to object to racist/offensive language in a play

[TeenyTinyTorya]

I went to see an amateur production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" the other night, and objected to some of the language used. The play is originally from the 1940s, and the script had not been updated.

At one point, a character referred to the Japanese army as "yellow devils", and at another point, an (unseen) character was described as a "chink".

I felt that neither term was necessary to the story, and both could have been changed or eliminated altogether to avoid offence, without affecting the play. I mentioned it to someone I know who was in the play, and they said that after a lot of discussion, a conscious decision had been made to keep the terms in the script. The reason for this was that people would have used these terms at the time the play was set.

AIBU to think that they should have just taken the terms out altogether, as they were not integral to the story?

onager, you'v just gone wildly off-piste...

true, edam, about the yellow devils, and perhaps if the staging were very just post-war (photos of winnie etc) that might help. but i just don't think that ths example is worth twisting knickers over if they don't have the props, iykwim?

Okay the argument about British theatre goers and WWII is moot, as the play was not done in the UK until 1966. In cultural context and WWII only the Americans saw it during the war.

And in that context, yellow devil is mild as is chink. It could have been much worse.

yabu. this is like the anti-smoking lobbies trying to edit out old movie stars smoking on screen. it's part of the original and most likely soally acceptable at the time.

If you are changing the medium (book to film, book to play, play to film etc) then you are going to have to re-script it anyway and I think that gives you the right to "assess" (shall we say) the language as you go. The same goes for translations and subtitles.

If you are presnting it in its original form then I think it is an artefact and you would need an exceptionally good reason to alter it (rather than, "there's no good reason not to do it.")

As ever, though, context is all. I remember once picking up a bowdlerised book of Irish songs. It included one with the line, "it's on the twelfth I'm proud to wear the hat my father wore"! Laugh? Cry?

Aitch, at the last moment I deleted the bits of my post that might cause too much offence and what was left didn't make much sense on its own.

.. Hey I could make a comparison there to the play couldn't it

nope.

I think if they had excised those lines they should have had a programme note to say so. But I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with theatre goers coming home and worrying about racist language. If we take these things out of the past we are much more likely to repeat them.

I don't think that books like Enid Blyton should be "updated", but that's because I think there are more issues about her books than the occasional use of the word "Gollywog"