I’m in Australia for a few weeks visiting my investments, so I’m currently celebrating a cold and wet 5th of July.
Best wishes to you all, and I hope it cools down soon.
ETA: I’m surprised this hasn’t gotten a front page jersey before now. Brave is apparently racist and gingerphobic:
Like its cohorts, Brave is doing something very cynical in its appropriation of Scottish culture for the backdrop of this film: It’s using the most identifiably tribal white culture to side-step charges of racism while playing the same goddamn exploitative game of hilarious caricatures and noble savages.
Scottish people, with their clans and tartans and ubiquitous red hair, have become the go-to group for makers of pop culture who want all the fun of racial stereotyping without the charges of racism.
“Scots are tribal with weird indigenous clothing and silly instruments and some old language and funny words and goofy accent and ginger hair, and these facts have been used to marginalize this occupied nation for centuries, but they’re WHITE, so it’s okay!”
These are the exact things that have been used to paint reductive pictures of people of color in animated (and non-animated) films for years.
That Scots are now frequently used as “hilarious” sidekicks and broad comedic punchlines, and historical Scotland as a shorthand for “magical kingdom,” and that Scots are the most identifiably tribal white culture is not a coincidence.
General Stuck
Don’t let the Dingo eat your baby
Commish
Think you’ve seen enough patriotic art yet today? Well you haven’t, unless you’ve seen Ronald Reagan riding a Velociraptor
Teh Awesome! Make sure and check artist “Sharpwriter”s full gallery for more fun.
Valdivia
I am about to sit down for dinner and then the fireworks, so very nice to hear from you from the future :)
Hope the drinks are even better tomorrow (today? I am confused).
Viva BrisVegas
Then you’ll be aware that half of the country is in mourning today because the Blues lost their seventh straight State of Origin last night.
Oh the humanity!!
suzanne
I’m going to gloat for a minute.
Here in Phoenix, it rained most of the morning and is currently 76 degrees.
The family and I just went ice skating. It was glorious.
jl
Hello SPaT. Just here for a moment before I leave for picnic.
So, tell me straight, you a lawyer? I did not know that.
I had a hunch you had some kind of special powers, but did not know you dabbled in the darker arts.
Please leave Australia more or less intact, if it suits your gracious whim. I plan to visit some day.
Happy 4th.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Raining with temps in mid 70s. Loving life now.
Chris T.
It’s Australia, 60 degrees F is “freezing”. (Seriously, that’s the high today in Sydney. OK, it’s colder this evening, 9˚C, about 48˚F. Still…)
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@jl:
For my many sins, I was a lawyer, although in a different world and a different time. Not that that will stop me making up shit about the US legal system.
I’ll get the Australians ready for your visit. It’s a lovely country – I’m soaking up Sydney social life for a while, visiting a restaurant that serves what they call American food and even going to see the Mousetrap. Then I’m going to Uluru, which is very exciting.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Viva BrisVegas:
I wondered why my cab driver was so grumpy.
Nice country you’ve got here. Friendly and full of booze – just how I like it.
Steeplejack
Got up to 98° here in my little corner of NoVa again today. Went back to the man-cave and confirmed there is still no power there. Luckily, I can continue to camp out at my brother’s house in Arlington. But I’m starting to get that disconnected refugee feeling–in a “privileged people’s problems” kind of way, of course.
debbie
What would he have thought of that Monty Python skit where the alien blancmange decided to take over the world by turning everyone into Scotsmen?
Nellcote
Tell it to Sen. Webb, he wrote a book about it.
Hawes
I don’t know who wrote that, but if the Scots were pissed, you’d know it. Mainly because people at Pixar would be bleeding from various parts of their body as the wail of bagpipes skirled across the California sage.
Gemina13
A friend who still reads Shakesville sent me a link to that crap. I read it, and promptly deleted the link. I try not to give Shakesville any traffic; MacEwen has shown several times that’s it’s all about her clique and their precious fee-fees, and the fact that she’ll actually pull inanity like this out of her ass and treat it like deep and profound insight is enough for me to avoid her like an erect Rush Limbaugh.
