The new Dam Busters movie......CGI heavy, politically correct, etc.

[DPS]

I might look like this:

lWuafPYm31M&hl=en_GB&fs=1

The cockpit is an Avro Manchester w.i.p

[CheckSix]

ROFLMAO! Excellent...

[Navy Chief]

Er, I don't get it.

Guess there's a lot more to the story?

NC

[IanP]

Guy Gibson's dog was not called that.

In the film, however, the true name of the black Labrador (which was run over the night before the mission and his name used as the code for the destruction of one of the dams) was changed, as the name had become exceptionally offensive to people in the interim (unless apparently used by Spike Lee or Quinten Tarantino... It did start with "N", though.)

You do have to know the story in the first place to get the joke, this is true. I'm afraid that "airbrushing" history to make it more palatable to a modern audience is something I have little time for. History ain't as nice and rosy as some people would like to think it was, at times.

Ian P.

[NSS]

Guy Gibson's dog was not called that.

In the film, however, the true name of the black Labrador (which was run over the night before the mission and his name used as the code for the destruction of one of the dams) was changed, as the name had become exceptionally offensive to people in the interim (unless apparently used by Spike Lee or Quinten Tarantino... It did start with "N", though.)

You do have to know the story in the first place to get the joke, this is true. I'm afraid that "airbrushing" history to make it more palatable to a modern audience is something I have little time for. History ain't as nice and rosy as some people would like to think it was, at times.

Ian P.

Here here.

[CheckSix]

This is very much a Brit thing.

I think it's meant as a tongue in cheek poke at todays ridiculous Political Correctness Squad. Guy Gibson's dog was called a name that is now almost punishable by death if so much as muttered yet when the phrase originated it was meant something quite sublime. Think about what the PC squad did with Robinsons Jam and their logo, many of our ancient nursery rhymes that are no longer taught in school etc I could go on but... C'mon a Black Cat called Samba ROFL! This was a very, very clever skit.

Sometimes, you know, the Daily Mail isn't that far off the mark.

[CodyValkyrie]

I found it hilarious.

It happens well here in the U.S. as well. The Confederate Air Force no longer exists, it now is known as the Commemorative Air Force.

[IanP]

...and anyway, the Raccoon is cute! :d

[DPS]

Good point, IanP. The 'N' word seems to be being used in a non-derogatory way in street jargon these days, so perhaps the dog will get called by its proper name.....although the word is it is still going to be 'Nidge'.

If Peter Jackson/Stephen Fry must make their war movie why don't they do a different, less well known story, such as the Operation Jericho raid on Amiens?

[ndicki]

He even had a golden hamster called Chank. Great animal lover, Gibson was.

Quite agree with the sentiments expressed. THere was a furios row about this a couple of years back in the Newshawks, above. Presumably lost after the crash.

The upshot was that the British and Commonwealth posters were perfectly and unanimously in favour of keeping the dog's original name, and the original codeword, while the majority of Americans were incensed and furious. Of course, we don't share the same history... To begin with, British Forces were not segregated, even then.

He's still there, by the way.

[ndicki]

In fact even in the original 1950-something film, in the North American release version, he was called "Trigger" - even then. And that has given rise to a number of totally erroneous supposedly historical accounts in which the modified name has been retained. Just one perhaps insignificant but telling illustration of how history is not quite as absolute as one might like...

[Quixoticish]

http://www.boston.com/sports/columnists/pierce/DearGodPlsMakeItStop.jpg

(That's with regards to the incessant, endless debate about the bloody dog, not aimed at your video DPS. :icon_lol: )

[CheckSix]

Chris H is a Canine hater! Gettim! :D

[SADT]

Hi,

Just shows you how utterly ridiculous PC can be.

[IanP]

I don't really think that debate is really about the dog per se, that's the problem. It's much more about trying to change reality and what actually happened to fit in with a picture of what we'd like history to be rather than what it was.

If we were discussing the fact that Britain nearly wasn't ready for the Battle of Britain because of major industrial action caused by moronic profiteering management and overly powerful unions, would it be the same? What about the fact that much of the UK and US supported what Hitler was doing in Europe, or go back further to the fact that Robin of Locksley was landed gentry who stole from his new politically opposed neighbour to maintain his status, rather than giving to the poor as history has been changed to imply?

