Dam Busters remake update

[DarenC1]

:lol: "Nigsy". The PC crowd strikes again.

Mudge the PC...yeah...right

Mudge, you gotta be kidding me. The word is unacceptable now, and was then.
Would you allow the word c*nt to be used in a movie that would be widely seen by millions, among them impressionable young children? How about c*cks*ck*r? I sure wouldn't, least in a PG movie.


Foul language raises the movie's ratings. It's not a PC ism. It's simply avoiding foul language in order to allow the movie to be viewed by a wider audience. Which I applaud.

you thought you'd lost me, dintcha?

Ahem...

The HBO film The Tuskegee Airmen had several utterances of the word "nigger", and was (and still is) rated PG.

In this context, a film regarding an historic event, I feel this is PC going a bit far.

The recent film Australia makes frequent use of phrases such as "half-caste" with regard to a young boy character within the film, among other phrases aimed squarely at black characters. It's only rated a 12 (in the UK). Yet why is this allowed??



James D - CGI IS crap! (Sorry, didn't want you to feel left out! )

[DarenC1]

Also, going by the rational that the word itself is being regarded as "foul language" in the context of this thread, why then is the original film (at least in the UK) available on DVD, uncut, and with a U-rating....

[Jerry O'Neill]

That Lanc looks great. I hope deserving museums get their hands on some of the replicas.
As far as CGI and all the talk about the dog, remember this film is going to be aimed at the general public and the most important thing is that the script is good. They're just story tellers. If you read a book about 617 Squadron, you wouldn't have anything but your imagination to conjure up images of what was happening in the story.
I'm not a big fan of CGI aircraft, but I also don't let it get in the way of good storytelling.
I'll wait to pass judgment.
Jerry

[CH2Tdriver]

Now that George Lucas has caved in and recruited real P-51's and P-40's for his Red Tails, I'm hoping Mr. Jackson does the same with one of the real Lancs. You know, maybe some scenes shot during the daylight when the crews were told to practice low flying etc....

At the least I hope that he would use BBMF, CWH or Just Jane for engine starting and taxi shots.

Pete

[Zac Yates]

At the least I hope that he would use BBMF, CWH or Just Jane for engine starting and taxi shots.

PJ's official biography has a couple of pictures of both him and Dam Busters director Christian Rivers in the CWH Lanc doing "research" for the film....sure I heard mention somewhere of their crew being at East Kirkby doing some filming as well

[TOM WALSH]

My hope is that the screen writer stays true to the nationality of the 133 Airmen who crewed the 19 Lancaster Mk. III Bombers. They were from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

One of the pilots, an American, RCAF F/L Joseph Charles "Big Joe" McCarthy, was awarded a DSO for his determined attack on one of the dams. Eight aircraft were lost on the raids costing the lives of 53 aircrew with 3 more becoming POW's.

Cheers,
Tom Walsh.

[Firebird]

:lol: "Nigsy". The PC crowd strikes again.

Mudge the PC...yeah...right

Mudge, you gotta be kidding me. The word is unacceptable now, and was then.

Err.......not unacceptable back then in the UK, which is after all the scenario we're talking about.

You have to remember, at the time there were not many people in the UK that had even seen a negro person, and as has been said, it was a standard descriptive for many brown colours, be-it wool, paint etc.,etc.

[Ethan]

Are any real lancasters going to be in the film?

[Firebird]

Are any real lancasters going to be in the film?

Not sure, there was a rumour that a small film team would come to the UK and use the taxiable 'Just Jane' for some start-up and taxy shots, but don't know if that will happen or not.

Anyway, back to the dog, how are they going to get around the use of it's name as the code word for a successful breach of the dam then....

As a point of interest, I have nicked this photo seen on another forum of Nigger's grave behind the old 617 hangar at RAF Scampton which was taken only a month or so ago.
RAF legend has it though, that the 'erks' tasked with burying the dog actually didn't and sold the body to the local knackers yard instead for a few bob, and then faked the grave.
Other facts state the grave was relocated when Scampton was converted to it's role as a V-Bomber base.

