Wow about Robin Hood! I couldn't get past him being so skinny. You have to be as strong as on ox to pull the kind of bows they used. Now, I really glad I didn't tune in. I suspected the producers didn't want him to look like a heroic figure because that's not PC either.
Not that absurd - blackmen did exist in England at that time The crusades brought people of all colours and creeds, before that the Romans brought people from around the world. It is not without possibility that one of Robin Hood's men may have been black. It's not the first retelling there have been several where one is black - I don't remember it in legend but there maybe something. EDIT Nope the tradition began in 1984 lol Probably a homage to Men in Tights - I loved that film. Cadfael does this really well - with the man who is worldly wise back from being a soldier becoming a monk. He uses the love of God and his experience to be tolerant of many races and creeds.
Yes, but wasn't it so unusual, it would have been noted if one of the main characters was black? I.e, if it was so, we would have known about it. That being said, I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with rewriting old stories in this way, as long as it's not taken too seriously. It can be put in the same category as Pride, Prejudice and Zombies.
Dude or Dudette, Kant wrote Critique of Practical Reason to critique "pure reason" as opposed to faith. You do not need "moral philosophy" if you believe in a religion because that's your source of morals. If you practice Enlightenment "pure reason" then you have no morals because there is no god due to no proof and so on. Kant SAYS in the book I mentioned that you'd have Hobbesian chaos without "morals" so we must act "As If" they exist to maintain fairness, order, and so on. So, Kant promotes what's called "pleasant fictions" as a replacement for concrete morals that would be generated by a god, if one existed. Alfred Adler, my favorite psychologist noted that humans are teleological creatures (future thinking) and much of human psychology rests on "As If" pleasant or unpleasant fictions and people are rarely In The Now. This caused the development of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. PC: As I mentioned, PC in rooted in the Kantian philosophy and the idea of "equality" is a great example. If a positive god exists, then all of his creations are on purpose and so they're equal. Someone with severe Down's syndrome would be equal to a top athlete with a genius IQ, because god created both and must have done so for a positive reason. If there is no god, then the athlete is clearly superior in most every respect and randomness is responsible for both the Down's guy and the superman. That same randomness can generate opinions. Thus, society might look at the Down's guy with compassion, due to his bad luck, that that will create a kind of equality. However, society might decide to go the eugenics route and just kill everyone for the sake of utility. That's what they used to do in Sparta and were trying to do in Nazi Germany. I suspect the US adopted the idea of all men being created equal as a response to the "as if " surrounding royalty and the inequality caused by that. Anyway, in the US all men are equal under the law whatever your god is or isn't and it's designed to stop oppression. The PC element is that real differences are ignored as an attempt to socially engineer human behavior. Comment: Going to college shouldn't be like going to church where some authority tells you what's in a book you've never read. Read the source material people! Whether it's assigned or not.
I honestly don't know it may have been unusual but then I am not sure how heavy duty the racism was. So it may not have been deemed worthy of note - its not like they described hair colour etc Although we seem to know Friar Tuck was portly. To be honest every adaptation of Robin Hood on stage and screen i have ever seen (including panto) has had a blackman in it would be more of note to me if there wasn't one lol Oral tradition changes myths and legends overtime - i guess celluloid can do the same thing
A few years ago I read a great book about the spice trade called Nathaniel's Nutmeg, which was excellent: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0374219362/?tag=postedlinks04-20 It traced the trade from the 1400s until the 1800s. The sailors wrote accounts of the their extreme situations and at one point in the 1600s a ship had to anchor off of Africa to find food and water. They encountered black people for the first time and were shocked because they had never seen such people before. They did not have nice things to say but noted that the Africans were very nice and generous with supplies. Robin Hood was supposed to be in the 1200s and I don't think black people existed in any abundance in the UK. I based that on the above book where the captain had never even imagined a black person before.
I'd like to see the part where I said there were abundant numbers of black people in Britain in 1200s? It's not impossible that there were black people in Britain before the 1600s. This was the height of the crusades making it more likely not only that there may have been a few but that people knew they existed. It is not completely absurd that one could have been an outlaw is my only point.
It's possible, but highly unlikely. There could have been a crafty Native American who invented a steam powered motorboat who made it to England and WAS Robin Hood, but really?
In writing a fictional story, trying to measure it's political correctness seems quite ridiculous. Fiction can include anything you want, any statement your main character makes does not belong to you, it belongs to the story. In fact some of my favourite tv shows have racists in them. Of course the main character isn't racist. But trying to apply political correctness to a fictional piece is pointless. Even if your story was completely racist, as long as you didn't claim it was non fiction then it's really just a story, politics have nothing to do with it.
