Mary Poppins film age rating raised

Timcito

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Where, though, do they draw the line? Should they, for example, warn the public or raise the viewing age on films from the past that stereotype women as housewives or that promote heteronormativity by excluding gay relationships? The list of potentially offensive material is endless. 

How exactly does it inconvenience you if they warn the public or raise the viewing age for any reason?  The warnings are for the benefit of people who may be surprised or offended.  You're free to ignore them.

I think kowtowing to the petty-minded arrogance that compels some people to censor history because it fails to comply with their own transitory and limited worldview is a negative trend that goes beyond the immediate case in point. 

Oh give over.  There's no censorship here.  

It's part of a censoring tendency with regard to history, and the unsettling response often seems to be an Orwellian canceling of what 'offends.'

Philly_Q

darthed1981 said:

Sporky said:

Has anyone said "wokerati" or "wokeflakes" yet?

I do love a good portmanteau. 

You mean like Dead of Night, Doctor Terrors House of Horrror or the excellent Ghost Stories from a few years ago...?

Everyone still arguing over whether Mary Poppins should be U or PG apart from that?

From Beyond The Grave is one of my favourites.

darthed1981 said:

King Solomans Mines?

That novel has a character basically characterised as one who if I recall saves them in the desert then drops dead in the icy mountains... "hottentots... can't take the cold" or similar...

Yeah, it's another possibility!

VimFuego

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Where, though, do they draw the line? Should they, for example, warn the public or raise the viewing age on films from the past that stereotype women as housewives or that promote heteronormativity by excluding gay relationships? The list of potentially offensive material is endless. 

How exactly does it inconvenience you if they warn the public or raise the viewing age for any reason?  The warnings are for the benefit of people who may be surprised or offended.  You're free to ignore them.

I think kowtowing to the petty-minded arrogance that compels some people to censor history because it fails to comply with their own transitory and limited worldview is a negative trend that goes beyond the immediate case in point. 

Oh give over.  There's no censorship here.  

It's part of a censoring tendency with regard to history, and the unsettling response often seems to be an Orwellian canceling of what 'offends.'

ah, so now we're trying the slippery slope fallacy, cool. You going for the full house?

darthed1981

Philly_Q said:

darthed1981 said:

Sporky said:

Has anyone said "wokerati" or "wokeflakes" yet?

I do love a good portmanteau. 

You mean like Dead of Night, Doctor Terrors House of Horrror or the excellent Ghost Stories from a few years ago...?

Everyone still arguing over whether Mary Poppins should be U or PG apart from that?

From Beyond The Grave is one of my favourites.

Another classic Amicus!

fretmeister

VimFuego said:

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Where, though, do they draw the line? Should they, for example, warn the public or raise the viewing age on films from the past that stereotype women as housewives or that promote heteronormativity by excluding gay relationships? The list of potentially offensive material is endless. 

How exactly does it inconvenience you if they warn the public or raise the viewing age for any reason?  The warnings are for the benefit of people who may be surprised or offended.  You're free to ignore them.

I think kowtowing to the petty-minded arrogance that compels some people to censor history because it fails to comply with their own transitory and limited worldview is a negative trend that goes beyond the immediate case in point. 

Oh give over.  There's no censorship here.  

It's part of a censoring tendency with regard to history, and the unsettling response often seems to be an Orwellian canceling of what 'offends.'

ah, so now we're trying the slippery slope fallacy, cool. You going for the full house?

Shall I speed it up to the end? Might as well save him from posting anything else silly.

We’ll be burning books next, just like Hitler did!

Funkfingers

Reductio Ad Hitlerum.

/Thread

Dominic

Nobody has even mentioned the Sinophobic theme of Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967 )
 All those white sex-slaves being ensnared and sent to Hong Kong
Julie Andrews will soon be a pariah

Kurtis

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Where, though, do they draw the line? Should they, for example, warn the public or raise the viewing age on films from the past that stereotype women as housewives or that promote heteronormativity by excluding gay relationships? The list of potentially offensive material is endless. 

How exactly does it inconvenience you if they warn the public or raise the viewing age for any reason?  The warnings are for the benefit of people who may be surprised or offended.  You're free to ignore them.

