Yes, me too. And I’m not sure how ‘catch an Indian’ is supposed to be more PC.
Not that the historical version actually is nasty; it’s just hard to perceive it otherwise today.
I was over 40 before I heard the other version. The black people who clued me in honestly could not believe a white woman of that age just didn’t know, hadn’t heard, and hadn’t a clue about the existence of the “original” version. Apparently they had all been informed about it in childhood.
I guess my parents did a very good job of eliminating such influences in my early life, and since I have made a habit of hanging out with people who use words like that or are blatant bigots… well, I guess I just lived in blissful ignorance.
I’ve read this, too. What’s weird is that Eddie Murphy was reported to be a big fan of the books, which is apparently one reason he made his Dr. Doolittle movies. If true, I suspect that he loved what he grew up with, despite its dated treatment of blacks.
Richard Wright’s Native Son was a lot cruder than the edition I read in a college (!) literature class. The scene at the movies where Bigger and his friend were watching a newsclip about Mary Dalton (who Bigger later kills) and masturbating like motherfucks was totally rewritten.
A scene in the original version of Betty Smith’s “Maggie-Now” has the butcher talking about the “spics” and how they speak funny and only want weird meats. That got cut in the abridged verion.
Try to find the original versions of these two books. They are much better.
You know, thinking back on all those years I went to Catholic school, they never taught me any popish tricks.
Hey, does anybody remember Lawrence Welk’s original show, The Big Band Wife Swap and N**r-Stomping Party? Did well enough on the radio, but the transition to TV required some actual format changes (new medium at the time, ya gotta allow for a few Nervous Nellies).
Nitpick: That song is associated with the Nazis but actually dates from 1841, and was a pre-unification German-nationalist song – the original “Germany Above All” message being, not that Germany should rule over other nations, but that Germans everywhere should be more loyal to the idea of “Germany” than to the particular German principalities of which they might happen to be subjects.
I’ve heard it sung “I get no kick from champagne,” which is a good tie-in with the next line 'Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all."
That’s a different verse. Sorry about the pop-up ad, but I think these are the original lyrics.
On that note I was about 40 when I realized that the “Darktown” in “Darktown Strutter’s Ball”, a song I’d been singing since childhood, wasn’t just the name of the town.
Fun fact: Pope Benedict has a ring that squirts holy water into the faces of people kneeling to kiss it. Oh, how they laugh!
There’s also this trick he does with bread and wine. It has to be seen to be believed . . . no, actually, just seeing it is not quite enough . . .
Henry II’s first lines in The Lion in Winter included a shocking revelation as he tells his mistress (who is also his son’s fiancee and who was raised as a daughter by his wife)-
This was included in the original movie with Peter O’Toole. In the remake with Patrick Stewart the line was included but “and little boys” was dropped.
In community theatre productions of Arsenic and Old Lace the yellow is usually dropped from Teddy’s references to the Japanese as “sneaky yellow devils”. Not for PC reasons, but Mortimer dancing around delightedly saying “I’m a bastard I’m a bastard!” upon learning he’s not really a Brewster was changed to “I’m the son of a sea cook!” in the movie due to censors.
In modern productions of You Can’t Take It With You the black maid Rheba and her live-in boyfriend are usually toned down from the racial stereotypes (lines include “Oooh Lawdy, they’s flies in the kitchen” and “I’se on relief!”). In the movie production the references to her boyfriend sleeping over with her were removed, but then they changed the play considerably in other ways (not for PC reasons) as well.
Sorry, I should have specified instead of just leaving the link. She sings the words, quite clearly, while dancing. The words are not cut out of the movie. In fact, the movie version is the only reason I know the words.
And to boldly go where no **one **has gone before
I was in a community production of You Can’t Take It With You just recently. The racially-stereotyped lines were indeed changed–“I’se on relief” became “I’m on relief,” and so on. Easy enough changes to make.
Interestingly, we had to make another change due to local religious sensitivities. This is a part of Canada that is heavily Christian–there are a great many strict Mormons and Fundamentalists locally–and when the IRS collector exclaims “Jesus!” at one point in the script, it was decided that it might be best if it became “Jefferson Davis!” on stage. It may seem a silly change to make, but when you got right down to it, it was a question of money–we didn’t want to give anybody an excuse not to buy a ticket.
I wonder if anybody was offended by the Kirby’s word game. (“What does sex have to do with Wall Street!?”)
When I lived in Salt Lake City, Pioneer Memorial Theater at the University of Utah put on Peter Schaeffer’s Amadeus. This being Utah (even though the U is not a Church school), they cleaned up all the dialogue.
That’s pretty jarring, because part of the point of the play is that Mozart is an undeserving little potty-mouth, and Salieri resents that he is apparently God’s Favorite. So when he can’t actually be a potty-mouth, Salieri’s outrage loses a lot of its zip. You sort of sound ridiculous yourself complaining that someone says poopy too much.
Ditto the Professor from Gilligan’s Island, whose original name was Roy Hinkley. When they did the movies around the time Reagan was shot, they changed his name to Roy Hinkle.
The hero of Philip K. Dick’s We can Remember it for you Wholesale was named Quayle. But, because of our then-Veep’s last name, Arnold’s character in Total Recall was called Quaide.