Is Juntos, by Paula Fernandes, a good adaptation to Shallow, by Lady Gaga?
Brazil is a country that always innovates in musical versions, translations and recreations. If there were a list on frequency that this is made, the northeast region would lead it with its greatest number of adaptations. Shallow, by Lady Gaga, is the theme song of the huge cinematographic success A star is born, movie that premiered in Brazil in October 11, 2018. A great example of recreation, a type of translation that intends to edit-translation rather than only make the direct translation, is Juntos, by Paula Fernandes. Different from recreation, there are two other types, version: an adaptation to the target language incorporating cultural elements from the target culture to seem more accurate, a secondary product of translation: direct/literal translation without using creativity.
The Brazilian country singer decided to bring this hit song to the Tupiniquins land, but she was highly criticized for it. Okay, a fan tattooed the last verse of the chorus from the “new” song, but almost everyone else thought it wasn’t a good idea, becoming reason of mockery and numerous memes on the internet. Also, a pagode group called La Fúria, from Bahia, made an explicit version of the song, hitting in only 19 minutes 2,7m views on YouTube, but the platform removed the video due to copyrights of Universal Music Publishing MGB Brasil Ltda..
The singer, Paula Fernandes, was interviewed on the tremendous baffle the song caused, and said that she composed the lyrics at dawn, with just a guitar and sent it to Lady Gaga herself, who said that it did not need to change a thing. She also said that she chose to keep “shallow now” from the original song as a tribute, because “many times, when you translate, you see that the lyrics don’t make sense”. Paula Fernandes went on to Instagram and said that “the ones who did not enjoy the song, back off!”. Still, according to Google, in the week in which the song was fully released, “Juntos e shallow now” was the main research done by Brazilians.
The singer’s choice said a lot about the recreation itself. This procedure depends entirely on the translator’s creativity, and according to Paulo Bezerra (2012, p. 1) the translator “transforms it into a second work, but of equal value, the materialization of which required a degree of creativity different from that used by the first creative element, but by no means less valuable as creativity”.