I think kowtowing to the petty-minded arrogance that compels some people to censor history because it fails to comply with their own transitory and limited worldview is a negative trend that goes beyond the immediate case in point. 

Oh give over.  There's no censorship here.  

It's part of a censoring tendency with regard to history, and the unsettling response often seems to be an Orwellian canceling of what 'offends.'

Do you really think that offending people is a good thing? Do you really want to go back to the way things were? 

History isn't being cancelled. All the information is there should you be inclined to look for it. In fact never has so much history been so accessible by so many.

There are museums dedicated to slavery now, we don't need statues of slave traders looking down on us. 

Timcito

Kurtis said:

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Where, though, do they draw the line? Should they, for example, warn the public or raise the viewing age on films from the past that stereotype women as housewives or that promote heteronormativity by excluding gay relationships? The list of potentially offensive material is endless. 

How exactly does it inconvenience you if they warn the public or raise the viewing age for any reason?  The warnings are for the benefit of people who may be surprised or offended.  You're free to ignore them.

I think kowtowing to the petty-minded arrogance that compels some people to censor history because it fails to comply with their own transitory and limited worldview is a negative trend that goes beyond the immediate case in point. 

Oh give over.  There's no censorship here.  

It's part of a censoring tendency with regard to history, and the unsettling response often seems to be an Orwellian canceling of what 'offends.'

Do you really think that offending people is a good thing? Do you really want to go back to the way things were? 

History isn't being cancelled. All the information is there should you be inclined to look for it. In fact never has so much history been so accessible by so many.

There are museums dedicated to slavery now, so we don't need statues of slave traders looking down on us. 

That's a bit of a straw man argument, isn't it? Because I think it hypersensitive for people to take legislative action over a demented old Edwardian general in a 1964 film yelling the word 'hottentot!', I therefore  must "think offending people is a good thing"? Hoo boy ...

I think it's undeniable that many popular drama shows are rewriting history in order to fit in with the latest PC ideology. We have people from the African diaspora, for example, populating the the aristocratic parlour rooms of Georgian England in Bridgerton, openly gay actors and directors winning awards in the 1950s in Netflix's Hollywood, and medieval maidens kicking well-muscled male ass in shows like The Last Kingdom. And anything that runs afoul of the prevailing wisdom is mauled upon arrival. Of course, fiction is part fantasy, but my preference is for at least a reasonable illusion of reality. Otherwise, I can't take the action seriously.  

I also think it's absurd and destructive to put movies from bygone eras under the hawkeye scrutiny of modern PC standards. What about all those films that depict women as housewives? Do little girls need protecting from them or run the risk of losing all ambition in favour of a pinny and a new Hoover? And when James Cagney shoves a grapefruit in Mae Clarke's face for nagging, will we settle for nothing less than that she punches his lights out? Will our fingers begin to twitch at the obvious racial supremacy of Bogie when he commands, "Play it again, Sham"? I think any balanced viewer from any race, gender or creed can recognize that a film can still be a good film even if it does not obediently conform to the rules by which we now abide.

Kurtis

You're talking about fiction.

And it was you that used the word offence. In brackets because it's not offensive to you so it's not really offensive. 

Philly_Q

Timcito said:

Kurtis said:

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Where, though, do they draw the line? Should they, for example, warn the public or raise the viewing age on films from the past that stereotype women as housewives or that promote heteronormativity by excluding gay relationships? The list of potentially offensive material is endless. 

How exactly does it inconvenience you if they warn the public or raise the viewing age for any reason?  The warnings are for the benefit of people who may be surprised or offended.  You're free to ignore them.

I think kowtowing to the petty-minded arrogance that compels some people to censor history because it fails to comply with their own transitory and limited worldview is a negative trend that goes beyond the immediate case in point. 

Oh give over.  There's no censorship here.  

It's part of a censoring tendency with regard to history, and the unsettling response often seems to be an Orwellian canceling of what 'offends.'

Do you really think that offending people is a good thing? Do you really want to go back to the way things were? 

History isn't being cancelled. All the information is there should you be inclined to look for it. In fact never has so much history been so accessible by so many.

There are museums dedicated to slavery now, so we don't need statues of slave traders looking down on us. 

