FilmFlicking

K · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:05 pm Post subject:

No, the PC brigade disapproved of the Famous Five because they said they showed bad attitudes to people who were 'different' in some way to the middle class setting of the Five e.g. working class, gypsies, single parents etc. [you could include George, the tomboy, in this, because she was not a 'typical girl'].

They also said the attitudes towards women/ girls were patronising e.g. Anne was never allowed to do anything exciting, she was always left at home preparing the picnic or whatever [although in later books she does get more of a go at adventuring, perhaps due to George's influence?].

They also said the Five were too white and middle class and should be altered to show a wider variation. I think they also disapproved of the constant use of the word 'queer' to describe 'different' people [which is nonsense, queer obviously didn't mean homosexual in the Famous Five books].

All these points are valid, but as I said, I think the whole charm of the Five is based on their middle class, old fashioned attitudes. I suppose as an adult I can laugh at it all, but maybe the PC brigade thought kids would pick up on the 'ist' attitudes or something. Certainly as a child I never picked up on the 'isms' or thought I should disapprove of people who were different to me. They were just characters in a story...!

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Emperor Morphetine · Oscar Winner Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 1781

Will the Americans never stop meddling with our literature? No doubt they'll be promising that it's better than the books while changing almost everything that made the books good.
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Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 9571

Oh I see your argument now K...and I guess your right the pc crowds do and will alter this to be quite different than what it was originally intended....if only they could take away only those parts of the stories that they thought brought it down artistically rather than what they think is going to upset or annoy certain groups...far too much of the latter going on at the moment to the extent that it almost becomes second nature to expect these alterations to be done before they are for example when you mention the girls and Anne not being allowed to do anything exciting... When I think of a future Famous Five I just know that the girls are going to be really pro-active and most likely dominant...its ridiculous but its the way society has gotten...its exactly the same reason why you can't have an action film today with a main male character without having him partnered in some way by a female who must be equally brilliant or all these female spin off shows we keep getting
The Passion being the latest for me in this same kind of thinking having women in every important position and situation.... now like it or not but the Bible and Jesus' death really is a male show...his Apostles were all male, the high priests, Roman Soldiers, Pontius Pilot

I never read the books but if the tv series was any way similar I never picked up on any of the 'isms' either....but I also think we got to give children more credit too, you would think that when we were children we never experienced, watched or read anything bad (or later considered bad) that we feel we must now protect today's youngsters so vigourously
Have we all turned out so bad that we must curtail the kids of today from things that done us no harm?
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K · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:41 am Post subject:

Yes, I think its insulting for them to imply we're all so awful that we must have been scarred by our childhood reading

When I read the FF, I just thought they were old fashioned type kids doing old fashioned type things. Like Swallows and Amazons were too. I didn't relate my life to theirs at all, they were just adventure books.
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Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 9571

Yeah your right..I still maintain they are just attempting to make everyone the same....erradicate individuality and original thought from the young....okay maybe I'm being a little melodramatic

but still there is something to what I'm saying

And that is exactly the way children would take it today too when they read the books K but for some reason they have it in their heads that kids aren't clever enough to distinguish or recognise this and then will grow up sexist or prejudiced
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