MINGS AIN'T

WHAT THEY

USED TO BE! 

Here we go again… another storm in a teaspoon! Yes, dear reader, the PC brigade is on the march once more… which must surely offend all the other months of the year! 

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has added a warning about "discriminatory stereotypes" for the recent re-release of the 1980 film, “Flash Gordon”, based on an American daily comic strip which ran from 1934 until 1992, with the Sunday strip continuing until 2003. 

Pourquoi? Well… the thought police have decided that “…due to his hair and make-up, the villain of the piece, Ming the Merciless, a ruthless tyrant who rules the planet Mongo, was of East Asian appearance and was played by Sweden's Max Von Sydow. They reckon that this is something that viewers may find dubious if not outright offensive.” I kid you not… (Whoops! That’s going to upset a few young goats!)

Personally, I think that Ming looks like… Ming might look… but since no-one has ever been to the planet Mongo… mainly because it doesn’t exist… how the aitch do we know what he looks like?

Is the objection because he’s the baddy, and that’s tarring East Asians with the same brush? Now there’s an expression that won’t find favour in some politically select circles… or should that be ‘squares’?

East Asia comprises China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. Also, there’s Tibet in there, which includes ethnic groups such as Moupa, Tamang, Qiang, Sherpa and Lhoba. We are talking a combined population of some 1.6 billion. I would have thought that linking them all together may not please quite a few of them… or do they all look alike to the BBFC?

Quite frankly, I reckon that Max Von Sydow, pictured left in the risky role, looks more like a fiendish villain with exaggerated makeup, than someone from East Asia… nobody has eyebrows like that, do they? It’s play acting for crickey’s sake!

The actor pictured right is Charles Middleton born in Kentucky, U.S.A. He played Ming in the original 13 episode Flash Gordon serial in 1936… note the similarities to von Sydow, whom he predated by 44 years.

Pictured left is the Swiss born Emil Jannings, as he appeared in the role of Mephistopheles… a familiar spirit of the Devil… in the 1926 German film, ‘Faust – Eine deutsche Volkssage’. Now that’s a serious baddy! Notice the headgear, and the eyebrows… hmmm?

Amazing that 95 years have passed before someone has decided that this portrayal is provocative don'tcha think?

Imagine for  a moment that you are writing the role of Jack the Ripper for a film or a play. This is the name generally applied to the unidentified murderer responsible for killing five women in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. Unlike Ming, ‘Jack the Ripper’ did exist, but like the comic strip villain , we don’t know what he looked like.

Since the case has never been solved there could have been copycat crimes involving more than one culprit, but for argument’s sake let’s stick with a solo sociopath. London is in England therefore one would expect the vast majority of its population in the latter part of the nineteenth century to be English. However, large numbers of immigrants from Ireland, Russia, Germany and Poland had settled in Whitechapel, and the Jewish population alone was around 50,000. So what do we do? Put a number of nationalities in a hat and draw one out… luck of the draw? Should we placate the feminists and consider a ‘Jill’ the Ripper?

Whichever we choose for the role we might upset some sensitive soul or souls… if we don’t know the nationality of Jack, why did we choose theirs? What have we got against them? Can't make a film about Jack the Ripper then, without getting our knuckles rapped!

I am a Yorkshire lad, born and bred, but in the amateur and professional theatre I have played a Russian, an Irishman, American, American-Irish, French, Welsh (three times), Cockney, and (against type) a homosexual (twice) - despite the fact that I am a straight as a barber’s pole! If we all went on stage and played ourselves, the theatre would grind to a very quick halt.

Those of us privileged to be born in God’s own county are often called "Tykes". On 'tinterweb, Dictionary.com has the following definition of the word… “a cur; a mongrel; a low, contemptible fellow; boor”. By gum… that’s rum!

However… I am proud to be a Tyke. Barnsley football has adopted the nickname, ‘The Tykes’. Those of us from God’s own county are regularly made fun of in films and on television, often by Yorkshire-born writers… Roy Clarke (‘Last of the Summer Wine,’ and ‘Open All Hours’) Keith Waterhouse (‘Billy Liar’) Barry Hines (‘Kes’) J. B. Priestley (‘When We Are Married’) John Godber (Various) Alan Ayckbourn (Various), Michael Palin (‘The Testing of Eric Olthwaite’ and ‘Golden Gordon’, co-written with Terry Jones as part of the ‘Ripping Yarns’.)

I have no problem with that… funny’s funny! If you can’t stand the peat, keep off t’ moors!

By the way... we don’t say “Ooop North!”, nor do we say “Ap North!” We say, “Up North!”

I’m not a racist, but I am a play-fairest Unfortunately, these days, the playing field is sloping like a ski run! What bothers me, more than a little is that whilst The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is adding a warning about "discriminatory stereotypes" for the recent re-release of ‘Flash Gordon’, in the not too distant past there have been black Hamlets. Black actors have played Richard II, Antonio Salieri in ‘Amadeus’, the Dauphin in Shaw’s “St. Joan”, the Duke of Buckingham in Shakespeare’s Richard III, and…according to IMDB… Denzel Washington is scheduled to play the title role in an upcoming film version of Macbeth! That’s going to jolt the Jocks is it not! (My wife is half Scots… I won’t tell you which half!)

We’re not talking fictional fiends from far away places here… we are talking about real people. History is actually being rewritten. Joseph Stalin did that! He even had people who fell out of favour airbrushed out of photographs, as if they never existed. Let us spray!

The other side of the coin is that actor Will Smith was at the centre of a controversy following reports that he was going to be cast as tennis players Venus and Serena Williams’ father and coach, Richard Williams, in a Hollywood biopic titled “King Richard”. Apparently “many” had pointed out Smith’s lighter skin tone does not match Richard Williams’ darker skin tone. Sounds like they need a Dulux colour chart!

So, there ya go… black can play white, but…

 

                                                    

SNAPPY

NEW 

YEAR

to all our reader... hope you find your crock of gold!

So… we have got rid of the yuckiest of years. It started so well, with the symmetry of 2020, but became nothing short of shuddersome! 

Let’s look forward to 2021, the first year with consecutive numbers since 1920! Hope springs a turtle! 

A big thank you to the superlative staff of the National Health Service… without whom…

My daughter is a team leader at a Covid-19 testing site, and where there’s a Wizz... there’s a way!