onifre responds to me:
quote:
But I was just using the terms that Matt and Trey used.
And we all know that they would never wander into the realm of hyperbole in order to make their point.
quote:
My only point was that they did edit the episode for what they claimed was fear of offending.
Which they have every right to do and we want them to have that right. It helps us know where we can find the content we're looking for. The downside to that is that it means that sometimes the creators of content who felt assured that their vision was fully supported by the patron is going to have that patron say no. It's been going on for as long as there have been artists and patrons.
This was the same fight that happens every single week in every single program. I just finished a production of
Arsenic and Old Lace and it is a piece of its time: 1941. We talk about "Japs." There's also a "chink" thrown in for good measure. So there's the question of do we go with what was written or do we recognize that times have changed and try to determine if there's a way to give the same result that doesn't include distracting baggage that comes along through the use of the language.
Personally, the "Japs" references make sense. They all come out of the mouth of a character who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt. And consider that the play is set in September of 1941, temporal consistency indicates that finding Roosevelt making disparaging comments about the Japanese is hardly out of place.
But the "chink" line comes completely out of the blue. An aspiring playwright is describing the plot of his play. There is no set up or other contextual justification for it. The only thing to support it is that the play seems to be a hard-boiled detective theme and given the way such novels were written at the time, "chink" in and of itself isn't such a bizarre description. But even so, that word in its context is still nothing more than an insult.
In the end, we decided not to do anything. We trusted our audience to understand that this play is 70 years old, is period, and not make a big deal of it. Somebody might be offended, but we were willing to live with that. Know your audience.
Note, sometimes you can't win:
The Fantasticks has a song where the fathers are trying to get one's son and the other's daughter together and they have hired El Gallo to come and stage a scene where the daughter is in danger of being carried away and the son rescues her and thus, the two can get together. El Gallo describes the various scenarios he can do:
You can get the rape empahtic
You can get the rape polite
You can get the rape with Indians
(A very charming sight)
You can the rape on horseback
They all say it's new and gay
So you see the sort of rape depends on what you pay
It depends on what you pay
Many theatres can't handle that. Even though the leading dialogue makes it very clear that by "rape," they mean the classical meaning of the word, abduction, rather than the modern version of sexual assault. The longest running musical of all time and most theatres know that their audiences won't be able to survive four-and-a-half minutes where every tenth word is "rape." So when we did it, I was told to sing "raid" and "abduction" in place of "rape." I didn't like it, but I wanted to do the part.
Somebody wrote into the newspaper to complain that we were too chicken to do it legit. There will always be somebody who doesn't like the way you try to thread the needle.
Somebody is going to come away unhappy. Whose sensibilities are you willing to trample on?
quote:
I was trying to show how some consider offending Muslims and edit episodes, but Muslims, in this case of the mosque, have not considered not building the mosque when they are offending many people.
First, it isn't a mosque.
Second, what makes you think they haven't considered it? I see you are employing your super power of mind reading again. I'm still fascinated by how you do it and wish you would tell me what it's like when you read other people's minds.
quote:
Neither I feel is right or wrong, I was just showing the comparison.
Your comparison is false for it is based upon things that aren't true as well as assuming facts not in evidence.
You may personally not care which way it goes, but the question put to you is how do we as a society manage these conflicts? There isn't any way to make everybody happy. Somebody is going to go away without something they want.
How do we decide who is going to be sad?
Rrhain
Thank you for your submission to
Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.
Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.
™ Version 4.2
(1)