I may well be wrong - "Political Correctness" exists because people want it to after all - but I still think that the majority think it more important to know history warts and all, learning from it rather than pretending that it didn't happen.

That poor ex-pooch is a symptom to me, not the discussion in and of itself.

Anyway. I've said my piece on that and will now shut up, while dreading what DPS's next video will be about and how much debate it'll cause! :d

Ian P.

[SADT]

Hi,

Yes, prewar "undesirable" history was covered up, such as the fact that Britains Schneider trophy winning S6B was funded by an anti semite, Hitler supporting, government opposing socialite.:kilroy: And that Walt Disney was not the imaginative genius we all thought of him to be! Many will be shocked to discover he was fired from a newspaper for lack of "Good, creative, ideas" and that he was very infrequently the man we see in his smiling classic picture! He would often go into huge fits of rage and would delegate (read: Force) his staff to come up with "Good, creative, Ideas" for new films.

I too will now shut up on this matter and retreat to my dark corner.:monkies::mixedsmi:

[dswo]

when the phrase originated it was meant something quite sublime.

?

If I were making the movie, I would probably change the dog's name or leave him out. I guess I'm in the minority, but here's why:

1. It's distracting. If you leave it in, the media story about the movie will be the dog's name.

2. I'm 40 and American. To me and most people I know, that word stands for an evil system that stains our history. I can talk about it, but I'm reluctant to use that system's own vocabulary -- to see it, as it were, from the inside.

3. Kids are going to be watching the movie (hopefully, right?). However the word may have originated, we don't need a bunch of dogs running around with that as their name.

Someone may have noticed that I'm avoiding the word. I think calling it "the n-word" sounds coy, like it's "potty language." That doesn't work either. But do you remember the inscription on the ring? Elrond didn't want it read aloud in his house; there was something evil about the language of Mordor. Gandalf did it, for a good reason; but it was a terrible saying, and he didn't do it casually. In his letters, Tolkien says that a fan had a goblet made for him with the ring words inscribed on its rim. Tolkien thought that was terrible, and couldn't imagine touching the words with his lips; he used the goblet as an ash tray.

This thread is going to be shut down, for all of the usual (good) reasons. But for any future historians, I would like there to be a record: not everyone on this forum thought the same about this matter.

To those of you who have already commented: there is a real danger in airbrushing the past; we agree about that.

P.S. Thinking about it some more, I can see that the word didn't carry the same freight in 1940s Britain as it does in America today. What its connotations were, in Britain at that time, I don't know. That being said, I would still change the name or leave it out, for the reasons given earlier.

P.P.S. On airbrushing the past: do we have an obligation to tell everything in every story? Most events have a discreditable side, or one that's hard to explain in a two-hour movie that's really about something else. Does that make the two-hour version a whitewash?

P.P.P.S. "Political correctness" usually refers to something that we don't get riled up about personally. But we are all riled up by something; at least I hope so. Being offended is a sign that we're human, that we have a sense of justice or fitness.

[TeaSea]

The only point of the dog at all was that it was killed just prior to the mission. That was seen as a bad omen. The name of the dog was the codeword for Chastise success....that was the codeword that was transmitted. No shame should be attached. After all, the idea was to end the war (the real obscenity) and free Western Europe.

I would add that what is considered an epitaph during our time was not at that time, at least not in the UK where it did not carry the same connotation as it would have in the states. Very thin ice when one starts applying current standards of conduct and morays to past events.

As for PC, well, I wouldn't classify being careful how one treats this aspect of the history as PC. If you want real PC, go watch Tora! Tora! Tora! again. James Whitmore plays Admiral "Bull" Halsey, who brought the USS Enterprise back into Pearl on December 8 and as he passed Battleship row is quoted as saying:

"Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell."

That scene was reportedly in the original theater release and one of the only reasons for Whitmore's appearance as Halsey. You cannot find that quote in any version of the movie now.

