Italian native speaker check for a tattoo

May 6, 2023 6:18 PM

I'm getting a Porco Rosso tattoo and I need to know how to say "better a pig than a fascist."

So I'm getting a tattoo, and it will include a quote from Porco Rosso, my favorite Ghibli movie. The film is set in Italy, so I would like the quote to be in Italian.

Now obviously the normal thing to do here would be to check the official translation, but online consensus seems to be that the official Italian translation of Porco Rosso is very bad, so I'm working with alternate translations I've seen suggested. Meglio porco che fascista seems to be used occasionally on signs carried by antifa protesters in Italy. I've seen a few people suggest meglio maiale che fascista, but obviously porco is what's used in the title of the film and from what I understand has more derogatory connotations.

Anyway, though, I don't speak Italian and I think only a native speaker can be trusted here. Can anyone help me out?

P.S. This will be my first tattoo; general tattoo advice is also welcome.

posted by waffleriot to Writing & Language (6 answers total)

Intended gently: my general tattoo advice is thinking pretty hard before getting a tattoo in a language you don't speak or understand. What you're seeing from the inconsistency of translations is that idioms, especially, don't always translate smoothly in a way that won't make you look pretty odd if a native speaker sees it.

(I am not a native speaker of Italian but it's my impression that maiale is pork, rather than a pig, so if you get that, it's going to look culinary.)
posted by less-of-course at 6:28 PM on May 6, 2023

Also intended kindly: given that pig is a euphemism for cop in a lot of places this scans from here, at least in ideological terms, like a well-intentioned message from a very confused person. A translation seems like it would muddy that more than clarify it.
posted by mhoye at 4:59 AM on May 7, 2023

Have to say that I wasn't sure if you were referring to the animal or a cop with the quote. I do absolutely love Ghibli, though! Mini dancinglamb intends on getting Muta from The Cat Returns as their first tattoo.
posted by dancinglamb at 5:33 AM on May 7, 2023

Italian native speaker here, although I've not seen the film in question in any form and I've not lived in Italy for more than a decade so my cultural context is quite likely out of date.

"Meglio porco che fascista" and "meglio maiale che fascista" are both correct Italian and both would work.

Both "maiale" and "porco" can and do mean "pig" in the sense of the animal; "porco" is somewhat derogatory (if you wanted to say "that pig of a guy keeps catcalling women" you'd use "porco") whereas "maiale" is a bit more neutral (but can also be used in a derogatory manner).

The quote in the Italian translation of the film is "piuttosto che diventare fascista, meglio essere un maiale" ("rather than becoming a fascist, it's better to be a pig"). Which seems a pretty accurate translation from the Japanese original as found here.

If you really want this in Italian, I would probably lean towards "porco" because it's in the title of the film; however, as other commenters have already said - given the use of "pig" to mean "cop" in English-speaking circles, I would honestly think twice about it.
posted by sailoreagle at 6:15 AM on May 7, 2023

I hear everyone's concerns about tattoos in languages one doesn't speak and the pig = cop thing, but I still think this is completely fine in an iykyk way. These are both things that are taken way, way more seriously on the internet (and on Metafilter specifically) than they are by most folks. I mean, it's a deeply charming, deeply strange, absolutely anti-fascist, fairly well-known 30-year-old Japanese animated film about interwar Italy with a protagonist who is...dead? In limbo? And cursed to be a pig? Who cursed himself, because humans are too awful? All of the above? And a cursory Google will take anyone to the source.

It's getting even further from being a language you speak, but another option is to get the original Japanese, which might be:

ファシストになるより ブタのほうがマシさ。

I know Japanese is the prototypical "don't get a tattoo if you're a westerner who doesn't speak it, and maybe don't even if you do" language, but...it's a Japanese film, and doing so would eliminate any question about idiom or intention and link the tattoo more closely to its inspiration. (If you do this, you should 100% still double-check it, I just pulled a line from the subtitles and put it through Google Translate to make sure I found the right one; I don't speak or read Japanese, and I don't know if it's the same as what's actually spoken. Another option here)
posted by pullayup at 12:59 PM on May 7, 2023

I am not a native speaker of italian but have spent a fair amount of time there in the past 10 years and do speak it. "meglio maiale che fascista" is perfectly fine, would not be embarassing although might be confusing without the context of the film. But i would expect people to say "porco" more. Porco is not slang for a cop in Italian, at least I've never heard it but then I'm not that hep to Italian street slang (I'd expect to hear "sbirro" as an equivalent for "pig" when referring to a cop).
posted by dis_integration at 3:29 PM on May 8, 2023