I have said before how books like Tintin in the Congo or elements like Santa's pipe have been removed due to political correctness.
The same has happened with Puffin Books' sensitivity readers to Roald Dahl, where Matilda's reading of Rudyard Kipling has become Jane Austen, "hopping like a dervish" became "hopping like a frog," "fat" became "enormous," "ugly old cow" became "nasty old shrew" and "gay" and "queer" were completely excised, even if they mean "happy" and "strange" respectively.
James Bond and Agatha Christie (Ten Little Soldier Boys, anyone?) have also been given the PC treatment, but what shocked me the most was that they did it to FAWLTY TOWERS :O !
But the billboard anagrams are not the only issue in translating FT. How to translate cultural references...? "At the Oval" becomes "en el críquet", but "Wogs?" (British slur for South Asians, very offensive to them!) And Manuel's funny mistakes, based on the Anglo-Spanish language barrier?
I grew up with this scene, where Mr. Fawlty and the Major are discussing ethnic groups. The Major, a veteran of both World Wars, thinks (obviously) that Germans are the enemy but that German women are very attractive... then the conversation turns to (pardon my French) Injuns and Niggers, and Wogs. He recalls having taken his ladylove to see England vs. India at The Oval, the most important cricket ground in the UK and maybe in the world. The Major and his girlfriend got into an argument - she kept referring to the South Asian cricketers as "niggers," while the Major said niggers were the West Indians, from the Caribbean, and these cricketers were "Wogs" instead:
- Major Gowen: I must have been keen on her because I took her to see India.
- Basil Fawlty: India?
- Maj. Gowen: At The Oval.
- [...]
- Maj. Gowen: The strange thing was that throughout the morning, she kept referring to the Indians ("Injuns") as niggers. 'No, no, I said'. 'Niggers are the West Indians, these people are Wogs!' 'No, no', she said, all cricketers are niggers.'
- [...]
- Maj. Gowen: I hate Germans! I love women.
- Polly Sherman (the maid): What about German women?
- Maj. Gowen: Good card players.
The BBC deleted this scene in 2013 and this was met with collective outrage.
After all, the point of the scene was to present Major Gowen as arrogant, aloof and out-of-touch. But Brits love him warts and all, with his antiquated racism, and I am not the only one who has grown up with this series, or Monty Python, or 'Allo 'Allo!, or Blackadder, or Hyacinth "Bouquet..."
The major tells Mr. Fawlty about the time he took a woman to see India play cricket at the Oval. He then says: ‘The strange thing was, throughout the morning she kept referring to the Indians as niggers. “No, no, no,” I said, “the niggers are the West Indians. These people are wogs”.’
Several years ago there were concerns that the episode would never be shown again because of the offensive words. However, recent editions of The Complete Fawlty Towers DVD, distributed by BBC Worldwide, have not been edited and included the segment that was cut by the BBC.
Some fans took to the BBC’s Points of View message board to say they ‘despaired’ at the ‘unnecessary’ editing.
One wrote: ‘You can’t airbrush history away and I doubt if anyone but the terminally thin-skinned could be offended by the Major, a character we’re clearly supposed to laugh at rather than with.’
Another posted: ‘The point is that the Major is a racist old bigot, incongruous with modern society – even in the Seventies. The audience isn’t supposed to agree with him, they’re supposed to laugh at him. The whole episode is about xenophobia in various forms – it’s social satire. I instinctively dislike the airbrushing of history.’
A third viewer wrote: ‘So how sad BBC you have finally succumbed and lost the guts to transmit the episode of Fawlty Towers “The Germans” in its original form. The major’s speech of his experience of going out with a woman to the Oval is one of the funniest things ever.
‘You edited it because it includes the W-word and the N-word. Let’s face it, the whole episode and much of Fawlty Towers is racist by today’s standards and misogynistic, but above all it is hilarious.
‘We are all grown up, you know. We, the vast majority of us, can laugh at this without being racists.
‘It’s about time you grew up BBC, and trusted your audience. We know what is acceptable and what is not and what is funny and why, and the fact it is of a time which is now long past. We understand context, the major is a figure of fun, he doesn’t whip up hatred.’
Fawlty Towers was written by and starred John Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth as Mr. and Mrs. Fawlty. "The Germans" was the sixth episode of the 12 that were made and was voted number 11 in Channel 4’s One Hundred Greatest TV Moments in 1999.
The series has continued to entertain families since being made in the 1970s and was in 2000 voted by industry professionals to be the best British series of all time.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘We are very proud of Fawlty Towers and its contribution to British television comedy.
‘But public attitudes have changed significantly since it was made and it was decided to make some minor changes, with the consent of John Cleese’s management, to allow the episode to transmit to a family audience at 7.30 pm on BBC2.’
The BBC has cut from a repeat of the episode The Germans (screened many times since it was first seen in 1975) a speech in which the blimpish hotel resident Major Gowen uses two outlawed racial insults while reporting on a trip to see an England v India cricket match at the Oval.
It is impossible to discuss properly the censored dialogue without quoting the line. Very sensitive readers should stop now and it should not be assumed that I, the Guardian – or, indeed, John Cleese and Connie Booth, the show's writers and co-stars – endorse the general or casual use of such terms. In his anecdote, the Major tells Mr. Fawlty that he went to the cricket match with a woman who "kept referring to the Indians as niggers. 'No, no, no,' I said, 'the niggers are the West Indians. These people are wogs.'"
The objection to those shows is that the assumptions behind the characterisation and writing date from an era of different attitudes to race and therefore risk causing offence now. In contrast, Cleese and Booth, when they wrote the character of Major Gowen, were clearly not being unthinkingly racist; rather, they were satirising an English upper-class bigot. The joke depends on the audience first thinking that, when the Major rebukes his companion "No, no, no", he is condemning her for inflammatory language, when it turns out that he is simply a particularly pedantic racist. A liberal pedant might object that it was odd of the BBC to cut just that one line from the episode in question as the entire premise of "The Germans" is English post-WW2 humour and hostility towards the country. But, while the show will never win a prize for encouraging Anglo-German cultural understanding, Cleese is comically depicting – rather than politically promoting – fear of "Fritz".
The same defence can be made of Major Gowen's speech and so there may be pressure for the entire episode to be shown at a later date, with an appropriate note about its content. Major Gowen is racist; Fawlty Towers isn't.
I am not the only one who has grown up with this series, or Monty Python, or 'Allo 'Allo!, or Blackadder, or Hyacinth "Bouquet..." Before I watched this episode as a tween, I knew nothing about cricket, I didn't know what the Oval was or what "Wogs" meant. Now in my thirties, I am very sad that the BBC has removed this conversation between Mr. Fawlty and the Major. I can tolerate that Tintin in the Congo is no longer in Swedish libraries, that Santa no longer smokes a pipe, that Roald Dahl has been edited by Puffin Books - BUT PLEASE DON'T TOUCH MY MAJOR OR HIS WOGS!!!
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