Operation Chastise suffered a casualty rate in excess of 40%. That is exceptionally high. Perhaps that's the epitaph folks should be left with.

Overall, interesting topic though. I'm always fascinated about how History is treated when viewed through modern eyes.

[TeaSea]

P.S. Thinking about it some more, I can see that the word didn't carry the same freight in 1940s Britain as it does in America today. What its connotations were, in Britain at that time, I don't know. That being said, I would still change the name or leave it out, for the reasons given earlier.




Ooops, sorry dwso, you had made that point already!

[MudMarine]

It's history keep it that way, ugly words and all. Let it me a leason to remind us of why we need to to change our hearts!

[Alan_A]

Agree 100 percent with David on this one.

[IanP]

Sorry, I know I said I'd shut up, but I thought I'd add my comments to David's post-scripts...

Every country, people and indeed person has something in their past that they'd rather not have done. In most personal cases, it may be an argument, or hitting something, or not returning something they "borrowed". In the cases of countries, it tends to be rather larger, from slave trading to genocide.

However how long do you allow guilt and focussing on it to continue? Northern Ireland are still fighting a minor skirmish on the fringe of European politics that happened hundreds of years ago. Absolutely no-one alive today, nor anyone they knew, was there. So what on Earth is the point of continuing that grudge? The Middle East and parts of South-Eastern Europe are still fighting battles that started millennia ago!

That's not quite the same as the situation here regarding connotations of a word which is still in use - in the same connotation - by some people in some areas. I, personally, can understand why an American audience would probably not want it used, yet I hear it used regularly in music and films that are massively popular in both the UK and US. What's acceptable and what isn't? My personal opinion is that it is far better used in a historical and accurate context than it is being used as an "edgy" phrase by a rapper who has never been near the Bronx or Southern States. As another example, would you cut that word out of a new version of To Kill a Mocking Bird? In that instance the way the word is used is the entire and whole point of the story.

"Political Correctness", in the context I believe most people would use it, is people banning words and phrases without even waiting for someone to be offended by it. I'm sure the US is the same as the UK in that we both have "professional offendees", who are offended by everything, regardless of context, and we also probably have the same group of people who will ban things/remove things because they "might" offend someone, rather than because it does. The latter is the most common cause of complaint in this country.

I work with a Muslim and a Sikh, both of whom celebrate Christmas as an excuse to party and give presents... My section also celebrated Diwali this year, but we didn't fast for Ramadan. Yet Birmingham City Council, two years ago, banned all reference to "Christmas", instead referring to "Winterval" and "Happy Holidays", just on the off chance that someone might complain. That's what people complain about. I don't think the use or otherwise of Guy Gibson's dog's name in a film is "political correctness", however trying to wipe it from history is both unnecessary and undesirable - however people also need to know and understand the context of why Gibson named his dog that.

We, as humanity, have an exceptionally bad habit of not learning from history because we twist it to be what we want rather than what it really was. That's what I, personally, object strongly to. Why should I, or anyone reading this, be blamed for something I or they neither had any part of, nor any control over?

Rant over.

Oi. SADT. Out of my Dark Corner. I need to do some maintenance on the site... :d

Ian P.
(http://www.ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk)

[Naismith]

Intollerance should not be tollerated. :jump:

[Ian Warren]

Chuckle , Brian 'the life off' , as for the Jigger - throw a rope around it and pull it out the quick sand !
Ole Pete now 'Sir' was un-packiing his over sized plastic Lanc's at Hood aerodrome , the biggest problem in putting it together was picking up the tube of glue . :icon_lol:
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[tommieboy]

......The Confederate Air Force no longer exists, it now is known as the Commemorative Air Force.


WHAT! That's pretty sad to hear.......

[ronvking]

Well I know what 617 Sqn would say, they still use the dog's name as their ops callsign as far as I'm aware, certainly 3 years ago when I heard it myself.

[Alan_A]

I'm not sure the fact that the term is used in pop culture/music exactly lets everybody off the hook. It's one thing when the word is appropriated by those who have been victimized by it - in much the same way that gay activists adopted the word "queer" and used it defiantly. It's another when the term is used by those who are neutral to the original argument - or worse, are still trying to advance it.

