AIBU to be concerned about promoting racism and xenophobia?

[Secretlifeofme]

I'll start by saying that I'm a performing arts teacher in a country where we are lucky enough not to have many covid restrictions. Currently thinking about our school production for next academic year and considering two : Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Peter Pan. But looking at the scripts, they're both really problematic in terms of racism ('Red Indians' in Peter Pan ) and xenophobia (the Germanic villains in Chitty). Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Have your DC schools put on productions of either of these and if so, how did they handle this?

Any advice gratefully appreciated- it seems as though any musical for which I can get the rights is either racist, sexist, xenophobic or a combination of the above!

Agree with you on Peter Pan (it's also incredibly sexist), but think Chitty Chitty is a stretch. For racism, there needs to be oppression of a marginalised group an imbalance of power. The portrayal of those people may be silly, prejudicial even (although that's never occurred to me through watching it), but not racist.

Ok reading back I now see that you're saying Chitty was xenophobic, not racist. I apologise

Isn't there also Germanic hero's in chitty? Like the toy maker?

That's no problem @MolyHolyGuacamole, thanks for replying! The thing is that I'm in an international school, which makes xenophobia even more obvious and unacceptable I guess

If I remember rightly, we did Peter Pan but completely missed out the "red Indian" bit, I think Tiger lily was replaced with a mermaid

@Biancadelrioisback that's interesting, thank you! Technically when you purchase the rights to a musical you are not meant to make changes like that, but I wonder how likely they are to check!

I don't think the villains in Chitty are meant to be germanic are they? I think they are meant to be more of a pre-soviet small central European state (like Ruritania with another name en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruritania ). I don't think it is a stereotype that persists now* so there is less danger of reinforcing something negative.
*The modern cliches around those places are very different - formed by our perceptions of the cold war and then the conflicts of the 80s. I know people from e.g. the balkans/poland and I dont think any of them would be offended by Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. There is soooo much history in between now and when that film was set.

I think the Red Indians in Peter Pan have been discussed more widely. I can see why the original version is problematic, but it should be possible to update the script to either leave them out or change how they are portrayed. The play is about make believe and childrens play, and at the time it was written Indians and Cowboys was a big part of children's play/stories. It isnt any more so it would hit completely differently (and possibly seem racist) so I can see why you would want to change it.

Oh for gods sake

Sorry, that should be conflicts of the 90s.

But the only way it could possibly be seen as xenophobic against germans is if you had them all doing comedic germanic accents. So just dont do that. But also I know plenty of germans and I dont think they would care.

@FightingTheFoo my husband is Jewish. My grandmother was German. Xenophobia and racism against any group can surely only lead to more divisions and hatred in the future.

@apalledandshocked that's the thing, in the script they do have comedic German accents. So maybe I could do it but without those?

@Secretlifeofme it definitely makes for interesting discussion, and it's good to see people actually think about it rather than shrug it off as 'of the time' (like the current uproar around racist imagery in Dr Seuss).

I work with children and am very aware of what I expose them to. We listen to a playlist of 'oldies' children's music, but I skip over the 'We Are Siamese' song from Lady & the Tramp due to racism in the music (and portrayal of the cats).

Agree with PPs saying that you can update the stories, but I definitely sliding leave them in their original form

@Roonerspismed thanks for that insight ;)

*Your

@FightingTheFoo you are being hugely offensive. You know nothing about my grandmother, who immigrated to England in 1933. Don't be so ignorant and rude to people you don't know on the internet

@FightingTheFoo

This is hilarious. You're worrying about being xenophobic against Germans. I honestly can't stop laughing. I'm sure if my Jewish relations were alive they'd be laughing too. They're dead though. Because of the Nazis.

German and Nazi is not the same thing. There were plenty of Nazi's in other countries, and still are. I am sorry that your Jewish relatives died. But that doesn't give you licence to peddle the same hatred that led to their deaths.

Ahhh, leave of the Germans. They're OK.
But If you're school is international I assume you have a wide range of nationalities (and therefore accents). I would probably be a bit more sensitive around comedy foreign accents for that reason alone. However, I doubt that if you did include them many people would make a negative connection. But to be on the safe side they could do, eg, very posh/aristocratic English accents instead. That would convey the same thing I think

I don’t know, OP. Fleming was the original author of Chitty, whilst Roald Dahl co-wrote the screenplay. His anti-Semitism is well known - some say they can see anti-Semitic undertones in the portrait of the Child Catcher (read this quite recently, but can’t recall where), others say the film is anti German. DH is Jewish too like yours (mother was German) but says he’d never considered the Child Catcher that way. The thing is, with a school production you could amend and adapt. It’s all in the interpretation, in more ways than one.

I’m sure that OP’s intentions are good. I can’t help but think of all this as virtue signalling. We are worried about art from a bygone era while in the world today there is ethnic cleansing of Uighars happening and Rhohingyas burned alive in their homes. This is the world we live in today. And yes we can take a stand against two things at once, except most people only choose things which make little to no difference. Sorry, don’t want to hijack this thread, just saying that in the grand scheme of things this is total nonsense.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang seems OK to me, just as long as you don't cast someone who does a very bad cockney accent.

Moondust001 are you kidding??!Wwhat an unpleasant thing to say. In no way, shape or form was FightingtheFoo ‘peddl[ing] the same hatred that led to their deaths.’ Give your head a wobble.

@noraclavicle I have read that too and I can see it in the film version. But you're right, it's all in the interpretation. We would have to tone down the Child Catcher anyway, as we will have reception aged kids in the audience - don't want to terrify them!

@apalledandshocked

Ahhh, leave of the Germans. They're OK. But If you're school is international I assume you have a wide range of nationalities (and therefore accents). I would probably be a bit more sensitive around comedy foreign accents for that reason alone. However, I doubt that if you did include them many people would make a negative connection. But to be on the safe side they could do, eg, very posh/aristocratic English accents instead. That would convey the same thing I think

Er, no. It would not be acceptable to do a "very posh/aristocratic English accent" instead. Why on earth would it be wrong to have Germanic villains but fine to have English ones?

OP, if the source material is unsuitable, don't use it. We shouldn't rewrite works to make them acceptable to modern tastes. It's no different to islamists blowing up ancient monuments because they pre-date islam and are therefore offensive to them. The works were a product of their time, just see them as that.