Wench Auction Cancelled!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Henry Morgan famously sacked Porto Bello and later Panama amongst others.

I suppose one would consider him a privateer — ‘Got me license an’ everythin’’ — rather than a pirate, but as ever the difference to the victims is minimal.

The North African corsairs were the main reason, before the French and Spanish, why Charles I instituted Ship Money to protect his people, raided away in both Ireland and England as slaves. His principled opponents had the principle that general welfare should not be taxed from their fat pockets, making them ancestors of the libertarians.

Still, we did our own piracy in the Mediterranean, if one counts the Knights on Malta as us, and I don’t see why not.

22

As far as I know, the ride has always been about a romanticized version of piracy, just like pretty much every portrayal in modern culture.

I’m actually surprised no one was up in arms at the high number of women who show up in pirate-based video games.

23

:smack:
Just don’t sell women into sexual slavery. Everything else about piracy, the murder, theft, destruction of property is just dandy.

Oh the boy buggery is ok too.

24

There’s boy buggery on this ride? I’ve never been.

I’m certainly in favor of removing child rape from a child friendly amusement park ride.

As for the rest - I’m sure there’s a name for the logical fallacy that says we can’t protest Bad Act #1 because other Bad Acts also exist, but it escapes me. At it any rate, it’s neither a winning argument nor an interesting thought experiment.

But if you, AK84, are genuinely worried about the murder and theft appearing in the ride, feel free to present your concerns to the Disney corporation. I’m certainly not going to argue that they’re appropriate children’s fare.

Actually, I’m surprised that the rides haven’t been made over to be strictly tableaus from movies.

25

:rolleyes:
You think that pirates did not rape/enslave women? If so, then I have a bridge to sell to you. (there are some cases where they did not, tyically when said woman’s menfolk could make life very miserable for the said pirate).

There is no Bad Act 1 or Bad Act 2 here, pirates did any number of things which would horrify our modern sensibilities and be illegal. WHat you are doing is deciding which thing is acceptable and which is not. I think a “wench auction” is probably a good child-friendly way of explaining to children one of the bad things pirates did, which is rape and enslave.

Because frankly otherwise your objection should be to a ride glorifying pirates.

26

So - no boy buggery, I guess?

OF course real-life Pirates raped and enslaved women. Who cares? We’re talking about a family-friendly amusement park ride, not a museum exhibit. Historical accuracy is beside the point.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to an amusement park in the US, but rides here are not designed to provoke opportunities for describing historical acts of rape and slavery - which is exactly why selling sex slaves is inappropriate on the Pirate Ride.

Any American child old enough to go on that ride, will, on the other hand, already be thoroughly exposed to cartoonish violence, which is why it’s appropriate to show Pirates doing bloody acts. US Kids see worse than that every Saturday morning.

If you’d like to argue that American culture is wrong to display a family-friendly amusement ride showing cartoonish murders, you go right ahead. But even if your right about American attitudes toward murder, that’s still no reason why we should have to tolerate sex slave sales in the middle of an otherwise tame amusement.

27

I mentioned upthread that I’ve never ridden the Pirates of the Caribbean. In fact, I’ve never been to any of the Disney properties (growing up in the shadow of Cedar Point, I’ve never needed to.)

But I wanted to see the ride and I realized that in this day and age - it’s a solved problem. Here it is in all its … well, glory isn’t really correct. It’s … um. It’s … ok, look, it’s kind of pants, actually. I mean, I know this would have been hot stuff back in the day, but, well … see for yourself.

The Wench Auction happens @4:00. The banner has been changed to read

“AUCTION: Buy yourself a wife”

which is actually more historically accurate than “Wench Sale”, although I applaud the OP’s pithy branding instincts. Still. We all know what it is. It’s not like the Wives or the Wenches had any chance to decline the sale - and they’re not even the ones who profit from it.

There wasn’t much in the way of murder, either, FTR, although a few skeletons hang about and a pirate ship attacks a town while someone loudly intones: “Give up, Captain Jack Sparrow!” Really - the whole thing is thoroughly sanitized in the violence department.

No blood, needless to say. No body parts.

Even the super cheesy rip off Pirate Ride at Cedar point had Pirate heads. (Oh, man it was so sad and lame, but I loved it when I was little.) OH! I should show you the CP Pirate ride just for a laugh. This is from 1996, a rider’s camcorder, I think. The ride itself was shut down later that year.