[Fouga23]

Just use the dog's real name. Nigger is unacceptable? Meanwhile we have rap video's all over MTV saying nigger this, nigger that! Black rappers can use the word all they want, but in a historical accurate film it racist?

[muddyboots]

Earlier variants (such as neger or negar) derive from the Spanish/Portuguese word negro, meaning "black", and probably also the French nègre, which has also been used pejoratively (but also positively as in Négritude), derived from negro (the ordinary French word for "black" being noir). Both negro and noir (and therefore also nègre and nigger) ultimately come from nigrum, the accusative form of the Latin word niger (pronounced [ˈniger], like "knee-ger" with the final r being trilled), simply meaning "black".

In Colonial America, negars was used in 1619 by John Rolfe, describing slaves shipped to Virginia colony.[5] Neger (sometimes spelled "neggar") also prevailed in northern New York under the Dutch and also in Philadelphia, in its Moravian and Pennsylvania Dutch communities. For example, the African Burial Ground in New York City was originally known as "Begraafplaats van de Neger" (Dutch phrase meaning "Cemetery of the negro" in English).

In the United States the word nigger was not always considered derogatory,[citation needed] but was instead used by many as merely denotative of black skin, as it was in other parts of the English-speaking world. In nineteenth-century literature, there are many uses of the word nigger with no intended negative connotation. Charles Dickens, and Joseph Conrad (who published The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' in 1897) used the word without racist intent. Mark Twain often put the word into the mouths of his characters, white and black, but did not use the word when writing as himself in his autobiographical Life on the Mississippi.

In the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world, the word was often used to refer to darker skinned peoples colonized by the British Empire, or merely to darker-skinned foreigners in general; in his 1926 Modern English Usage, H. W. Fowler observed that when the word was applied to "others than full or partial negroes," it was "felt as an insult by the person described, & betrays in the speaker, if not deliberate insolence, at least a very arrogant inhumanity." The note was excised from later editions of the book.

In the 1800s, as "nigger" began to acquire pejorative connotations, the term "colored" gained popularity as an alternative to "negro" and associated terms. For example, abolitionists in Boston, Massachusetts posted warnings to "Colored People of Boston and vicinity." The name of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People reflects the preference for this term at the time of the NAACP's founding in 1909.

Southern dialect in many parts of the southern United States changes the pronunciation of "Negro" to "nigra" (used most famously by Lyndon B. Johnson, a proponent of civil rights during the later portion of his political career). In the early editions of his dictionary, Noah Webster suggested the new spelling of neger for "Negro".[6]

Black became the preferred term in English in the late 1960s, and this continues to the present day. In the United States this has been displaced to some extent by African American, at least in politically correct usage, though this blanket term does not accurately describe those from other African nations such as Morocco; this resembles the term Afro-American that was in vogue in the early 1970s. Nevertheless, black continues in widespread use as a racial designation in the United States and is rarely regarded as offensive.

Today the word is often spelled nigga or niggah, in imitation of the manner in which some pronounce it. (Less-common variants are nigguh or even nikuh.) Other variations, designed to avoid the term itself, include nookah, reggin, nukka, nagger and the much older "jigger."[citation needed]

First, I guess you're right Glyn. It was only unacceptable to the people it was used to describe sort of thing. But nigger was used as a color only as a result of the word being used to describe black people.

As for using nigger in rap and therefore it's okay to use it in film. Sure it is. And when it is the film gets a heavier rating. So does the music. It's not just the word used which changes a rating but frequency of use, context, and sadly, who is president at the time. You can bet right now it won't be a good word to use if you want a wide audience to see it in theatres. Marketing is really why the word got cut, not pcism. Which was my main point anyway. It won't get used in a pg movie. MAYBE pg13. But I doubt it.

Fouga23, I have to agree btw. I'd rather reality be reality--this is a history piece and when you omit history you reduce the ability of future generations to see what life was relaly like back then. I say use it.

