Comments
Ojars Kalnins
Many years ago a US wine merchant protrayed a 'Latvian ambassader' named Sergei in a radio commercial. That was silly. This is a bit more disturbing. Then again, poetic license lets scriptwriters do what they want. While the way in which the Latvian diplomat is used is not that pleasant, it is a sign that we are entering the mainstream, albeit on the periphery. We can be thankful they didn't develop the civil war plot line any further. Uninformed TV viewers have a tendency of believing that what they see is true. Such is Hollywood.
30 Aug 2004 (Europe)
Erka Vitolins
150% I agree with
Andris Strautmanis.
The supposed Latvian
"dialect" they use
in the film is Jibberish I have never heard before.
It is real sad disgrace to Latvia
and it's language.
12 Sep 2004 (United States)
Ints Luters
I am not a fan of the show, neither do I hate it, I just want to point out that they actually could have been speaking latvian in this episode.The following mentions a scene in the show that is singled out as one where a crappy imitation of latvian was used instead of the actual language.
"One of the things Monk wants to know is what the ambassador meant when he said, "She's now gone meatless," a phrase the detective heard the ambassador say in the hotel before the shooting. But Monk has misheard, one of the men tells him. It's not in English, but in a dialect spoken in Latvia. It means, "It's not my coat.""
This line "She's now gone meatless," immediately struck me as "Shis nav mans meetelis" which does indeed mean, "it's not my coat."
Sounds to me as if they were tryting to speak Latvian.
14 Sep 2004 (United States)
Ilmars Birznieks
Dear Mr.Strautmanis: 11/9/04
In the crime show Monk it's not the first time that Hollywood has shown its ignorance or better stupidity regarding Latviansand their language To mind comes one of Alfred Hitchcock's early movies
released in late 30's or early 40's (I can't remember exactly) in which a Latvian, who doesn't even remotely resemble a typical Latvian, mumbles a couple of times something that is suppose to be Latvian but isn't.
08 Nov 2004 (United States)
Krista
Let's not also forget the episode of Seinfeld years ago, when Kramer (or was it George?) fell for a woman, but she said she couldn't date him because she was "Latvian Orthodox" and she wasn't allowed to date outside her religion. There were a lot of jabs at this ficticious religion that doesn't exist, and as a result, it infuriated many Latvians who still boycott Seinfeld to this day.
But there was also an episode of "Providence" where 2 people were speaking Latvian, correctly. Although they had very heavy American accents and they were American actors, they must have had a pretty decent dialect coach who worked on it with them.
With some of these mainstream shows mentioning Latvians, you'd think more people had heard of Latvia. But still to this day when people ask me where my parents were born and I say Latvia, they still say, "Where? Laffia? You're Laffian? Where is that? Is that like Latin?" Vai Dievin, I wish people would learn their geography!
11 Nov 2004 (United States)
Martins Zaprauskis
Let us not forget 'Leaving Las Vegas' where the pseudo-Slavic speaking pimp claimed to be from Riga or Latvia, I can't remember which. I believe the response from the other actor was 'Ooh, tough place."
16 Nov 2004 (Latvia)
Tauno Nõulik
have you heard about the scandal with the Norwegian TV before the Eurovision Song Contest in Latvia (probably it was 2003, if I remember right.)? In a Norwegian TV-show they had a joke band "Balalaika Latvia" that claimed to introduce the Latvian culture, but they were actually Norwegians, they had many Russian and Soviet symbols and they were only joking. When the real Latvians found out about it, there was a scandal, the Norwegian TV had to apologize, it went even to the official level: the Ambassador of Norway in Latvia apologized publicly in front of the Latvians. It seems to me that with the "Monk"-case Latvia just missed a good chance to catch attention in the USA: there should have been an analogical situation (not completely, because the USA wouldn't probably have been so humble as Norway, but they would have been forced to say at least something). It's not only Latvia's problem: I've seen in American films that kind of negative fiction also about other countries (Kazakstan (have you seen the film Air Force One?), Moldavia, often some Arab and Latin American countries etc.). I'm from Estonia and I've heard about USA serials (that I haven't unfortunately seen myself), where somebody gets a stomach-ache from the Estonian chocolate (it was probably in Ally McBeal) or Estonia is a completely fictional country with a name derived from the word "stone"!!!!!
And by the way: do the Americans still think that the whole world thinks bad of them, but it's unjustified?
19 Nov 2004 (Estonia)
Tauno Nõulik
and I forgot to add: it seems to me personally that a big part of the Americans also imagine that their country is the safest / most developed / most worth living one in the world, that they're something like lightning the whole world. It's quite obvious where is that kind of attitude from.