That's a bit of a straw man argument, isn't it? Because I think it hypersensitive for people to take legislative action over a demented old Edwardian general in a 1964 film yelling the word 'hottentot!', I therefore  must "think offending people is a good thing"? Hoo boy ...

I think it's undeniable that many popular drama shows are rewriting history in order to fit in with the latest PC ideology. We have people from the African diaspora, for example, populating the the aristocratic parlour rooms of Georgian England in Bridgerton, openly gay actors and directors winning awards in the 1950s in Netflix's Hollywood, and medieval maidens kicking well-muscled male ass in shows like The Last Kingdom. And anything that runs afoul of the prevailing wisdom is mauled upon arrival. Of course, fiction is part fantasy, but my preference is for at least a reasonable illusion of reality. Otherwise, I can't take the action seriously.  

I also think it's absurd and destructive to put movies from bygone eras under the hawkeye scrutiny of modern PC standards. What about all those films that depict women as housewives? Do little girls need protecting from them or run the risk of losing all ambition in favour of a pinny and a new Hoover? And when James Cagney shoves a grapefruit in Mae Clarke's face for nagging, will we settle for nothing less than that she punches his lights out? Will our fingers begin to twitch at the obvious racial supremacy of Bogie when he commands, "Play it again, Sham"? I think any balanced viewer from any race, gender or creed can recognize that a film can still be a good film even if it does not obediently conform to the rules by which we now abide.

It's true, some modern dramas and films do rewrite history, in certain aspects.  With largely good, if sometimes misguided, intentions.

But that's not what they're doing in re-certifying or giving audience warnings on older films.  It's not rewriting history, it's reappraising historical attitudes and norms from a modern perspective.  Everyone else in the world does not have to conform to your perspective.  These changes are not an attack on you.  Young people have grown up with "modern PC standards" and "the latest PC ideology".  For them, the language and social norms of 50 or 60 years ago may require some prior explanation... or warning.

You go on about "hypersensitive legislative action", "censorship of history", "cancelling what offends", "transitory and limited worldview"... and yet I recall in another thread you seemed all in favour of your governor Ron DeSantis legislating against education... on black history, gender identity, sexual orientation.  Apparently they're removing books from school libraries.  Isn't that "censorship"?  Isn't that a "transitory and limited worldview"?  Old Ron must really like his "history", trying to roll back the clock to the 1950s so yet another generation of kids will grow up feeling marginalised, ashamed and afraid to be who they are.

KevS

Well that's my idea for a cooking show "The Hottentot Gastronaut" cancelled before it gets off the ground.
Talking about getting off the Ground my other idea for a show "The Hottentot Astronaut" would be cancelled too..
All in the name of Political Correctness.. 

I mean Who are the real Fascists..? 

fretmeister

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Kurtis said:

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Philly_Q said:

Timcito said:

Where, though, do they draw the line? Should they, for example, warn the public or raise the viewing age on films from the past that stereotype women as housewives or that promote heteronormativity by excluding gay relationships? The list of potentially offensive material is endless. 

How exactly does it inconvenience you if they warn the public or raise the viewing age for any reason?  The warnings are for the benefit of people who may be surprised or offended.  You're free to ignore them.

I think kowtowing to the petty-minded arrogance that compels some people to censor history because it fails to comply with their own transitory and limited worldview is a negative trend that goes beyond the immediate case in point. 

Oh give over.  There's no censorship here.  

It's part of a censoring tendency with regard to history, and the unsettling response often seems to be an Orwellian canceling of what 'offends.'

Do you really think that offending people is a good thing? Do you really want to go back to the way things were? 

History isn't being cancelled. All the information is there should you be inclined to look for it. In fact never has so much history been so accessible by so many.

There are museums dedicated to slavery now, so we don't need statues of slave traders looking down on us. 

That's a bit of a straw man argument, isn't it? Because I think it hypersensitive for people to take legislative action over a demented old Edwardian general in a 1964 film yelling the word 'hottentot!', I therefore  must "think offending people is a good thing"? Hoo boy ...