Glyn, interesting points you made, but still wrong imo. Nigger was never acceptable in many social settings and to many people. It has always been a rough word, used by rough people, or the dim witted. Proper society has (except for centuries back) used "more genteel" words when there was a choice. I can only speak for America, of course. You furriners have your own dumb rules which may or may not supercede our own dumb rules...

btw I am not trying to make this a political argument by bringing up the president. Facts are facts, and his skin color is a fact, as well as the result of his being in office. Let's keep this one civil.


Mudge--I always thought you were eating a hamster. I stand corrected.

G - General Audiences All ages admitted. No nudity, no drugs, minimal violence, and limited use of language that goes beyond polite conversation.



PG - Parental Guidance Suggested Some material may not be suitable for children. May have mild violence and/or action, mild language and sexual references, brief nudity, intense images, sexual themes, crude humor or very mild drug references.



PG-13 - Parents Strongly Cautioned Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. May contain moderate language, minimal strong language, some explicit nudity, intense violence, gore, or mild drug content.


R - Restricted Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. May contain very strong language or strong sexual emphasis, strong explicit nudity, strong violence and gore, or strong drug content.



NC-17 - No One 17 and Under Admitted May contain very strong sexual or offensive language, strong explicit nudity, very strong gore or disturbing violence, or graphic drug abuse. Films with this rating are usually edited for an "R"

[Glyn]

OK young Muddyboots I think I understand you a little better.
Now all we have to do is tackle the river Niger, and Nigeria!
Those Romans have a lot to answer for!

[fotobass]

Okay, here's a question. We can agree that the word has a negative connotation today, right?

With that in mind, can we agree that there would be some form of backlash to that word used in relation to the dog in today's culture?

I hope the film is sickeningly successful, raising lots of dough and making directors want to make more films in a similar vein. With that in mind, and if more folks will go see it if they change the dogs name to his nickname, then change it for crying out loud.

It's not like they're gonna film the movie with B-17s or something...

[gary1954]

"Nigsy". The PC crowd strikes again.



Mudge, you gotta be kidding me. The word is unacceptable now, and was then.

I hope Mudge the Magnificent lets me answer this. You are completely wrong there, my (young?) friend. The N word was not used in a perjorative way , only a descriptive way until comparitively recent times. When I was young I had a cast-iron N word moneybox. It was the name of a particular shade of brown in knitting wool and it appeared on the tins of brown shoe polish. The word has become an insulting term and as such I no longer use it but let's not get carried away. In the UK (which has also seen large scale post war immigration) a no-no word is Paki. You could cause a riot if you used it, yet it only an abreviation of 'Pakistani'. As the name of the country means (in their language of Urdu) 'Land of the Pure' they are objecting to being called pure! The world is quite surreal enough without needing the PC crowds input.

This is redickuless, the evil infamous "N" word.....people shake in their shoes at the utterance of the "Word". It was commonly used in our history up until that point in the great time generator when it suddenly became "Offensive" to the populace of which the term was generally applied to. This naturally is "regretable" that a Country would condone the term, but it was "acceptable" for a majority of the population for decades. In the early 60's as a child playing with the black fella's up the street from me, I often heard their Mothers and Fathers (they actually had Fathers back then) call them "come here ya little N (fill in the rest). I was fortunate in that the area I lived in, we "white folks" referrred to the members of the black community as "Negro" I was practically raised by a negro woman, Octavia McCutchen, and it makes my eyes tear in the fond memories I have of this woman and her Husband who I only knew as Reverend McCutchen. I doubt very seriously if the term nigger was ever used affectionately by one race of people when referring to a member of the black race. The word, as I saw it was more generally used as a descriptive. That was just the way it was back then, it was the way we lived back then. It is unfair of the population are large to condem the population of the "back then" generation based on our society as it is today. I totally agree that if a film is set in a specific era in OUR Nation or World history, then the language used in that period should be used in that film regardless of, or for, this Political Correctness (pukes) so as to not "offend" anyone. Cry me a frickin River, build a bridge, and get over it. (by the way I was called a "Cracker" many times by young and old negro alike, and I was never offended, because I knew the history of the "Cracker") Society is stuck with the "N" word, as long as portions of our society continues to use it, it will continue to survive and continue to offend some frickin body. I am off the soap box now, thank you.

[Elroy13]

When is the movie due to be released?