Gemina13
Oh, yeah–I’m in Tacoma. It’s 68 degrees and sunny. Beautiful weather. I want to go take a long walk and go grab some smashburgers and sweet potato fries at a friend’s. Too bad it’s not a weekend–I’d make milkshakes using Snoqualmie Cinnamon-Honey ice cream with a slug of Evan Williams honey whiskey. :D
daveNYC
I wasn’t even aware that gingerphobe was even a thing. Outside of Southpark that is.
Frankensteinbeck
Caricatures and stereotypes are integral to comedy. The Scots do not have a recent and painful history of being repressed because the stereotype was taken seriously. There is no bite to this prejudice, no reinforcing of persecutions or hurt feelings on a wide scale. These are the tests we use to get past the fact that EVERYTHING offends SOMEONE.
If we were Brits three hundred years ago, I might rule differently.
EDIT – @daveNYC:
Ever heard the phrase ‘beaten like a red-headed stepchild’? Yes, having red hair has in times and places been an issue. We are not in one of those times and places.
Villago Delenda Est
@Nellcote:
I recall when the deserting coward was being sworn in, his sister was yelling at the White House, “get those hillbillies out!”.
Real class act, the Bush Crime Family is.
Scott S.
@Gemina13: I haven’t even visited that site in years. I wish I regretted it more, but they strike me as mainly insane over there. They had that bizarrely worshipful “All In” crap, and I turned and headed for less loony environs.
I can find better feminist comment at a vast number of sites and blogs, though Pandagon and The Mary Sue are likely my favorites.
bleh
Yeah, but here’s the difference. Scots and Scottish-Americans don’t give a damn, because we have no illusions about our contributions to society and history.
F’r example, Scotland had THREE universities before England had ONE.
And redheads? Hello Thomas Jefferson.
All the carping — however expressed — is sour grapes and beneath notice.
Gemina13
@Scott S.:
I read Pandagon sometimes, but The Mary Sue has become my favorite. Geeky stuff, politics, feminism–what’s not to like?
I don’t do well in Stepford communities either. One reason I love BJ is that, no matter what the issue, nobody’s holding up John as the Worship-Worthy Reason Why We’re Here. I like John; don’t get me wrong. But the one real cult of personality going on here centers on Lily, Rose, and Tunch.
Hypatia's Momma
@Gemina13:
She also insulted and banned any Scots who commented that her article was nonsense and not insulting to the Scots.
Citizen_X
Brave is set in medieval Scotland, when every other place in Europe was also a tribal shithole. So who’s behind this supposed gaelophobia? (I just made up that word.) Imperial China? The Ottoman Caliphate? The Toltec Empire? Racist caricature comes from a dominant group looking down on the savages. So who is it?
Amir Khalid
I saw Brave, like, a couple of days ago. If anything in it was anti-Scots bigotry, it quite escaped me. (As I understand, people in Scotland are mad keen on the movie.) In fact, I simply don’t understand what McEwan’s so peeved about.
About the red hair. Yes, Merida does look striking in it. But “ubiquitous”? She and her three brothers are the only redheads prominently featured in Brave. Or “Celtic”? How about the very English Weasleys?
McEwan cites Scotty from Star Trek (played by the Canadian James Doohan rather than an actual Scot) as an example of the cliche Scottish sidekick. I’ve always considered Scotty an example of a positive Scottish stereotype: the can-do engineer.
If McEwan wants to find some heavy trafficking in negative Scottish stereotypes, she might try listening to some of Billy Connolly’s comedy routines. (He voices Merida’s father, by the way.) Drunkenness, stinginess, tribalism, it’s all there, and more besides.
Citizen_X
Meanwhile I was wondering why all the Vikings in How to Train Your Dragon (which I liked) had Scottish accents. Except for the youths. They somehow had American accents.
Padraig
Agus cad faoi an h-Eireannaigh? Although honestly, the more identified the Irish get with the occupied and oppressed, the better as far as I’m concerned. Us silly basterds gave up honour in America for a shot at ‘whiteness’ (à la Noël Ignatiev) and the result was Sean Hannity, God help us. It’s good to remember that the boundaries of sub-humanhood are nothing if not permeable.
Scott S.