Re: its use in film, context matters, too. If I'm writing historical characters and I want to show what their attitudes are, then yes, I think it ought to be used. But if its use is extraneous to the plot - a bit of local color, so to speak - then better to do without it. To me the dog's name falls into the latter category. I understand that those who are purely PC might object to its use in my first example - which is why Huckleberry Finn sometimes gets banned in U.S. school systems. So I suppose my position re: PC is more qualified or middle of the road.

I also don't buy the argument that because people fought for freedom, that lets them off the hook in all their attitudes. There was a lot of ugliness on the Allied side of the Second World War. The U.S. military was fully segregated. It's often forgotten that the original intent of the program that produced the Tuskeegee Airmen was to prove that blacks weren't capable of flying combat aircraft. Anti-semitism was rampant. My father, who served in the Coast Guard from '43-45, learned quickly not to tell people he was from New York City because that would type him as a Jew. He said instead he was from a small town on Long Island where he spent summers - that plus an ambiguous last name let him pass for Polish. He talked about a lot of barracks discussions where his fellow coasties said that they only thing they agreed with Hitler about was what he was doing to the g-dd-mned Jews. Now, none of that negates what the allies accomplished - but it does complicate the story a bit. I'm all in favor of complicated stories but not free passes.

One of the better effects of the war was that, because so many people from so many backgrounds were thrown together, all of those attitudes began to get blown up. My father was also involved in a lot of discussions where he got to explain what a Jew was to people who had never met one before. It's not an accident that the U.S. Civil Rights movement got underway in earnest almost immediately after the war.

I guess where I come out is I'm against reflexive PC, but I'd still like to hear people thinking about impact and context before they rush some of these terms back into circulation.

[kilo delta]

Northern Ireland are still fighting a minor skirmish on the fringe of European politics that happened hundreds of years ago. Absolutely no-one alive today, nor anyone they knew, was there. So what on Earth is the point of continuing that grudge?

The issues with NI today stem from much more recent times,Ian, following partition in 1921. However this is neither the time nor the place for a political discussion...so I'll say no more on the matter.

[ndicki]

Interesting to see that once again the attitudes are pretty well divided along national lines - the Brits think it's bloody silly to alter things, and the Americans largely think the name needs to be changed.

That alone should tell you something... Something which is potentially much more interesting than the original question of the dog's (or cat's) name.

So? Anybody want to take me up on it?

[Alan_A]

Interesting to see that once again the attitudes are pretty well divided along national lines - the Brits think it's bloody silly to alter things, and the Americans largely think the name needs to be changed.

That alone should tell you something... Something which is potentially much more interesting than the original question of the dog's (or cat's) name.

So? Anybody want to take me up on it?

Probably not surprising given the different histories. Slavery and its aftermath is THE blot on American society, and the aftermath is still playing out. So feelings continue to be raw. (I'd add, by the way, that our treatment of the Native Americans rates, too - but sadly, there are so few left and so little left of their culture that the issue isn't a persistent "live" on in the way that the black/white faultline is).

It may be that the UK is more enlightened in this regard. Britain banned the African slave trade 55 years earlier than we did, so that has to count for something.

It may be, on the other hand, that in British society the fault lines lie elsewhere. What would immigrants from the subcontinent say about that?

It'd also be interesting to hear from members - American and British - of African descent, to find out whether they're offended or not. It's a little presumptious of us to speak for them.

Anyone?

[Clarke123]

I'm not sure the fact that the term is used in pop culture/music exactly lets everybody off the hook. It's one thing when the word is appropriated by those who have been victimized by it - in much the same way that gay activists adopted the word "queer" and used it defiantly. It's another when the term is used by those who are neutral to the original argument - or worse, are still trying to advance it.

Re: its use in film, context matters, too. If I'm writing historical characters and I want to show what their attitudes are, then yes, I think it ought to be used. But if its use is extraneous to the plot - a bit of local color, so to speak - then better to do without it. To me the dog's name falls into the latter category. I understand that those who are purely PC might object to its use in my first example - which is why Huckleberry Finn sometimes gets banned in U.S. school systems. So I suppose my position re: PC is more qualified or middle of the road.

