News You Might Have Missed

[Khandro]

Last week, the classification of the fim Mary poppins was changed from U to PG because the eccentric character Admiral Boom twice uses the word Hottentot.

Do you feel safer now?

 

[barry1010]

I think you missed it - discussed here

https://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1864035.html

[newmodarmy]

Some here didn't miss it.

https://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1864035.html

[douglas9401]

I'm used to being ignored/passed over/disregarded. 🙄

[ichkeria]

The classification doesn't actually change very much. It's just a warning to parents.

[barry1010]

Subject matter in headings makes it far easier to find previous posts. 

[douglas9401]

Aye? This one seems undetectable by that measure.

[Gromit]

//  Use of the term Hottentot is now considered offensive, the preferred name for the non Bantu speaking indigenous people of the Western Cape area being Khoekhoe. //
 

A term that was acceptable 50 years ago in South Africa is now considered dodgy. The entertainment industry is now more global than when the film was made. British/US/colonial terminology is now outdated and not appropriate when the piece of work is being shown/traded in Africa and the rest of the world.

The film has not been banned or over dubbed. Just a classification that suggests to parents that you might warn your child that the word is not a good one in the 21st century.

 

[douglas9401]

Parents might also warn their kids not to try floating gently on the breeze from a great height with only an umbrella to support them.

Little wonder the world's in the state it is when this kind of tripe is deemed soooo important.

Ever seen Zulu? I did in 1964 when it had a U certificate and I lived to tell the tale.

The world is slowly turning to jelly as earnest wonks hunt for drivel and get paid for it.

[bookbinder]

Oh! I'm so relieved to read that!

[Khandro]

I didn't happen to know the existence of another thread on this topic.  But having a life beyond AB precludes me from being everywhere all the time (as Napoleon may have said).

The point is that we now have a generation of censors & parents who panic over children's emotional safety, leading them to intervene to guard them from hearing or seeing anything which someone else may or may not, find offensive.

Whether a Hottentot gentleman in South Africa would prefer to be now called (according to Gromit, whom I have no reason to doubt,) a 'Khoekhoe' or whatever, is not likely to impinge on his life, or indeed the life of a child in Surbiton watching Mary Poppins on the telly.   

[Deskdiary]

Must confess, even having seen MP loads of times, the 'offensive' word never registered, but now it's been brought to my attention, were it not for AB ( or a dictionary) I wouldn't have had the faintest idea what it meant.

 

I can state with 100% certainty my 20 and 15 year olds would not get triggered by the word. 

[Untitled]

doesn't really matter does it

[davebro3]

it matters insofaras someone is being paid to come up with this sort of carp instead of doing a useful job

[Untitled]

it would have been the BBFC surely? i would say their job is useful... 

not worth getting upset over i shouldn't think

[ichkeria]

There are people whose job it is to fret about things like this but I'd rather it was them than anyone else. Hands up who's had noticed the difference without the article. Waste of time? Maybe 

[ToraToraTora]

A small man named Mahatma Gandhi, he walked everywhere.
He didn’t own a pair of shoes, and so his feet were bare.
His soles developed callouses a thick as leather shoes,
And his vegan diet gave him bad breath most profuse.

He was a super calloused fragile mystic plagued by halitosis.

[William51]

Hottentot. Their must be hundreds of words which can offend so what will the rules, and language, be like in fifty years.