The most brutal thing in that video (aside from the focus problems) is the hanging at 1:50, but the giant octopus at 1:25 was the real star of the show. Oh - the big red section in the middle is the ride being swallowed by a whale, although they kind of skip lightly past how you get back out again.

This article has photos of Cedar Point’s Pirate Ride, although it doesn’t show off the hanging.

http://thedisneyrevue.blogspot.com/2011/05/secret-influence-on-pirates-of.html

So the Disney Pirate Ride has way better production values, obviously, but in all honesty, the ride itself doesn’t seem any more fun than the one I grew up with. The Disney ride is way less bloodthirsty than the stuff you’d see at other amusement parks around the country, or at haunted houses (even the family friendly ones.)

So that’s what we’re talking about.

28

Because even if they are technically showing off a woman being sold into slavery, it’s in such a stupid and cartoonish manner that it’s no different than the scene where they’re torturing a guy by putting him in a well, then shooting at his wife.

The entire thing is tame because the entire ride is tame. Frankly, if you want to get into a “if A then B” kind of argument, I would venture to say that a scene where a pretty redhead preens for a bunch of guys is actually one of the tamest things in the ride.

You have the aforementioned torture scene (where there is nothing implied, he is literally being tortured), scenes of women chasing pirates (presumably after an attempted robbery) and a whole room dedicated to 3 pirates singing and playing instruments after burning the town down.

And as “bad” as all those scenes are, they’re still so cartoonish and fun that they simply don’t need to be changed without wholesale changes to the ride.

29

No. Sexual slavery is not routine entertainment. It is not harmless. It is not a common amusement in US amusement parks. It is not part of our overall cultural background noise, the way violence is.

Cartoonish violence is something that happens every time the tv is on.

Cartoonish sex slavery is not.

It is not acceptable to show sex slavery as routine good fun in a family entertainment environment.

Again - if you want to argue that the ride should be changed to remove all violence, you go ahead and you make that argument. But we are not obligated to accept sexual slavery as a casual amusement because some other outrage is accepted as such.

30

Somewhere along the way the whole pirate thing has utterly transmogrified.

31

In other Disney news, the Hall of Presidents will (of course) feature President Trump. More exciting is that Disney has confirmed he will speak.

32

I’m reminded of someone from a few years ago who objected to a historically accurate depiction of Confederate soldiers in Civil War combat carrying a Confederate flag. Why?..Because the Confederate flag was a racist symbol.

33

…and this is what he’ll say:

You gotta admit, it would explain a LOT…

34

So this is nothing more than RO. :rolleyes:

35

No. This is a defense of Disney for deciding that sexual slavery is not appropriate to display their amusement parks.

Pirates of the Caribbean is not and has never been an historically accurate museum exhibit, intended for education, so the comparison fails.

Pirates have been fun childhood games for centuries. Books like Tom Sawyer and Treasure Island showed off the excitement and extravagant behaviors of pirates in otherwise very buttoned up times. They were promoted to young boys as colorful rule-breakers at a time when young boys were whipped for stepping out of line. It’s not surprising that they still hold their attractions for children.

36

As I’ve said elsewhere…the pirates torturing the mayor for information is still OK, at least. And then getting completely drunk and burning down the town, with at least some people still trapped inside.

Plus, at least one real human skull still on display. So I, like a great many other people, can honestly say that the first place I ever saw a dead body was at Disneyland. 'Even had dinner in the same building, only a few yards away!

37

I think it’d be funny if they sanitized this to an extreme degree. Like, make it a pie sale fundraiser, and dress the wenches in anachronistic doctor and lawyer garb.

“Arrr it be for a good cause”

38

Then there is the scene with the new recruits attending a mandatory seminar on the danger of unrecognized microagessions…

39

“Yarr, ‘shanghaiing’ be offensive to the Chinese. The proper term be ‘nonconsensual enlistment.’”

40

I get really mad whenever this happens at Disney. I wish they would leave those old school rides alone. The submarine ride for example was so much cooler before it was updated to feature little nemo. Swiss family Robinson Tree House got turned into a Tarzan feature, they eliminated the adventures in inner space ride - most of what I recall with fond nostalgia has been removed or rendered to be unrecognizable.