“Você me viu no caçador de veados?”
During my spouse’s recent visit to Brazil (he may start his own blog about his experiences), we watched The Rundown, a.k.a., Welcome to the Jungle, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Christopher Walken (and Sean William Scott, but who cares). (Yes, this was in the air-conditioned comfort of our hotel room, but this was also following a LONG day of appreciating the cuisine and cultural heritage Belém has to offer. Don’t judge.) Movies on TV here are often dubbed in Portuguese but also have (Portuguese) captions. The captions are usually different from the dubbing. Don’t ask me why.
During a tense scene in the movie, Christopher Walken bawls out a bunch of South American Indians he thinks have taken him for granted (but that he’s actually been screwing over). These people live in the “mountains” of the Amazon jungle, which look oddly like Hawaii. The dubbed CW rattles off a long list of expletives, most of which I can’t write here (because I don’t remember them, not because they were that depraved), but one of which is “Chupacabras!” Sort of weird – you don’t hear this as an insult much, at least in the plural. Or I don’t (but maybe I should, especially after a night of drinking). Anyway, the captions are fairly accurately representing what CW is shouting, but when he yells “Chupacabras!” it appears in the captions as “Oompa Loompas!” Again, not a commonly heard insult, though the plural makes more sense here.
Artist’s depiction of a Chupacabra (left)
Gene Wilder surrounded by Oompa Loompas
Which would you rather be called? I can’t decide.
Also, as an anthropologist, I have to point out that the monkeys attacking people in The Rundown are baboons. Baboons do not live in South America or Hawaii. They live in Africa. Maybe all the Hollywood capuchins were busy on the set of Out of Africa II: Welcome to the Other Jungle?
Life with Its Teeth Out 