I think it's undeniable that many popular drama shows are rewriting history in order to fit in with the latest PC ideology. We have people from the African diaspora, for example, populating the the aristocratic parlour rooms of Georgian England in Bridgerton, openly gay actors and directors winning awards in the 1950s in Netflix's Hollywood, and medieval maidens kicking well-muscled male ass in shows like The Last Kingdom. And anything that runs afoul of the prevailing wisdom is mauled upon arrival. Of course, fiction is part fantasy, but my preference is for at least a reasonable illusion of reality. Otherwise, I can't take the action seriously.  

I also think it's absurd and destructive to put movies from bygone eras under the hawkeye scrutiny of modern PC standards. What about all those films that depict women as housewives? Do little girls need protecting from them or run the risk of losing all ambition in favour of a pinny and a new Hoover? And when James Cagney shoves a grapefruit in Mae Clarke's face for nagging, will we settle for nothing less than that she punches his lights out? Will our fingers begin to twitch at the obvious racial supremacy of Bogie when he commands, "Play it again, Sham"? I think any balanced viewer from any race, gender or creed can recognize that a film can still be a good film even if it does not obediently conform to the rules by which we now abide.

It's true, some modern dramas and films do rewrite history, in certain aspects.  With largely good, if sometimes misguided, intentions.

But that's not what they're doing in re-certifying or giving audience warnings on older films.  It's not rewriting history, it's reappraising historical attitudes and norms from a modern perspective.  Everyone else in the world does not have to conform to your perspective.  These changes are not an attack on you.  Young people have grown up with "modern PC standards" and "the latest PC ideology".  For them, the language and social norms of 50 or 60 years ago may require some prior explanation... or warning.

You go on about "hypersensitive legislative action", "censorship of history", "cancelling what offends", "transitory and limited worldview"... and yet I recall in another thread you seemed all in favour of your governor Ron DeSantis legislating against education... on black history, gender identity, sexual orientation.  Apparently they're removing books from school libraries.  Isn't that "censorship"?  Isn't that a "transitory and limited worldview"?  Old Ron must really like his "history", trying to roll back the clock to the 1950s so yet another generation of kids will grow up feeling marginalised, ashamed and afraid to be who they are.

I think it’s clear that he is against “censorship” when it might affect things he likes but in favour when it’s for things he doesn’t.

Old Ron was really against removing American Civil War statues of Slavery supporters but in favour of censoring the abuse black people (and others) suffered.

He’s certainly not a good role model for a censorship argument: he’s so biased even a dead and decomposed non sentient single cell organism could see it.

But Timcito still hasn’t even come close to explaining how a reclassification of a film that remains as available as it was before the reclassification is cancelling it.

We know why: he can’t, because it isn’t.

I’m wondering if he has the good grace to admit it. 

Pjon

Philly_Q said:

But that's not what they're doing in re-certifying or giving audience warnings on older films.  It's not rewriting history, it's reappraising historical attitudes and norms from a modern perspective.  Everyone else in the world does not have to conform to your perspective.  These changes are not an attack on you.  Young people have grown up with "modern PC standards" and "the latest PC ideology".  For them, the language and social norms of 50 or 60 years ago may require some prior explanation... or warning.

Hasn't every generation grown up with different attitudes and social mores to their parents, and these change through their lifetimes anyway? What doesn't seem to have happened previously is the hand-wringing about how terrible things were before and that we might need warnings that older people thought/think differently.

It does make me laugh when I spot a warning before some terrible 70s sit-com that it contains language and attitudes of the time. No shit Sherlock!  Can't say I get enraged about it though.

Of course, in a few decades current attitudes will have changed. I often wonder what things are currently acceptable that will be verboten by the time I die?

fretmeister

Pjon said:

Philly_Q said:

But that's not what they're doing in re-certifying or giving audience warnings on older films.  It's not rewriting history, it's reappraising historical attitudes and norms from a modern perspective.  Everyone else in the world does not have to conform to your perspective.  These changes are not an attack on you.  Young people have grown up with "modern PC standards" and "the latest PC ideology".  For them, the language and social norms of 50 or 60 years ago may require some prior explanation... or warning.

Hasn't every generation grown up with different attitudes and social mores to their parents, and these change through their lifetimes anyway? What doesn't seem to have happened previously is the hand-wringing about how terrible things were before and that we might need warnings that older people thought/think differently.

