Localising Food: Inside Out's Broccoli

There is a reason why the term 'localisation' exists in addition to the word 'translation.' Translating involves convey a text's meaning in another language. On the other hand, localising is deeper translation process that includes changing cultural references to make the content more relatable and understandable to a target audience. This leads to localisation work often being the target for criticism among diehard fans of a particular piece of work. They argue that any content edits bastardise the source material in straying from the original creator's intentions. I discussed this matter in greater depth in a previous post. In short, I usually have few qualms with content being changed for cultural reasons, so long as there is a good and identifiable reason behind it. The majority of a product's audience will be unfamiliar with the source material, and primarily seeking an enjoyable experience. The audience are be none the wiser if the localisation process has led to content changes. Moreover, I doubt they would even care if they did find this out. However, for those interested in localisation, such as myself, it is fascinating to research these subtle edits. One aspect that has recently peaked my interest is the issue of food being localised, which often pops up given how different cultures have different diets.

This post is going to focus on one interesting example from the Japanese localisation of the American animated film, Inside Out.

First up is a scene from the new Pixar movie, Inside Out. The film was written by a team of Americans, and is set in an American household. It is therefore safe to assume that the film contains American cultural elements. During the movie, there is a scene where the child protagonist throws a tantrum at her parents forcing her to eat a certain vegetable. I imagine there are parents in most countries parents struggle to get their children to eat healthy food occurs in. However, the cultural difference emerges in what vegetable is usually the root cause of this problem. The writers of Inside Out chose broccoli. My own personal childhood memories (albeit from England) and some Googling confirms this vegetable as a solid choice for this scene. In fact, Slate has an interesting article on broccoli's lack of popularity in America:

Broccoli has long been an othered vegetable in America. As late as the 1920s, most Americans (the ones who had heard of it, anyway) associated it disdainfully with the Italian immigrants who were its primary consumers. (This may explain the New Yorker cartoon child’s unfamiliarity with the vegetable; spinach, on the other hand, had been familiar to WASPy Americans since the early 19th century.) According to Joel Denker in The World on a Plate, it wasn't until 1928 that broccoli first was distributed regionally, and not until the mid-1940s, after intense marketing campaigns by broccoli distributors, that it gained recognition among non-Italians.

Recognition isn't the same thing as popularity, and though Americans came to eat broccoli, they didn't necessarily trust it. Broccoli remained an outsider during the canned-vegetable love-fest that was post-WWII suburban America—it’s nearly impossible to can. This fact meant that when Americans did consume it in the 1950s and 1960s, it was usually when their mothers or wives cooked it from scratch—which strengthened its association with the “well meaning but overbearing mother figure,” to quote The Rhetoric of Food editor Joshua Frye. Consider another New Yorker cartoon, from 1961, in which a man sitting at a diner under a sign reading “Mom’s Real Home Cooking” is harangued by a matronly waitress saying, “Eat your broccoli!” It’s hard to tell whether it’s a joke about broccoli or a joke about mothers.

However, broccoli doesn't have such a bad rap worldwide! In fact, among Japanese children, it is a rather popular vegetable! This prompted Pixar to edit the Japanese version film to replace the broccoli with green peppers, just see the image below. My Japanese friends assure me that piman (as they are known in Japan) are far more widely recognised as an unpopular food among children.

This is localisation in action, and is an interesting example, too! It's worth noting that although the vegetable changes, the setting of the film does not; it is still depicting a white American family. I initially wondered whether this change might therefore make the scene slightly incongruous to a Japanese audience. However, I soon realised that was improbable. It's likely that most Japanese who see this film would be unaware of broccoli's unpopularity among American children, and presume that children worldwide dislike green peppers. I tested this theory out with a Japanese friend, and it held true. Moreover, I can say for myself that before writing this post, I was totally unaware of the unpopularity of green peppers here in Japan. I think that if a Japanese audience watched the scene with broccoli, it would be momentarily jarring. The scene would not line up with their preconceived conceptions. They would have to then have to resolve this internal conflict by realising broccoli must not be a popular food among American children, or perhaps misunderstand the scene and judge the child as a particularly fussy eater. Either way, the brain finds it taxing when presented with information that contradicts an existing belief. In other words, for a moment, it would likely put a slight crinkle on the immersion of a Japanese viewer. I therefore that changing the broccoli to green peppers was a very astute piece of localisation. Pixar deserves praise for making the effort to reanimate this part of the film for the sake of its Japanese audience and their immersion in the film.

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Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, you'll probably be interested in the post I wrote analysing the American localisation of riceballs from the Japanese Pokemon anime. As always, if you have any thoughts on this topic, or know of any interesting examples of food localisation, please share it in a comment below!