Home early from Smoky-Drinky and relatively sober but I have just poured another one. Well, the snow is building and it's a bit dodgy moving around out there even when sober, and I have to work tomorrow, so a curtailed evening is probably the safest option. Anyway, it seems the madness has accelerated in the last few hours...
Disney have brought out a new cartoon, the old 'princess and frog' story but in this version, the princess is black. There has been much hoo-ha over this, as you'd expect in these Righteous times, and Disney must be wishing they hadn't bothered. The frog is still green, so they are still discriminating against rainforest tree frogs and I'm actually surprised nobody has pulled them up on that yet.
Let's get one thing clear in our minds. This princess is not really black, nor is she female. She is a drawing. She could equally well be green or blue, or have fifteen arms and three heads and scales and feathers and it wouldn't change the storyline at all. She. Is. A. Drawing. Not real.
Disney have not oppressed or taken advantage of her, they have not given her an inferior contract to the frog, they have not discarded her and left her to suffer, penniless, in a slum somewhere. They can't do any of that. She doesn't actually exist. All those people who have taken offence about it, have taken offence on behalf of a cartoon.
There are real people going through real problems out there, of all creeds and colours, and I am sure they will be delighted to see all the energy expended to save the imaginary hurt feelings of a bit of celluloid and paint. They won't mind waiting. A Disney drawing's happiness supercedes their own.
So, are we clear? It's a drawing. It's not real. It can't be hurt, and it can't hurt anyone. Okay? So we can drop it now, yes?
Enter Oona King:
"You never see disabled people," the former Labour MP complained to Mandrake at a screening at the Mayfair Hotel in London. "When are you going to see a Disney film with a disabled character in the lead role? Tell me that."
Oh for fu....
Look. We'll draw Robin Hood with one leg. How's that? IT'S A DRAWING, WOMAN. That's how come Peter Pan can fly, dogs and cats can talk and a wooden puppet can walk around and be friends with a cricket in a top hat. Clue: You don't often see any of that in real life, do you? Unless you have a stash of something really special somewhere.
She'd just watched a film in which one of the two main characters had been turned into a frog. You just can't get much more disabled than that, unless you set the story in a French restaurant.
King is clearly on a mission in her new role as Channel 4's head of diversity. "I think all of the media has a problem," she said.
If they didn't before, they do now.
King, who was defeated at the last general election by George Galloway, added: "Where we have made progress is having black people and other under-represented groups on the screen, but we still don't have black people making films. I can't think of the British Spike Lee."
If I'd been defeated in an election by George Galloway, I'd be keeping very quiet and saving up for plastic surgery and a name change. Reading her words, I'm not surprised she lost.
She is planning to demand that black people make films whether they want to or not - and if you're black and a filmmaker, practice gritting your teeth. The level of patronising smugness you are about to encounter in any dealings with Channel Four would try the patience of a saint. Just smile, take the cheque and run.
If you're any other colour and a filmmaker, don't bother with Channel Four. Their head of diversity has a focus and wants to see films in which all the characters are completely and permanently in a coma, made by a black director and containing representatives of every member of the animal kingdom, each with a bit missing. If you can do that you'll make a fortune - but use a pseudonym because you won't want it following you in your career.
I haven't heard such a load of rubbish spouted by mindless idiots since Fritz the Cat came out. That was a drawing too.
Offended on behalf of a drawing. Really, there is no point in making any attempt to please these people. It simply can't be done.
20 comments:
No disabled people in Disney films? Clearly she hasn't seen their interpretation of the Hunchback of Notre Dame...
Oh, I'd forgotten that one. Old Lumpy was a classic and almost as handsome as me.
Surely the British Spike Lee is Noel Clarke
being such an ancient boring old fart I do vaguely recall Disney's Treasure Island, released in 1950(?) with one Robert Newton playing a lead character with a notable disability ... maybe Oona is so young she never has
It is beyond my comprehension that a person who was considered to be a fit and proper person to be an MP could possibly make such statements.
Are you sure, DP, that she actually said these things? I find it almost as difficult to believe that she said these things than to believe what the WHO, IPCC, etc say. Presumably, her words are on record, and therefore cannot be denied.
What I think is the origin of the nonsense she has spoken is, fundementally, a misconception of the meaning of the word 'race'. If we take, as our starting point, the idea that a 'race' is some sort of SPECIES, then we can see that the human race is specific and distinct as compared with the Elephant Race, for example - or the Butterfly race. If one accepts this idea, and I think that it is self-evident, then the human race is one whole and cannot be sub-divided. The characteristics of our race as humans is our intelligence, not our colour or other minor distinguishing characteristics.
Elephant races and Butterfly races are so different from us that there is no way that a meaningful equivalence can be postulated.
On the other hand, it is just possible that, somewhere in the Universe, there are other similarly intelligent 'races' with whom we have not yet made contact. Believe me when I say that I am merely postulating the possibility.