It does make me laugh when I spot a warning before some terrible 70s sit-com that it contains language and attitudes of the time. No shit Sherlock!  Can't say I get enraged about it though.

Of course, in a few decades current attitudes will have changed. I often wonder what things are currently acceptable that will be verboten by the time I die?

Yeah - but you are not 20 & not been exposed to quite vile levels of bigoty being passed off as entertainment. Instead you are older and you've seen the progress first hand.

Now think like a kid who has never seen someone being treated differently because of skin colour / sexuality etc as comedy (well crafted drama is obviously different). That generates a massive WTF moment.

I see it in my kids generation (18-21). Person A points and says "That's the person I went on a date with"... Person B says "The guy or the girl?"...

They just find it inconceivable that someone might actually be beaten and murdered for their sexuality.
I'm thrilled they are outraged by what happened before. It gives me hope.

I don't think warnings are a bad thing in any way. It is a warning of something outside of personal experience that might be frightening / disgusting / / upsetting / whatever... when I did Inquest Work do you think I wouldn't give a warning before showing someone photos from a fatal accident? To label all the possibilities as a warning about being "offensive" is nonsense. Upsetting is a better description. Those warnings have been on crime programs for decades, why not on others that can cause similar reactions? Swearing warnings have been on TV for some films for even longer. When "Primary Colours" was first shown on C4 they gave a "This contains the worst swear words in English, starting from the first minute in the film...." then they had an advert, and then repeated the warning again! People still wrote in and complained about the language!

Having a warning does nothing for or against those who don't need the warning, and just might be really important for those that need a warning. A little empathy goes a long way.

Overall though - I find it amazing that some people are more enraged by a warning than about the film / tv show itself. They've got it backwards.

Hurling_Fruitmig

merlin said:

When I was a kid, maybe 10 we had an album of settings of poems to William Walton's music. It was called "Facade" and (as far as I remember) one of the poems by Edith Sitwell had the word "Hottentot" in it. 

Did I know what it meant? Did I care what it meant? This was all well post-colonialism and I didn't find out what it meant until at least a decade later. 

I am unscathed.



Relatively. 

That sent a mental hare running and I had to resort to Google to make sure I hadn't imagined something from the early 1990s charts. The song I Don't Care by Shakespeare's sister includes the offending lines from the Edith Sitwell poem at about the 3:25 point.

Hootsmon

The Jungle Book will be up for slaughter soon with the ape jazz musicians

darthed1981

I'm often slightly haunted by the memory of a scene from "The World at War" where an old German cinema film from the war years is shown - obviously with the original audio re-done in English.

It's footage of lots of differently-abled kids smiling brightly at the camera while the narrator talks about how society is best served by putting them to sleep - you realise every child you see there happily smiling was murdered.

It's never possible to overstate just how horrible and evil the Nazis were - and any comparison on any level between changing Mary Poppins to a fucking PG and fascism... doesn't really hold any water at all.

The true slippery slope isn't more Disney classics being taken off the list for somebody's school trip, it's...

Normalisation of prejudice through stereotyping and name-calling.
Action of prejudice through sub-conscious bias.
Action of prejudice through conscious decision.
Dislike of the other in society.
Action against the other in society.
Violence against the other in society.
Removal of the other from society through forced migration.
Genocide.

Think that's extreme?  Germany went from a peaceful democracy to a hellhole in about three years.

Perhaps hanging on to prejudice from the past, however innocent, because we don't want anything to ever change is just not worth it?

fretmeister

Hootsmon said:

The Jungle Book will be up for slaughter soon with the ape jazz musicians

Disney's casual approach to racism has been the target of lampooning for years now.

ICBM

Hootsmon said:

The Jungle Book will be up for slaughter soon with the ape jazz musicians

It already is - in fact if I remember rightly it was even criticised for it on release, with King Louie in particular being interpreted as a racist caricature. It sort-of is, but I honestly think it would go over the heads of most kids and thus not be as harmful. The Song Of The South is much worse.

The Nightmare Before Christmas has been criticised for Oogie Boogie being an obviously 'black' character too - hence why his song was done as an instrumental on the Nightmare Revisited album, I think.