@Gemina13:
Do you read “DC Women Kicking Ass“? More focus on DC Comics superheroines, but thoroughly awesome anyway…
@Hypatia’s Momma:
Well, it sounds like Shakesville is unchanged from what I remember of it, unfortunately. She strikes me as someone who’s eventually going to turn out to be Ann Althouse in disguise. :/
Jeff(the other one)
@efgoldman: As a second generation Scot, I just have to say could give a rat’s ass about the stereotyping, or what ever. It’s just a good summer movie, that’s all. And as far as Mike Myers and James Doohan are concerned, it always seemed like the Canadians were always more Scottish than the Scots. What I object to is racist Southerner’s appropriating the Saltire as a icon of oppression, rather that the flag of our nation.
Villago Delenda Est
@Padraig:
Not to mention Pat Buchanan, who just reinforces my contention that my WASP and Scots-Irish ancestors fucked up big time allowing his ancestors into the country.
Hypatia's Momma
@Scott S.:
I used to enjoy reading it but after 2008 it started becoming fairly awful. I still occasionally see good articles linked here and there but just not very often.
Bobby Thomson
As a fictional and real-life Scot, my beef with Brave was only that it’s messaging was a confused mess. Be yourself and make your own decisions but don’t break tradition because you’ll start a civil war.
And McEwan can go fuck herself.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@efgoldman:
You bet your booties. The man gets pushed around by a walking marshmallow and an insane fucking terrier. Veiled contempt is barely good enough for him.
Hypatia's Momma
@Bobby Thomson:
Melissa wouldn’t know if the message was or was not confusing because she didn’t see the movie.
Yutsano
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Oh come now dear. He entertains you. Surely you can admit that much.
Thinking about my own garam masala rub. Still formulating it though.
different-church-lady
So I’m reading that link and thinking, “Well, maybe she’s got a point here that I wasn’t aware of before,” and then I get to the part with the wig — you know, where kids want to look like Merida because it’s a good thing — and McEwan is instead taking it like it’s triggering an entire grade-school career’s worth of playground taunting, and I start to think, “OK, lady, maybe your personal issues shouldn’t be the traffic cop at the intersection of Culture and Sensitivity.”
@Jeff(the other one):
You could?
burnspbesq
OK, if you don’t like the movie, that’s fine.
If you don’t like Julie Fowlis’ songs, that’s fine too (albeit utterly incomprehensible).
But that nonsense is … nonsensical.
Incidentally, in the grand Scottish tradition of always picking the dumbest, most self-destructive option when presented with a choice, the Scottish football establishment is apparently determined to make Newco Rangers start out in the third division, which will likely result in insolvency for every other club in the Scottish Premier League.
SiubhanDuinne
@Commish:
I totally want to order the Entire Set! This is genius.
Eat your heart out, Jon McNaughton.
Allan
Trigger warning: Forget it Jake, it’s Shakesville.
SiubhanDuinne
@suzanne:
Couldn’t have done that while I was out there in May and it was 111F, I suppose.
Baud
If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap!
Xecky Gilchrist
@Gemina13: MacEwen has shown several times that’s it’s all about her clique and their precious fee-fees
Yup. Shakesville does for tactful, considerate speech what PETA does for vegetarianism.
i.e. makes an utter shitstained mess of the whole concept, putting more people off it than it could ever hope to persuade.
Woodrowfan
I gave up on Shakesville, Pam’s House Blend and Pandagon long time ago. The good points about Patriarchy get lost amidst the cliquishness.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Baud: …and pizza. All things Scottish, and pizza.
Anne Laurie
@Villago Delenda Est:
I would point out to you that Buchanan’s ancestral brag is all about his German-American mother (him being from the last generation of American Catholics where the Germans, as the tribe longest ashore, were the ‘snob’ aspirational clan). Real Micks, like Jim Webb, fight the clan’s battles; Kraut wannabes like Buchanan cry 4F to their draft boards because of their ‘bad knees’.
gelfling545
@different-church-lady: I actually have a rat’s ass in the back yard waiting for disposal (thanks to the mighty hunter Mewtant) If you need one, help yourself.
