[QUOTE=you with the face]
It would be bad if the story of good guys overcoming Nazi evil is any way eclipsed by the unintentional irony associated with the hero’s dog being named after a racial slur used to dehumanize another race of people.
[/QUOTE]
Out of curiousity, how would you feel about it if the irony were intentional?
[QUOTE=saoirse]
/Quick hijack
Do you really think so? I actually saw that movie about a hundred times, and I saw it as his fury over the bathetic treatment of the death of a dog in the war in which 50 million people died, and “the high command/ took my daddy from me.” The dog’s name was just a little absurdist icing on the cake. /
[/QUOTE]
There was no seriousness in my comment; it was meant to be a joke. I don’t seem to be doing well with those lately…
[QUOTE=Frylock]
For different reasons, it would also be bizarre to make the film historically accurate w.r.t. the name and the way it was used.
Bit of a double bind here. But then, I guess that’s what the OP is pointing out.
-FrL-
[/QUOTE]
Change the name, and you piss off a few dozen historian/perfectionists.
Keep the name, and you piss off everyone else.
It’s a needless controversy, completely irrelevant to the larger plot. Ditch it. Ditch the dog completely, if it’ll make everyone feel better.
If I had to guess, I’d say that PJ will keep the dog’s name, but the deal with the US distributor will include overdubbing it to something similar, or do multiple cuts like the first HP movie, where Americans got to hear “Sorcerer’s” instead of “Philosopher’s”. A kind of highly selective censorship.
[QUOTE=jsc1953]
Change the name, and you piss off a few dozen historian/perfectionists.
Keep the name, and you piss off everyone else.
It’s a needless controversy, completely irrelevant to the larger plot. Ditch it. Ditch the dog completely, if it’ll make everyone feel better.
[/QUOTE]
This seems to be a recurring theme in this argument. I’m going to assume that the decision the producers makes is going to be the one that makes the most business sense. Whether it is or not would be better discussed on a message board for accountants. That doesn’t answer the question of what Jackson ought to do.
ETA Indistinguishable, it was probably me.
[QUOTE=Miller]
Out of curiousity, how would you feel about it if the irony were intentional?
[/QUOTE]
I think I would like it. Maybe even love it. Of course, it would have to be done right.
Hero: “We will find those horrible evil, racist, murdering Nazi and wish they had never laid a finger on those innocent Jews!”
Dog (from a distance): Ruff ruff!
Hero: “Oh hi, Nigger! Come here, boy! Come to me, Nigger, and fetch me my shoes while you’re at it!”
But then we’re getting into Airplane! territory, aren’t we?
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow]
Why not do what George Lucas did and call the dog Chewbacca?
[/QUOTE]
As long as they don’t call him “Jar-Jar”.
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
It’s no “Enola Gay”, admittedly, but it’s something a fair number of people would be aware of and noticing deviations from, moreso than many other details.
[/QUOTE]
I think you mean “Enola Same-Sex Oriented,” don’t you? :dubious:
[QUOTE=lissener]
Thence, another uproar, for whitewashing history.
[/QUOTE]
That’s somewhat offensive. Can’t you say ‘caucasianwash’?
Seriously though, was ‘nigger’ used by the British as a term for Africans? Or was it a term for Indians? (‘Little Black Sambo’ was Indian.)
One of the models I built when I was a kid was Revell’s ‘Dambuster’ Lancaster bomber. When I was about eight I had a book (from the Ballantine’s History Of The Violent Century series) about Lancasters, and it features a chapter on the dambusters. I first saw the film on TV when I was a kid (and have it on DVD now). I think there are probably a lot of people who are familiar with the salient points of Operation Chastise, Barnes-Wallis’s development of the bombs, and even the name of the dog.
Would being historically correct cause an uproar? Yes. But in history things ‘are what they are’. Not liking what things were isn’t going to change them. If someone is going to be so shallow as to be offended by a factual historical reference then he’s being too sensitive. Things have changed in nearly 70 years. Most of society have progressed beyond such racially insensitive things as naming one’s dog with an epithet. It was what it was, and things are different now.
What is the point of an historical film? Is it education? Is it nostalgia? Is it just entertainment? I think it’s a combination. In order to appreciate a true story, one must be able to understand the spirit of the times. As a space junkie who was born in the Space Age, the '60s are an exciting time for me. I see the '60s as a time of Striving For The Future. But there’s no denying that a lot of bad things happened. Racism and the battle over Civil Rights, assasinations, the war in Vietnam, the Cold War… These things happened, and can’t be denied if a film is going to be set in that era and the subject matter includes the not-so-nice aspects of the times. Abraham Lincoln said [paraphrasing] ‘If I can save the Union by freeing all of the slaves, I’ll do it. If I can save the Union by freeing none of the slaves, I’ll do that. If I can save the Union by freeing some of the slaves and leaving the others alone, then I’ll do that.’ Should this aspect of history be left out because it might cast The Great Emancipator in a poor light?
Guy Gibson had a dog named ‘Nigger’. That’s a fact. ‘Nigger’ was the codeword for the breaching of the Möhne dam. That’s a fact. We can’t go back in time and cause Gibson to give his dog another name. With our current knowledge of physics, that’s a fact. I think Nigger should be Nigger. (Man, I hate saying that word!) It’s not nice, but it is what it is. Otherwise we may slide into the dreck that was Pearl Harbor or the wrongness of Memphis Belle.
It ain’t a true story unless you tell the truth. It’s ‘inspired by true events’.
[QUOTE=you with the face]
Hero: “We will find those horrible evil, racist, murdering Nazi and wish they had never laid a finger on those innocent Jews!”
Dog (from a distance): Ruff ruff!