We hadn't discovered America by that point On the other hand we knew where Jerusalem was well enough to attack it. Constantinople was part of the known world. A black man was much more likely to have been in England (the UK didn't exist at this point) could have come over as a servant of a visiting nobleman etc or a friend of someone he had fought with. In 1299 the Ottoman Empire began. He may have been an oddity but that doesn't mean he would have been approached with fear or shock either many English Noblemen had been overseas and seen people of other races. 1400s is different that is over a hundred years later. We have had Native Americans in this part of Scotland since the early 1800s possibly earlier. My point was that it wasn't totally impossible and anyway having a black man in Robin Hood has been part of the legend for 30 years now
I'm part Shawnee and I say they not only discovered Europe, but founded Scotland, via motorboat. Since I'm pat Native Ameican, my comments cannot be questioned. On a serious note, when I lived in Philly there were always a group of "Black Israelites" who claim they are the "real jews" who preached by city hall. They claim that they were the original founders of the British isles! PC prevents us exploring our real roots and keeps many people in a child like state of mind. For instance, I don't believe that my native ancestors were "magic" could smell deer a mile away, or whatever. I don't believe they were "noble savages" and I think they were just people. I don't need them to have done anything other than what they did. On Netflix I saw this movie with NA actors about this mystical NA adventure and I thought it was cool. I love Asian films for the same reason, it's Asian people doing things in their own setting. I don't want to see a film where Napoleon's best buddy is a Shawnee, but that isn't true, and that's only depressing. Meanwhile, it's anger producing for some people who don't what to see "race" bastardize history. I don't see the win.
It's hard not to explore your roots where I live - having a black man in what is in effect a legend anyway is hardly going to stop that. I know some amazing deer stalkers so the smelling a deer a mile away might not be so bizarre. They were bound to have talents we don't have because of the lifestyle. Most Brits don't need to be that precious about a history you can see - I mean i live 2 minutes walk from an Abbey that was there before Robin Hood came about. I live across the road from a base that has been the source of many historical events.
I agree. It's okay to have some level of PCness, but you mustn't let it get to the point that it restricts the story. For instance, in my stories set in pre-Civil War America, there will be slaves. There will be characters that aren't so nice to the slaves. I am not going to change what it was to suit the feelings of a few people. If they can't stand the sight of a character beating a slave, then they either (a) put the book down or (b) get over it. They can hope the MC will be a knight in shining armor by going in there and stopping the character, but the MC might not for many reasons, including, yes, the MC thinking slavery is a good thing and slaves should listen to their masters 100%. Hey, I'm sorry slavery happened, but it did. Ignoring it or pretending it never happened would be a gross insult to those poor souls that suffered under that institution. I might be hypocritical here, because while I type this, I think in the back of my mind: "I would never have one of my main characters walk around in a Nazi outfit, even if the reason was for a film project, during the climax. There are some things you just cannot do, and that's one of them." The closest I'd do is have the character run around in a uniform from WWI Germany, helmet and all. I suspect that newbie writers like me fall into PC because they're worried about offending people. Like I worry if I had my character save the day dressed as a WWI German soldier, then I'm somehow glorifying the Kaiser.
I love super creativity, so I agree. However, I don't like, in fact I hate, token characters. I believe they're "racist" or whatever "ist" applies to the situation. In American films you have the constant use of a convention I hate with a passion which is the "Magical Negro" (wiki the term). I saw the Adjustment Bureau the other day and it had yet other one dimensional black character who is magic and helps the white guy find love, learn wisdom, etc. I like characters who have personality and if the person is different from the norm, I want that reflected. That's creativity. Sticking in a minority or whatever and not putting thought into what such a person is really like internally is not creative.
I think Morgan Freeman worked great in the Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner. He was there for a reason, his ethnicity was a big part of his character, his access to foreign knowledge played a part in the plot, and he turned heads everywhere he went. This made him believable and relevant to the story. To dump in a black guy wearing the same tights as everyone else and let everyone around him ignore the fact, is just plain stupid. Almost as if someone from an Equal Opportunities Board were present at the casting for the show, demanding they forced him into a role in one place or another, and they couldn't bother to make changes in the script to justify it.
Think it probably has more to do with the fact I can't be the only Brit who is used to seeing at least one black man in the Merry men. I know the two Robin Hood Pantomimes I have seen had them etc As well as almost every other TV/Screen adaptation for past nearly 30 years. Think he has more to do with evolution of the legend than equal opportunities.
Fact: Political correctness has no place anywhere, at anytime, for any reason, period. This especially goes for the arts! I encourage all of my fellow writers to write creatively and without fear of repercussion for failure to be PC. Use your artistic license and instinct.
And there's a risk of "presentism", too: judging history by present standards. The n-word wasn't necessarily offensive at the time, and Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) was strongly anti-racist. Remember the Lenny Bruce routine "Any n- in here tonight?"
Man, that show is brilliant! They aired it on BBC America for two seasons and it was really great. I still laugh at "Numberwang" and think of answers like "Eleventyeight!" out of nowhere and chuckle. Was there a third season?
Yeah, PC most certainly has its place. Outside of art it's often just called "being polite", or "having good manners". You don't say certain un-PC things on a crowded bus then bitch about how PC everyone expects you to be.
You say this is a fact and have not cited any credible evidence. Care to provide any finished, peer reviewed studies to back this up?
It's one of those irregular verb phrases, isn't it? I speak my mind, you are cheeky, he/she is politically incorrect. The issue throughout it sensitivity to other people, but people only complain about political correctness when they consider the required sensitivity to be excessive. Different people draw that line in different places.
