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!

I think you’re over thinking the alleged xenophobia in Chitty. There are good (toy maker and other towns folk) and evil (the baron and baroness) Vulgarians in Chitty. They are not portrayed as universally bad.

Most importantly, Vulgaria is made up!

I think many musicals can be seen offensive in some way or another , I think it's important to see musicals/plays if their time. There is some languages we might change but where will it end as the logical conclusion is that everyone can censor every thing

Moondust001 I won’t be wobbling my head or anything else for that matter, as I’m not the one suggesting a poster - whose family was exterminated - getting a bit miffed that portrayals of Germanic characters as comedy villains is causing such anxiety is on the road to wanting a race exterminated. Not something most people would tend to do.

@Thymeout

So there's a problem with Peter Pan because of Red Indians. So let's leave out Tiger Lily? How does that help the cause of diversity and inclusion? Btw, on the Navajo Res, there's a high-school where the football team call themselves 'The Redskins'.

All this focus on historical attitudes to race and xenophobic memes and linguistics is nuts. And dangerous. Like cropping photos to eliminate rivals to Stalin or burning books.

If attitudes then were different from now, you've come a long way, baby. Celebrate it.

Where to begin? It's the entire portrayal of them that is racist, the way that they speak and communicate as one example. Also, saying that a group calls themselves a particular name is not an excuse for other people to. Like black people using the 'n word' amongst themselves and in their music. Oh, and they're not 'Indians', they're Native Americans/indigenous peoples 🙄 'Indian' was borne of ignorance by a man who thought he'd sailed to India.

And want to increase diversity? Easy. Make sure there's diversity in the casting, Peter Pan doesn't have to be white.

I think that at the end of the day both are lighthearted children’s stories. Change out truly very offensive lines, but otherwise leave them as is.

People have loved them for this long, why should they be changed now? Everyone understands that they’re from a different time.

Thanks everyone for the interesting discussion! I think based on your comments I'm going to go with Chitty, but cut the unnecessarily offensive accents 😊

Surely the simple solution is to do neither. Both are as boring as hell. And if you think "red indians" is the only objectionable thing in Peter Pan, you need to read it more carefully.