SiubhanDuinne
@Xecky Gilchrist:
Mmmm, haggis pizza.
Calouste
@bleh:
Cool fact, except that it is exactly the other way around.
wikipedia
Omnes Omnibus
Has McEwen seen Trainspotting? She’d shit a brick.
different-church-lady
@gelfling545: I get my own deliveries on a regular basis. Ever seen the bottom half of a rabbit without the top?
Villago Delenda Est
@Anne Laurie:
Well, he’s a shitty German, too.
waratah
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Why eat what is called American food, when the seafood is great. Try a Balmain bug.
Very good asian food also.
Donut
@Bobby Thomson:
Uh, just took my bairns to see it this afternoon, and the chronology does matter, and you’ve flubbed it. The girl breaks hard with tradition first, then there is the threat of civil war, then all come to see the wisdom of the young girl’s desire/need for self-determination.
My six year old daughter was loving it. It was the first Disney movie I’ve seen where the heroine doesn’t pick any old boy over all else, but finds herself happy to wait for the right person. The mother learning about and from her daughter was also refreshing and somewhat realistic, and was also not unimportant.
It was actually a good flick for younger girls, something sorely lacking in our options, usually.
Robert Sneddon
@Xecky Gilchrist: Deep-fried pizza. And deep-fried Mars Bars. Deep-fried eggs, deep-fried hamburger, deep-fried chicken… There’s a reason heart disease is endemic in Scotland, oh and one of the major causes of house fires in Scotland is chip pans lighting off.
Spaghetti Lee
I don’t know how accurate Wikipedia is, but going by their list we’ve had at least 20 presidents of partial Scottish descent, not to mention countless other politicians, military leaders, businessmen, etc. I dunno, is it too much to ask that an ethnic stereotype is actually damaging to the group in question before we all get angry about it?
Jeff(the other one)
@different-church-lady: Maybe I could, or maybe I couldn’t.
Randy P
By the way, if anybody has seen Brave (the wife and I did, without even renting a kid as an excuse) and wonders what the heck incomprehensible dialect Young MacGuffin is speaking, it’s called “Doric”.
Meanwhile, Jonathon Krohn’s mom is losing friends. What the heck kind of people say “we can’t be friends any more because of your son’s politics”?
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman:
Starting in the 1700s, no-count Celts got pushed out of Scotland because sheep were more profitable, and pushed out of Ireland for being irredeemably Catholic, over to the Southern Colonies as indentured servants and cannon fodder. With the improvements in shipping technology, actual slaves imported from Africa turned out to be slightly more cost-effective, so the ‘Scots Irish’ were offshored over the Appalachians into the ever-further-west. But apart from shared genetics, deep-frying otherwise inedible plant & animal parts is pretty much universal Poor Peoples’ Comfort Food — that, and whatever cheap sweetness can be found. Deep-fried cheap sweetness, like the fried Twinkie/Mars Bar, is the ultimate product of centuries of culinary poverty…
Scott S.
@Randy P: I really do feel sorry for her, ’cause it’s awful to think she’d lose lifelong friends because of her son’s political opinions. But on the other hand, I’d also be damn glad to know I knew who my real friends were now…
PurpleGirl
I’ve seen the movie trailer for Brave and want to see it. Might go this weekend. I just like the look of the animation and hope for an interesting story. (I liked How to Train Your Dragon a lot.)
I couldn’t put my finger on what bothered me at Shakesville but I hardly ever go by anymore. I still read Pandagon on occasion, but rarely Shakesville.
Frankensteinbeck
I’m going to give Brave a try. Part of me does not want to reward Pixar for treating another creative genius with the same assholery that drove Chris Sanders away (@PurpleGirl:, How To Train Your Dragon is a Dreamworks movie because Pixar robbed Bolt from him), but in GENERAL they have a history of making really good art and being a force for good in animation. So I’m torn there.
Yutsano
I am now making that most American of American dishes: sweet and sour chicken.
Cacti
@suzanne:
It’s been a nice respite from the usual 112 or so.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Yutsano: Can I hope it does not include the garam masala rub you were working on? Hope the healing is going well.
