 0:11:49). The phrase maintains the connotation of high stakes onanism, but the vulgar denotation produced by the word “fucking” is lost entirely. While these three techniques may seem abstract, I will show that they undermine the formal uses of curse words suggested by Fernández Dobao, causing French audiences to misinterpret the film and, as such, promote a monolingual approach to cinema.
Due to the mistranslation of the film’s profanities, the characterization of Jordan Belfort is difficult for French audiences to grasp. Before the release of the biographical film, Belfort was largely unknown to viewers. Consequently, the director and his team went to great lengths to achieve mimesis in Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrayal of the ex-stockbroker. In the first minute of the film, Belfort arrogantly introduces himself to the audience via voice-over narration, flaunts his wealth, and displays his enormous ego. After a sexually suggestive montage of his wife Naomi, Belfort scoffs at the audience, telling them to “put [their] dick back in [their] pants,” suggesting that his wife is so beautiful that a mere glimpse of her onscreen has caused the audience to begin masturbating (Scorcese, 0:02:18). When faced with this line of dialogue, English audiences start to understand Belfort’s egotistical, vulgar, and money-loving characterization. For French audiences, however, this misses the mark when “Put your dick back in your pants” is connotationally translated as “remontez votre braguette” or, “zip up your fly.” While the line “zip up your fly” still connotes masturbation, it fails to denote crucial aspects of the stockbroker’s personality that shine through in the original. Mistranslation obscures Belfort’s characterization by making a crude joke appear dry and humorless; his ego and vulgarity are not reflected in the French subtitling, causing misunderstanding for French audiences. As such, curse words serve as an important tool for characterization in the film. It may be true that a French viewer would eventually see Belfort as a greedy drug addict, but the initial misunderstanding would render a large part of the previous dialogue purposeless.
Moreover, there are many instances in which secondary characters see their characterization misinterpreted. Due to their lack of screentime, it is impossible for audiences to understand their characterization via contextual cues, in contrast to the protagonist. For example, during a montage in which Belfort talks about the offensive language used every day on the trading floor, a trader yells “fuckface” across the room to a coworker (Scorcese, 0:06:24). To English listeners, the phrase serves as an effective characterization of the average Wall Street broker. For French listeners, however, this line appears as “abruti.” While there exists no direct translation for this word, the Larousse French/English dictionary translates it as “idiot” (Dictionnaire Larousse). When the provoking vulgarity of the word “fuck” is lost, denotational translation used in this line obscures characterization; calling someone a “dummy” does not embody the fast-paced, high-stress environment of Wall Street in the same way that calling them a “fuckface” does. Thus, for both the protagonist and the supporting characters, curse words serve as an important tool for characterization in the film.
At many points in the film, the word “fuck” adds emotion to dialogue, exemplifying Dobao’s second category of formal usage. The stockbrokers don’t just love money, they fucking love it. There are dozens of scenes in the film that use profanity for this purpose, but two make it especially clear. The first of these is the film’s depiction of “Black Monday,” the market crash of October 1987. In this sequence, the extreme negative emotions felt by the stockbrokers are expressed primarily through profane language. During a montage (0:14:38-0:15:54) of phone conversations, for example, the word “fucking” is repeatedly used and repeatedly omitted. Lines such as “a fucking tsunami,” “some fucking country,” “let them do what they want to fucking do,” and “holy fucking shit,” continually see the word “fucking” excluded from the subtitles. Dialogue that was previously emotionally charged comes out indifferent and passive. Due to mistranslations, the scene renders the intense negative emotions incomprehensible to Francophone audiences, thus establishing itself as strictly Anglophone.
Omitting curse words results in an emotionally flat scene, reinforcing the disjunction between cursing and emotion for French audiences in positive expressions, too. In contrast to negative emotions, body language is often much less of an indicator of positivity. As a result, when translators opt for omission, the positive connotation is lost. Let us rewatch the scene of the Initial Public Offering (IPO) for Steve Madden’s stock, paying close attention to the French subtitles. In the excerpt, Jordan Belfort and Donnie Azhoff illegally make twenty-two million dollars in three hours. In a drug-fueled, euphoric metaphor, Belfort exclaims “This is our golden ticket to the fuckin’ chocolate factory right here, and I want to meet Willy fucking Wonka, okay. I want to be with the fuckin’ Oompa Loompas” (Scorcese, 01:21:48, emphasis mine). Accentuated by his cursing, Belfort’s elation is overwhelming, yet, for French audiences, the only emotional signifier is in the tone of DiCaprio’s voice because every curse word is omitted or denotationally translated. By removing the profanity, translators effectively remove the emotional intensity present in the scene, leaving it indifferent and bland. As with characterization, sub-optimal translation methods result in a lack of emotional comprehension for Francophones and promote an Anglocentric viewing experience.
Alongside the overwhelming use of profanity to characterize or add emotion, it is occasionally used to add humor, Dobao’s third formal use of profanity. When Donnie and Jordan are talking in the cafe after they first meet, Jordan teases his new coworker by bringing up the fact that he is married to his cousin. Jordan eventually asks about his children’s health, and Donnie responds, “they’re not fuckin’ retarded or anything” (Scorcese, 0:30:15). Without going into the ethics of such a joke, it remains clear that humor is the intended effect of this dialogue. Intended humor, added by the words “fuckin’ retarded,” is completely lost in the translated version. For French audiences, the dialogue is translated using omission and connotational translation, and appears on-screen as “ils ne sont pas attardés” or, “they are not mentally challenged.” The word “fuckin’” is completely omitted, and the word “retarded,” with all of its negative connotations, is replaced by the more neutral “mentally challenged.” Donnie Azoff’s reply, then, is a blunt, serious answer that ruins the intended banter of the scene for Francophone audiences. The use of these translation techniques further confirms how mistranslations of profanity also affect an audience’s understanding of comedy. Once more, we can see that the original meaning of the film remains accessible solely to Anglophones.
As I have shown, the three translation techniques used make Scorsese’s film largely inaccessible to foreign audiences. By using such ineffective translation techniques, the translators reduce the comprehension of characterization, emotion, and humor for French audiences; all three of the formal uses categorized by Dobao are lost. As foreign films continue to grow in popularity, the implications of this loss of meaning are clear: a deeper understanding of cultural context and linguistic nuance is essential to ensure that the original tone, humor, and emotional depth of films are preserved across languages. Moreover, with the recent surges in AI as a subtitling tool, especially on online piracy platforms, the work of translators is increasingly mechanized. This change will surely affect the quality of translations, especially for those foreign-language films that are unavailable on major streaming platforms. Being able to say one has seen Vera Chytilová’s early filmography is all well and good, but what is the use if you have misunderstood it all?
Footnotes
- The subtitles referenced in this essay are those provided by Netflix. This paper would not allow for a significant exploration of other forms of subtitling, yet it is undoubtedly true that these unconventional modes of subtitling produce another diverse way of interpreting the film. ↩︎
- These terms are my own. They were observed in many viewings of the film, using French subtitles. Each time a curse word was spoken on screen, I cross-referenced the literal translation, connotation, and denotation in English with the Francophone subtitles. ↩︎
Works Cited
“Abruti.” Dictionnaire Français-Anglais, Larousse, https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais-anglais/abruti/238. Accessed 13 Jan. 2025.
Fernández Dobao, A. M.. “Linguistic and cultural aspects of the translation of swearing: The Spanish version of pulp fiction”. Babel, vol. 52, no. 3, 2006, pp. 222–242. https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.52.3.02fer
The Wolf of Wall Street. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Paramount Pictures, 2013