'isms' in Pantomime

[manicinsomniac]

I don't normally consider myself overly PC. I laugh at jokes I know I shouldn't, don't think about implications and connotations etc enough.

Maybe I've been overly affected by the threads on isms on here over the last couple of days but, on taking a final look at the pantomime script I purchased for my Year 7s to perform I found myself fairly shocked and have just had to make the following (probably illegal!) edits:

Sexism - "If you ask me, respectable young women should be home by midnight anyway. If a young woman is out past twelve o clock it usually means she's up to no good." (I've changed woman to person)

Disablism - "Get off me, you smelly old cripple" (I've changed cripple to man)

Racism - "How did you manage to miss a great big restaurant called the Wing Wong"
"I went the wong way!" (I've just cut that altogether)

Ageism - "Just look at the old bat" (I've changed it to 'just look at her')

All from one script that's supposed to be suitable for 10-14 year olds? I know pantomimes sometimes employ black humour but I'm not sure I want my kids thinking these kinds of references are okay. I just want light hearted end of term comedy.

WIBU and professionally offended to change them all?

Nope. YANBU.

I think your overreacting tbh. But accept that I'll be in the minority.

How can you change it?

YANBU. I am an avid reader of VIZ and while i find this sort of thing hilarious it's not really suitable for 10-14 year olds.

I hate all that.

Get your red pen out!

YANBU. I've directed panto a few times now and was given a panto script a couple of years ago which I ended up binning, as rewriting all the offensive bits would have meant effectively writing the whole thing myself - Snow White with 2 Chinese policemen (because that's totally in the fairy tale) and jokes about 'flied lice'...

The one we're doing this year has also had the blue pencil taken to it, as it featured a chorus of 'travellers' who had dodgy jokes about scrap metal dealing, hygiene and stealing (changed them to New Age travellers ie hippies and the running joke is now about how one of them can't juggle and keeps hitting people with their beanbags when they try). Also a whole lot of sexist twaddle from the Dame got cut.

An awful lot of scripts seem to have been written in the 70's and never updated...

Yes, sort of, to some of them. But I don't understand the 'racism' in the wing wong joke.

When was it published, Manic?

I should contact the publisher explaining the situation, (I am 99.999% sure they will be fine with the edits) and suggest a schools version.

generally speaking pantomime is and should be gloriously nonPC , but performing one in school is a bit diferent and I can see why they have made the changes.

I'm not sure when it was published but it's from an online script store so probably not that long ago. Based in the US.

Porto - I thought Wing Wong was a little big derogatory towards Chinese people because of the wong way follow up.

YANBU

and you change it by changing it - as the OP has done!

Well done OP