19 Nov 2004 (Estonia)
Tauno Nõulik
sorry that I post so many comments (maybe some editor can paste them together into one?), but I just noticed in the right side of THIS very same page here the advertisement of the Swedish novel "The Dogs of Riga". If you see it as well, it speaks for itself.
19 Nov 2004 (Estonia)
Stephen Reynolds
And there was the Billion-Dollar Brain, where the negative depiction of Latvia came straight from L. Deighton's book--Hollywood didn't have to invent it. And there was some TV action drama several decades back where a villain was identified as Latvian (I believe he had some title of nobility, so if anything he would have been a Baltic German, but no mention of this).
Why? Well, there are not a lot of Latvians out there, so if you piss them off it won't have a noticeable impact on your pocketbook. Getting it right takes a bit if time and money, so if you can get away with some ridiculous hokum, well . . . . Older movies in which Native Americans AKA Injuns are supposed to be speaking their languages regularly had gibberish instead. Now they can't get away with it as easily, but they can still treat Latvians that way.
And as for Seinfeld, I hate to mention this, but there are a lot of Jews, in the entertainment industry and out of it, who know about Latvia nothing except the Arajs gang and its abominable role in the Holocaust; they feel no obligation to avoid negative stereotypes because that's all they know.
There is, of course, a real Latvian Orthodox Church, but do you thing Jerry Seinfeld ever heard of New Hieromartyr Janis (Pommers)? And if he did hear of him, would he care?
If you want to fight this sort of thing, you need to organize. A Latvian Anti-Defamation League? Depends on how serious you are about opposing the abuse. And you have to network; the "Latvian Orthodox" jape should have irritated all Orthodox as well as all Latvians; if a few archbishops and metropolitans had complained, that theme might have been dropped after the first episode.
As long as the entertainers can continue to denigrate and misrepresent without consequence, and by doing so at least save some time and money, and in some cases make money, we can expect more of the same. Don't look for help to American (and in general Western) defenders of the downtrodden; most of them don't know anything about Latvians, and many of them are good at selective indignation.
Stephen
26 May 2005 (United States)
Robert Lewis
I am not Latvian, however, there is a Latvian Orthodox Church.
25 Aug 2005 (United States)
Alex
You are all fools! Don't you realize that maybe the writers of Monk were not trying to accurately portray Latvia's history and dialects? Does it matter if they say it wrong? No!
02 Oct 2006 (United States)
kuukums
I feel sorry for those who get offended just because 'evil Hollywood' or Americans for that matter do not portray Latvia accurately in their movies or TV shows. I am proud to be Latvian myself (as long as we dont talk politics). And i hope this Latvian provincialism syndrome fades away soon. Imho, it is our grumpy elder generation that's most suffering from it. Movies are for entertainment after all, not geography classes. And yes, there is Latvian Orthodox Church. Very real, as opposed to word 'kavorka' - that one sounds fictional to me.
30 Jan 2009 (United States)
Ingrida Jansons
Oh, lighten up! Complaining about free publicity (even if not 100% accurate) in a piece of fiction? Really? Most publicity about Latvija in the mainstream media of late has centered on the homophobic, racist attitudes of its citizens; riots; the drunks it attracts and encourages; and the occasional athlete. Instead of outrage, I would suggest gratitude. What if script writers actually depicted the "real" Latvija?
31 Jan 2009 (United States)
Stoney
It must be a conspiracy! ...Dude, seriously, it's television... it's here for enjoyment purposes... lighten up, and try DECAF.
04 Dec 2009 (United States)
Frankie
So first you complain about the country they use, because they should've made one up. Then you complain about the language because they "made one up." Not to mention that the guy monk talks to on the street mentions what dialect it is. Try more paying attention and less complaining next time.
30 Aug 2010 (United States)
Florian Blaschke
Indeed. I'm a big fan of the show. The first time I watched the episode I was thrilled because they mentioned an obscure dialect that I had only recently read about for the first time, and therefore remembered it. It was "Tahmisch" (in the German synchronisation I watched), i.e. tāmnieku (hope I got that right), the dialect in the northern Courland (Ventspils) region. Although I have no idea what the sentence would have sounded like in that dialect (possibly it was correct after all and it's the Latvians here themselves that are not as well informed about the dialects of their own language as the writers of the show have cared to inform themselves? ;-) Perhaps they researched, or had an advisor from Latvia who happened to speak that dialect?), I added that information to the Wikipedia article about the episode.
29 Sep 2010 (Germany)