Yutsano
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): It does not. I’m not THAT insane. Usually.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I guess, in theory, you could get all huffy about “Brave” since it all revolves around the idea that the woman/queen has to be the diplomat and peacemaker, but getting upset at the Scottish stereotypes? Really? I can’t think of another ethnic group that makes fun of themselves more than the Scots do.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Frankensteinbeck:
I mostly agree with you about Chris Sanders (“Lilo and Stitch” is one of my all-time fave Disney movies), but when they say that he had creative differences with Lasseter, they’re talking about the radioactive Girl Scout who was supposed to be a major character in “American Dog.”
Read the words “radioactive Girl Scout” one more time and wonder for a minute if maybe Lasseter had a point.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I read the words ‘Radioactive Girl Scout’ and go ‘I was denied a radioactive Girl Scout?!’ I believe it’s the exact opposite reaction of the one you intend.
I wonder if it would be polite or rude to add a radioactive Girl Scout to Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m A Supervillain? I guess I don’t know enough about the Girl Scouts to make her believable. Moot point. Ah, well.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Frankensteinbeck:
Also, too, did I remember to do full disclosure about which side of that argument signs my paycheck? If not, consider it disclosed.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Aaaaaah. See, *I* heard it from the Dreamworks side.
Gemina13
@Scott S.:
That sounds like a fun site. Thanks for the tip!
I just don’t get the rush to be “oppressed.” Having talked to, and been talked to, by people who genuinely were oppressed, I’m in no hurry to join them. I have enough trouble being a bi woman in America without borrowing more.
That Other Mike
The Scots are an occupied nation now? Maybe centuries back, for a few minutes, but not now. FFS, the current and last two PMs of the UK have been Scottish/of Scottish extraction; that hardly qualifies as an oppressed minority.
And someone needs to let McEwan know that having her surname does not make her an expert on anything Scottish or English or British; for what it’s worth, while English and Scottish people may hate on each other, it’s the way siblings often do – we are allowed to do it because we have centuries of shared history, but you’re not, because you don’t.
As an Englishman (even one transplanted to the States), I think the Scots have a lot of weird customs and habits, and that many of the things they do are profoundly silly – but I will defend to the death their right not to be associated with fuckheads like Melissa McSpewin’, because they might be weird, but they’re our weird, damn it.
ETA: If the above made no sense, I’ve had a big drink. Happy Fourth to all!
Gemina13
I’ve seen Brave. I intend to see it again this month. When the boyfriend gets home from Alaska, we’re either going to catch it together in theaters, or buy the DVD and cuddle while cheering on Merida.
I loved it. One, it’s a girl’s story without a shitload of pink crap and American-style domesticity–and Merida is a fun, enjoyable teenager who’s also a kickass shot with a bow. Two, it’s also a mother-daughter story where the mother isn’t an unbelievable hardass with a ramrod where her spine used to be; therefore, Elinor’s change is far more natural. Three, it just kills Sarah Palin’s “grizzly mama” moniker. You want a grizzly mama? I give you Elinor. Woman kicks the shit out of Palin twelve ways from Sunday, and she’s still genteel enough to eat with a knife and fork.
And yes, I sobbed like a wee babby (see the movie to get the joke) through the last ten minutes. When I go to see it again, I’m bringing Kleenex.
Kilkee
@burnspbesq: Julie Fowlis! To die for! If you haven’t already seen them, YouTube has some great videos from The Transatlantic Sessions from years back that are superb. Pity the DVDs are not available in US format.
pseudonymous in nc
@Jeff(the other one):
Canada got a certain few strands of Scottishness, including Alexander Graham Bell. (I’m always surprised, though, by people who can’t hear the Scottish influence in certain Canadian accents.)
@Gemina13:
But she’s still a princess. Also, Pixar apparently can’t animate horses for shit: you’d think Muybridge might have given them a few hints.
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
And if it keeps the tourists spending money, even better. Someone on the Royal Mile came up with the tartan bonnet / ginger wig combo.