Given that there is only one intelligent meaning attributable to the word 'race', then it follows that the powers-that-be know this very well. It also therefore follows that the whole scenario of 'racial differences' between peoples on this Earth is a sham. There are cultural differences, religious differences, etc, but not racial differences.
What this lady said betrays her ignorance of reality. How on earth she can be considered to be qualified to decide what 'diversity' means if she does not know what the word 'race' means?
But there is more to this than immediately meets the eye. One might ask, "Who on earth on channel four appointed her and why did they think that they needed a 'diversity' officer?" It can only be that, from the point of view of the controllers of channel four, that the absence of a 'diversity officer' could, somehow, get them in trouble sometime in the future.
If this lady gets her way, cripples will appear in cartoons. But then an 'equality officer' will appear who says that it is wrong to differentiate between cripples and able-bodied people, and then an 'artistic officer' will appear who says that all images have to be given equal prominence, and so on - at great expense to the public.
Is there an answer to this problem of greater and greater waste of our taxes? Well, yes there is.
In short, and I do not know how such a thing could be organised, tax payers need a definite forum, not affiliated to connected to or financed by any political party. I would also go so far as to say that the Government should set up such an organisation of only to counter special interest groups.
Sorry - I meant 'Leg-iron' and not 'DP' in my second para. Got confused.
I haven't seen The Little Mermaid but I'm guessing she had no legs.
Has the Disney organisation done Peter Pan yet with the disabled Captain Hook?
Let me check ... yes they have but it's quite recent ... 1953.
I don't suppose that's what immediately springs to Oona's mind when someone mentions 'Captain Hook', though... ;)
"It is beyond my comprehension that a person who was considered to be a fit and proper person to be an MP could possibly make such statements."
It's truly amazing what qualities are required nowadays to make one a 'fit and proper person' to be an MP, isn't it?
Another excellent post LI. :)
Whether you like Gorgeous George or not, he (a white Glaswegian FFS) beat King in an area with very few whites and very many of everyone else, because he probably does more for their causes from the simple things like housing issues to their more complex beliefs about the middle east. Whatever you think about him he does represent his constituents well (unlike the shyster here in Wakefied), and if Oonananah! gave a shit about anyone but herself she might win something other than a big "oh, just f**k off, luv."
When it comes out on DVD can we have a 'choose your own colour' menu?
Would that keep this deranged harridan happy?
I seem to remember a disney film with seven dwarves (or are they not considered not-able-bodied?)
Speaking of under-represented groups in film, if reports are to be believed, smokers are to be eradicated. Everyone is to pretend that we don't exist.
Jay
Nemo had a 'lucky fin' didn't he?
Didn't change the story at all AFAIR.
Perhaps that's why it was unacceptable - he just got on with it?
Scan...
Gorgeous George is Dundonian.
I loved his 'interview' with Paxo after he won the election. Paxo tried to put him down because he had the cheek to beat a black candidate. George fought his corner well pointing out that it's not against the law yet to take on a black candidate and WTF did race have to do with it anyway.
Channel 4 News is like watching a meeting of the UN. Peter Snow (sic) is the only whitey left.
Their coverage of climategate has been a disgrace. Slagging off anyone who tries to undermine the IPCC / CRU etc.
They actually did a version once of the Princess And The Frog, featuring a retarded princess and a crippled frog who couldn't hop. Before she kissed him, she got all nervous and started eating her buggers, whereupon the frog got sick and drowned in his own vomit. It was shown to a target audience but it didn't go over too well, so it was never released.
True story. Sort of.
It wouldnt matter what character Disney drew - she doesnt care!!
Don't you get it? She doesnt want a disabled character - she wants control!!
She's a lefty. She wants to be able to tell you what to put in your cartoon. She'll want to vet the script. She'll tell you when you can make it and where. She'll tell you who to employ and what to pay them.
She's a f###ing lefty - its all they ever want!!
... "I think all of the media has a problem," she said ...
She's absolutely right - people are turning off, not watching, because they're sick of being preached at and sick of "the media" having an agenda of some sort or other.
Pixar, "Finding Nemo" http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/nemo/tale_pop3.html
Apparently ...
"Andrew Stanton intended Nemo's underdeveloped fin to be symbolic of issues that cause parents to worry about their children's ability to adapt and get along in the world without their parents' help"
So, it wasn't about disability then!
Oona King has got a ridiculous name (bit sexist towards Queens, don't you think) and is obviously mentally ill.
Why don't ANY of these gob-shites go and work in a factory after they're thrown out of Parliament?
Viking - first, we don't have many factories left and second, factories need people who are good at something.
That's why we have quangos. It's somewhere to store them while we wait for their brains to grow.
Sadly, most continue in a vegetative state until the end. Sadly for us that is. We're footing the bill for their lifelong mental health issues.
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