I also don't buy the argument that because people fought for freedom, that lets them off the hook in all their attitudes. There was a lot of ugliness on the Allied side of the Second World War. The U.S. military was fully segregated. It's often forgotten that the original intent of the program that produced the Tuskeegee Airmen was to prove that blacks weren't capable of flying combat aircraft. Anti-semitism was rampant. My father, who served in the Coast Guard from '43-45, learned quickly not to tell people he was from New York City because that would type him as a Jew. He said instead he was from a small town on Long Island where he spent summers - that plus an ambiguous last name let him pass for Polish. He talked about a lot of barracks discussions where his fellow coasties said that they only thing they agreed with Hitler about was what he was doing to the g-dd-mned Jews. Now, none of that negates what the allies accomplished - but it does complicate the story a bit. I'm all in favor of complicated stories but not free passes.

One of the better effects of the war was that, because so many people from so many backgrounds were thrown together, all of those attitudes began to get blown up. My father was also involved in a lot of discussions where he got to explain what a Jew was to people who had never met one before. It's not an accident that the U.S. Civil Rights movement got underway in earnest almost immediately after the war.

I guess where I come out is I'm against reflexive PC, but I'd still like to hear people thinking about impact and context before they rush some of these terms back into circulation.
The point you made is what you yanks are missing about this. It has absolutely nothing to do with US policies or segregations or attitudes so stop comparing them. This is about British attitudes and I can guarantee there was no racist aspect to it. Up until the 70's most black dogs in the country were called that. My grandad had a dog called that and used to shout that word at the top of his lungs to get the little scamp to come back into the house and nobody batted an eyelid regardless of creed or colour. If the dog doesn't matter as some of you Americans point out then why does everybody who knows about RAF history know about the dog. I've had enough of american film makers whitewashing my heritage to fit their own arrogant self important views. Everything I've heard in this thread so far has been American this US that. You guy's have got too much racial guilt because all that trouble was very recent in your history. The US and UK two countries divided by a common language don't forget that.

[lefty]

Uh-oh, well if nothing else gets this thread locked (I have been reading it with a morbid fascination) that last post will !

[CheckSix]

Ian P... Great post, I was going to enter into a massive torrent of words on the why's and wherefore's of that most inane of words beginning with an N.

Folks I say inane because it originated in the UK (we did have the slave trade waaaay before the US don't forget) as an innocent descriptive for a person or persons indigenous to Nigeria, where most of the slaves at that time were to be found. As you said Ian that word is most prolific these days coming from the mouths of those who claim to be most offended by it; in day to day parlance, in movies and in song. So why should we then be forced to be ashamed that the word was used as a callsign, nickname, name, codeword etc by our armed services during periods of OUR history.

End piece - At the risk of coming across something of a Nationalist Fanatic: I am proud of my nation, proud of my history and if a codeword was Ni... Then it was Ni... Bugger Hollywood's version of history, bugger the PC's version of history, history is how it was and Kids should learn history as it was no matter who wishes to perverse terminology / words and if those words offend in the present day then the correct and original meaning should be made clear whilst at the same time making sure that they understand in todays modern society it is not appropriate to use it.

Gibson's dog was a major part of the early squadron's history and the story of that dog is a major part of events which took place that fateful eve.

In my day I would have been thrashed to an inch of my life if I so much as uttered the F word. Now every rap song under the sun, every movie, every child etc banders it around with gay (oops!) abandon. I, and many other people, find that extremely offensive! Do I have the right now to go on a crusade to have modern history erased from memory for in every RAF, USAF, USN video of the first Gulf War the aircrews are throwing that F bomb every second... ?

Ian your well put together post stopped me from posting a much feircer opinion and I thank you sincerely for I would surely have caught an awful amount of flack compared to what I am going to get here now LOL!

Gent's Ni... is a word... Just a word, a very old word with a very mundane meaning.