As for “All things Scottish, and pizza”, I think the Scottish-Italians are pretty much assimilated (see: Dario Franchitti, Tom Conti, Peter Capaldi) and their pizza and ice cream with it.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@waratah:
I’m being taken to a new restaurant called Hartsyard, where I am told the oyster po’ boys are to die for…
feebog
Our Neighborhood Council sponsored a “Movie in the Park” night a couple weeks ago. We showed “How to Train Your Dragon” This was set on an island inhabited by Vikings. And dragons. All the adults had scottish brouges. All the teenagers talked like, well, teenagers. All the dragons sounded like cats. Very weird.
Origuy
Pixar had a booth at the Santa Cruz Highland Games last month; they’re a sponsor of the huge Pleasanton Highland Games over Labor Day weekend. I think I’d be seeing discussion on Facebook if Caledonian Club members were offended.
Of course, there are a lot of anachronisms in the film, at least based on the trailer. It’s supposed to be in 10th century Scotland, but kilts and bagpipes came along a lot later.
Donut
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Your theory would be wrong. :-) The characters end up being somewhat unconventional. It really is a nice little animated film with a very good message for young girls.
moderateindy
To be fair we all better put our Ginger bashing into high gear because there wont be many if any left by the end of the century, because of the power of genetics, or so I’m told.
Mnemosyne
@Donut:
I saw the film and I do think that’s one interpretation that could be made. I would mostly disagree with it, but it would not be a completely invalid interpretation.
MikeJ
@Xecky Gilchrist:
There’s a place in the Grassmarket in E-Burgh that makes a great haggis pizza.
FlipYrWhig
Oh my God. I just saw a commercial for Brave and made a crack about how it must be blatant Scot-face, like Melissa MacEwan said — via her Scottish husband — _Shrek_ was. Yes, Shrek was a brutal case of Scottophobia, pushing all those notorious anti-Scottish stereotypes, like, um, you know the one, the really bad one that everyone thinks all Scots are like. Never mind that it was supposed to be Chris Farley until he died.
Also, and I know I’ve told this story before, here’s a classic Shakesville moment from when I used to try to participate there. Melissa is a Cubs fan. She was laughing about how the team had a player with a name fit for p0rn, Reed Johnson. Not all that funny, but, whatever. I pointed out that when it came to p0rn names on that team, the conversation began and ended with Kosuke Fukudome. I was treated to a stern rebuke about the inappropriateness of Othering.
That has nothing to do with feminism or “political correctness” or whatever. She’s just insane.
Recall
@That Other Mike:
Maybe she confused Scotland with ireland.
Crusty Dem
@FlipYrWhig:
All Scots aren’t giant green ogres? Really?
Melissa isn’t always wrong, but she is almost always unhinged. I have enjoyed Shakesville previously, learned a good bit about white male privilege several years ago, but over the last few years there’s been waaaay too much bullshit like this (the PETA comparison is sadly accurate). Even if she were completely right (she’s not), it wouldn’t justify her level of ire. How do you even sleep at night when you take everything as a personal affront?
Crusty Dem
@FlipYrWhig:
Oh, and it’s a shame you aren’t a long time Cubs fan, if I’d been there I’d have mentioned long-time pitching coach Dick Pole. Really.
The Pale Scot
The Bastards!
Valdivia
ugh, it’s going to be sweltering here in DC today and I have to be running around for most of it. Hoping not to utterly melt.
Neddie Jingo
@FlipYrWhig:
My last day at Shakesville, around, oh, 2008 or so, someone mentioned that in New England, liquor stores (or, as they style themselves, “package stores”), were abbreviated by locals to “packies.” As in, “we went down to the packie and picked up a fifth of rotgut for the Bruins game.”
Someone mentioned that the pronunciation (but not the spelling) was uncomfortably close to the British derogatory term for people from Pakistan.
Melissa stepped in for A Ruling. She banned the term.
Triggered the fuck outta me.
So long, kids. Let me know when your Perfect World has been attained, so I can avoid it like cancer.
Patricia Kayden
Well, I’d never heard of Shakesville before this BJ post. Melissa has a strong point of view, which deserves consideration. My gut reaction to her article is that Scots, even if stereotyped in some movies, are not victims of discrimination/oppression in anyway comparable to “people of color”. They’re White, dang it!
Didn’t like the fact that she banned commenters who disagreed with her point of view.
