Dubbed Films in Italy

It is well-known that in European countries having dubbed TV shows and movies is customary. It can be quite difficult to find cinemas with movies in the original language. There are social and cultural reasons for that. In the case of Italy, however, there is a disturbing widespread misconception regarding dubbed films. The misconception is complex and comprises several factors:

• The loss of details associated to every dubbing process is largely underestimated. So for instance, not only losing the chance of understanding a subtle joke in the original language is disregarded, but it is believed that the dubbing faithfully captures such jokes.
  
• Some people think that watching dubbed films is actually the right thing to do. They seem to think, for instance, that in that way they won't get lost with local jokes/slang. (They ignore they might be laughing about very different jokes than the intended in the film.) Moreover, there are actors who are popular for dubbing particular Hollywood actors. So, when thinking of, say, Woody Allen, they immediately remember the actor who does his voice in Italian. (This guy, called Oreste Lionello, recently passed away. I guess that there are some who think that Woody Allen died with him).
• To complete this (already dramatic) misconception, many people in Italy think that the concept of "high quality dubbing" exists. So, it has happened that when I complain about the fact that most movies are available only dubbed, people reply to me: "but we have outstanding dubbing artists, and the overall quality of the dubbing is quite good".

As for the third item, it is convenient to state, in the strongest possible terms, the following. Similarly as concepts such as "5 minute naps", "honest politicians", "punctual Italian trains", the concept of "high quality dubbed movies" only resides in the human imagination. It must be understood that every dubbed movie comes with an irreparable loss of what one could term as "original language content". This of course varies from movie to movie, and there could be some of them in which the loss is negligible. (This is the case of, I think, animated movies and TV shows.)

This loss also applies, naturally, to the subtitles they add so to avoid dubbed movies. In the case of subtitles, however, you still can perceive the original tone and intention of the actor. That is, a significant part of the actual acting is preserved. Some can complain about the concurrent action of watching a movie and reading some subtitle. I can admit that this can be annoying if you're not used to it, but I think the effort it's worth doing.

There is also the fact that movie theaters in Colombia most of the movies come with Spanish subtitles (some of them crappy ones). So I am very much used to it. This (and the fact that I've found watching films and TV in English quite useful for my language skills) could explain my aversion to dubbed films.

Now you, my dear Italian reader, would like to comment on this, and create controversy, if possible?