Hero: “Oh hi, Nigger! Come here, boy! Come to me, Nigger, and fetch me my shoes while you’re at it!”
But then we’re getting into Airplane! territory, aren’t we?
[/QUOTE]
That would be too dumb even for Police Squad. The idea that the English were fighting to protect the Jews is really idiotic. They were fighting to protect the English.
[QUOTE=saoirse]
That would be too dumb even for Police Squad. The idea that the English were fighting to protect the Jews is really idiotic. They were fighting to protect the English.
[/QUOTE]
I think you got whooshed a little bit there.
I submit would could complain that the movie was not realistic because the actors do not look like the historical characters with the same fervor.
I’d sure be annoyed if the dog were named “Heb”. 
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
Would being historically correct cause an uproar? Yes. But in history things ‘are what they are’. Not liking what things were isn’t going to change them. If someone is going to be so shallow as to be offended by a factual historical reference then he’s being too sensitive. …It ain’t a true story unless you tell the truth. It’s ‘inspired by true events’.
[/QUOTE]
But there has probably never been an historical film that told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth: it would be overly long and dreadfully dull in parts. Events are compressed, characters combined, details omitted. That will undoubtedly be true in this film, over and above what they decide to do with the dog/codeword. So if they decide to omit the dog entirely it’ll just be one small demerit on the overall ledger of the film’s accuracy.
[QUOTE=saoirse]
The idea that the English were fighting to protect the Jews is really idiotic. They were fighting to protect the English.
[/QUOTE]
Heck yes. They just got rid of them in 1290. 
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
… if Jackson is going to be telling an essentially modern story set to please modern sensibilities, I don’t see why there’s any need to include the admittedly callous and embarassing detail of the dog’s name.
[/QUOTE]
OK, this is why I think the real name should be used. I don’t think it will be, mind, it’s not the smart commercial choice. But in the culture & context of the time, it wasn’t callous, it wasn’t insensitive, it was just a name. And as someone who wants people to really understand language, including the cultural subjectiveness of semantics, I think this needs to be understood.
But it won’t be.
[QUOTE=foolsguinea]
And as someone who wants people to really understand language, including the cultural subjectiveness of semantics, I think this needs to be understood.
[/quote]
I’d only agree with this if the movie is supposed to be a lesson on language and semantics. If it’s not, then leaving out the name is no different than using a good looking actor to portray someone who was unattractive in real life.
[QUOTE=you with the face]
If it’s not, then leaving out the name is no different than using a good looking actor to portray someone who was unattractive in real life.
[/QUOTE]
Which is one thing that bothered me about Pancho Barnes, which starred Valerie Bertinelli in the title role; and From The Earth To The Moon’s Ted Levine as Alan Shepard, who looked nothing like him.
[QUOTE=foolsguinea]
But in the culture & context of the time, it wasn’t callous, it wasn’t insensitive, it was just a name.
[/QUOTE]
I believe you are mistaken. Consider Ian Fleming, more or less of that generation and the racism in his novels.
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
Abraham Lincoln said [paraphrasing] ‘If I can save the Union by freeing all of the slaves, I’ll do it. If I can save the Union by freeing none of the slaves, I’ll do that. If I can save the Union by freeing some of the slaves and leaving the others alone, then I’ll do that.’ Should this aspect of history be left out because it might cast The Great Emancipator in a poor light?
[/QUOTE]
I feel like that’s a somewhat different thing than the dog’s name. If you are making a movie about Abraham Lincoln, and/or the Civil War, I’d imagine that slavery was a very important theme in your story, regardless of whether you were trying to emphasize Lincoln’s positive or negative qualities, or some mix in-between.
Despite the fact that Mr. Lincoln no doubt spent a lot of his time focused on the Civil War and slavery, there were other social things going on in the 1860s. I believe this was the time when there was a growing interest in viewing homosexuality as a sickness, a pathology. If you were making a movie about the Civil War, it would be accurate to include some information about those sick homosexuals. That could be an interesting movie, but I think most audiences would expect such a film to include substantial and reflective content to place the “sick and demented homosexuals” in a context that helps me, the viewer, better understand it as an historical reference. If it didn’t, I for one would walk out of the movie thinking “What was UP with all those comments about how sick homosexuals are?” It would prevent me from focusing on other aspects of the film, perhaps those that you consider your main points, such as slavery.
So, if Peter Jackson wants his movie to be about a guy who thinks it is okay to call his dog Nigger, and why in that historical time it was a perfectly normal thing to do, that could be a good movie … but a movie is only so long, so it would need more stuff about the dog and less stuff about blowing up the dam. If the main focus is on blowing up the dam, and the dog is called Nigger in passing, then I am going to leave the movie thinking Peter Jackson has lost his mind.
Maybe we learn his name by the pilot introducing someone to him, and that other person will pause for a second, wondering whether or not to say anything, keep mum and go on with whatever he was doing. That would be a good way to do it, I think. Just enough to acknowledge that, yeah, that’s not kosher.
Anyway, I’m of the opinion that it’s more important to remember what went wrong in history than to keep people feeling warm and fuzzy at war movies. MMV.
Not that I have a dog in this fight. I’m not going to see it–I have better things to spend 4 hours on than another Peter Jackson film festival.
Ha! Have you seen a Peter Jackson film? There is no such thing as “very little screen-time”.
Don’t you think the shades of gray make it a subtler, more captivating story? I do. I’m sick and tired of the all-good-in-every-way versus the absolute-evil-who-do-stuff-just-to-be-evil thing. There are 7 million Disney movies and 13 million other movies that are all the same damn thing, why make the same damn movie over again–except longer?
You may find this interesting. Then again, I’m just a language geek, so you may not.