Rewriting history : is it correct?

[John Upham]

According to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-li ... e-13727908 Stephen Fry will be renaming Wing Commander Guy Gibson's dog to "Digger" along with the codeword used to signal the successful breaching of the German dams.

Are we now required to rewrite history when used in the mass media?

[John Saunders]

I'm OK with that so long as they don't also change the name of the film to "The Darn Busters".

[Richard Thursby]

I'm OK with that so long as they don't also change the name of the film to "The Darn Busters".

Wouldn't that be more due to RN and M being easily confused when written in lower case (especially in joined-up writing)?

[Alan Burke]

Having just watched the film "Forest Gump" on one of the Sky movie channels, I noticed that in one sequence, where some black students are going into a school, they are refered to as "coons" by someone portraying a member of the crowd watching the event.

As the quoting of that phrase is not a verified account of what someone actually said on that occasion and has just been included in the film for effect whilst specifically refering to a group of black people, why is it that such a comment is deemed OK for broadcast, whilst although the actual name of Nigger for both the dog and the codeword in the Dambusters is an historical fact, it is deemed unfit by the P.C. brigade just because of their own perceived offence at the word many years after the event ?

If, in 20 years time, the word "chess" becomes a slang word for a particular racial group of people, would the P.C. lot then want to change all previous references to it throughout history and ask that we change the name of our game ?

[IM Jack Rudd]

The use of offensive words in works of art is an interesting one, and I think the answer has to lie in the contexts of the two films.

In The Dam Busters, the offensive word is just the name of a character. It might have been unremarkable at the time the original dog was named, and even when the original dramatization was made, but it's now widely recognised as an extremely offensive word, and if it were kept in the script, it would distract from the story.

In Forrest Gump, the offensive word is in the script for a dramatic reason: it is there to highlight the bigotry of the characters using it. It doesn't distract from the story because the characters' bigotry is part of the story.

[Alan Burke]

Jack, I totally understand your assessment of the situation, but the name of the dog/codeword is an historical fact, so why should it have to be changed just because over 50 years later some decide the word is now offensive ?

As I said earlier, suppose the word "chess" becomes an offensive word in 20 years time, would the recently released film about Bobby Fischer have to delete all references to the word ?

[Louise Sinclair]

I hate the censorship of today and don't think books or films should be cleansed. I read a modern edition of one book where the villain magically changed from a black man to a white one. This was stupid as he was the brains behind the crime and certainly written about with a certain respect. One of our cats is named Black Boy.
What happens when someone decides that black should move first in chess to avoid offence lol
Louise

[Paolo Casaschi]

In The Dam Busters, the offensive word is just the name of a character. It might have been unremarkable at the time the original dog was named, and even when the original dramatization was made, but it's now widely recognised as an extremely offensive word, and if it were kept in the script, it would distract from the story.

I think it's simpler than that, no need of any moral grounds whatsoever.
If you want your film to be commercially successful in the US you cannot afford a character named like that; unless you really want to make a point and you are ok with losing audience; for this film, the name of the dog is absolutely marginal, hence the choice is obvious.
Remember: it's a pretend film, it's not a BBC4 documentary.

And it happens all the time, I just saw the commercial of the "TinTin" film and I noticed that the dog character in English is called Snowy while in the original French comic books the name was Milou. It seems that in the English translation of the comic book the dog name was changed to please English speaking readers: is this correct? No, but it's not relevant either.

So, the answer to the post title is: "no, it's not technically correct, but who cares?".
If you do care, just do what many (Americans) would do if the character had the original name: show your outrage by not going to see the film.

[Ray Sayers]

Perhaps they could change war movies so US & British bombers drop pixie dust instead of incendiaries on Germany? Just so we don't upset any German viewers.

[Paolo Casaschi]

Perhaps they could change war movies so US & British bombers drop pixie dust instead of incendiaries on Germany? Just so we don't upset any German viewers.

You are not too far from it... in order to please the crowd and produce a WWII film finally interesting, Hollywood had to tweak the story a bit with "Inglourious Basterds". Again, not a BBC4 documentary, but good entertainment.