[MudMarine]

The point you made is what you yanks are missing about this. It has absolutely nothing to do with US policies or segregations or attitudes so stop comparing them. This is about British attitudes and I can guarantee there was no racist aspect to it. Up until the 70's most black dogs in the country were called that. My grandad had a dog called that and used to shout that word at the top of his lungs to get the little scamp to come back into the house and nobody batted an eyelid regardless of creed or colour. If the dog doesn't matter as some of you Americans point out then why does everybody who knows about RAF history know about the dog. I've had enough of american film makers whitewashing my heritage to fit their own arrogant self important views. Everything I've heard in this thread so far has been American this US that. You guy's have got too much racial guilt because all that trouble was very recent in your history. The US and UK two countries divided by a common language don't forget that.

I don't have any guilt about slavery at all. Thats becuase my family were slaves to your "empire" in Northern Ireland. We didn't come here until we were forced to by your empire!

Please I don't want to offend anyone, my point is that there are always multiple points to EVERY historical event. It was my intent to show that. I love my British brothers just as much as anyone else.

[IanP]

But it isn't a very mundane meaning, on either side of the Atlantic. It's also worth remembering that the slave trade existed in Africa and Asia while Europe was still trying to work out what a sheep was, let alone what to do with it(*). There's no written history for what the native peoples were doing in North America at the time that I know of, so I can't comment about that.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it cuts a lot more raw nerves in the US or South Africa, for instance, than it does in Europe - at least partially because it is within a lot of peoples' living memory.

What is critically important though is that the part of the story remains told in the full story. Historians, film makers and book writers always chop and choose what goes into the story they are telling, but the word, its connotations and meanings (both in the US and UK) and the contexts it was used in should never be lost or overwritten because people object to it in the current climate. Use it carefully, use it in context, explain the context, learn from it. Don't pretend it never happened.

The "current" trouble in Northern Ireland gs back well before partitioning, kilo delta. "Remember the Battle of the Boyne" is still a battle cry on both sides of recreational rioters. If you want to argue that out with my wife's family, who have to deal with NI politics constantly, working for the NHS and in education, then feel free, but believe me, it did not start in 1921. Heck, I was accused of being "to blame" for the Potato Famine a while ago because I come from England... Excuse me, I'm 36, not a couple of hundred years old. I may be good at killing plants, but I'm not that good!

I get very, very, fed up with countries on all sides trying to rewrite history to make their country sound better than it is. Hollywood and WW2 is particularly bad for this.

Right. Off to Merry Hell to look at buggies for upcoming small person (it appears to be female, in case anyone is vaguely interested in these things...) and then back to texturing buildings in Gmax.

Toodle pip, what!?

Ian P.

(* - The Welsh are still inventing new uses every week... :d)

[Clarke123]

I don't have any guilt about slavery at all. Thats becuase my family were slaves to your "empire" in Northern Ireland. We didn't come here until we were forced to by your empire!

Please I don't want to offend anyone, my point is that there are always multiple points to EVERY historical event. It was my intent to show that. I love my British brothers just as much as anyone else.
Who said anything about slavery? I'm talking about the race riots in the sixties. The most vehement responses over this and any racial issues always come from white guys. Besides that, context mate, what the hell has the troubles got to do with anything. Oh and by the way I've got strong Irish roots as well so don't try that with me. Multiple points yes but all of them agree the damn dog was called what it was called. End of.

[extrudinator]

Political Correctness is bad when it's a substitute for real change. It can actually strengthen evil when it's used to make racists and bigots feel that the problem is in the magic word or symbol, and not the attitude, philosophy and ideology behind the words. What good does it do to ban the swastika and then build a corporatist state, complete with mind control and eugenics? What good is it to ban the dog's name, then continue to hold the opinion that "some people" are somehow inferior and need "special help" all the time?

:wavey:

[PRB]

I've got an idea. Read a book! Since when is anybody ever happy about anything Hollywood does when it comes to events of history? I understand the sentiment, but if you're getting your history from movies, you've got other issues! The things that are wrong with the way Hollywood treats history are beyond counting, but we have to get “target-fixation” on this. I think the dog's name should be in the movie accurately. It won't be. It probably is in all the written accounts done since the event. This thread had been an interesting discussion, and I had hoped it wouldn't turn into another food fight between the US and Europe. In any case, we get the point.