28 Percent
Scotland gets united with England because the Scots king took the English throne, which means that Scotland is occupied by England how exactly?
Never understood that one.
grass
First time visiting that site… interesting to say the least.
There’s a strong theme that more “People of Color” should be present in medieval Britain. While I’m sure there were possibly a number of traders and diplomats visitng London, you’re not going to find any in the Scottish highlands in the 12th century. I cringe when conservatives go on about political correctness gone mad because they normally just want an excuse to be insulting or racist, but these people really have gone insane.
daveNYC
@grass: What’s funny is that someone brought up a historical point that somewhen around when the movie takes place there there actually was a historical record of some dusky skinned people up in that neck of the woods. They were court musicians. I can only imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would have resulted if Pixar had put ome non-whites in the movie as (historically accuratish) minstrels.
I always thought the key point about “beaten like a red-headed step-child” was that it was a step-child, and the red-headed bit was there to emphasize that.
Gemina13
@daveNYC:
My mom was a red-headed stepchild. As an adult, she dyed her hair blonde or brunette. She’d use that phrase with a total lack of sarcasm–she wasn’t abused for being a redhead, just because she was another woman’s child, and a girl on top of it. But her stepmother made her feel so bad about her hair.
_
Lyrebird
@Amir Khalid:
Are you being so subtly snarky that my weak snark-o-meter failed to catch it? There are Irish-descended people in England as well as here in the USA, some of them have certainly been treated as 2nd-class, and I thought that’s what all the ginger-baiting, freckle-condemning, and snide remarks about poverty plus too many kids were meant to evoke? Plus all the shouty emotionalism?
(note I have only read the books pretty much, so if the characterizations in the movies are very different I won’t know…)
Now I gotta see “Brave”, though. On my Scots side, we’re very proud of getting our slang into alla dictionaries, means the relatives from Canada can clean up in Scrabble. But dinna fash yeself about it.
twiffer
i always thought the take on red hair was: bad on boys, hot on girls.
;-)
gumbo957
I stopped visiting Shakesville awhile back as well after (what I thought was very politely) disagreeing with some commenters who were all “DON”T VOTE FOR THAT SELL OUT OBAMA – HE”S JUST LIKE BUSH BLARGLE BLARGLE! I got an incredibly condescending response from Melissa that really put in perspective how that site has become a cult of personality devoted to the delicate fee fees of the in-crowd and seeing who can be offended-er than thou.
DFH no.6
From what I’ve read over the years, the majority opinion from those who study such things is that red-haired people in Scotland, Ireland, and England are blessed with such tresses due to Viking invasions and subsequent intermingling.
Celtic people were primarily dark-haired, with some blonde.
My red-haired wife, and red-haired daughter, both loved Brave. I thought it was pretty good.
But we’re not Scottish on either side of our family, as far as we know (German, Irish, Slovak, Polish, etc., etc., but no Scots) so I guess our opinion regarding Brave as an example of supposed anti-Scots bigotry doesn’t count.
And yeah, Phoenix weather was wonderful on the Fourth (never even hit 80F at my house in Snobsdale). Back to normal today (100F or so, pushing 110F by the weekend). I live in my pool this time of year.
Leeds man
Why do people keep conflating Highland with Scottish, and thinking of the Scots as Celtic? That’s a bigger disservice (to Highlanders and other Scots) than any silly movie.
Anyway, I’m sure Highlanders and other Gaelic speakers prefer being stereotyped and identified with “Scottishness” to being called “The Gallows Herd” by Lowlanders, or dismissed as “teuchters”.
Barney
I think the most hilarious thing in Shakesville is their huffy insistence on their commenting policy – which says you must read their ‘Feminism 101’ (among many other things). I have never seen something so egotistical branded as an ideology before (especially ‘101’ for beginners). Literally 50 screens long, it includes paragraphs on how much McEwan loves her dog, and Bob Herbert. And probably a lot more of McEwan’s random personal ramblings, but who on earth would ever read all that, unless you’d bought into the personality cult?
And to cap it all, they are deleting comments for not reading all of ‘The (Not-So-)Little Red Book of McEwan’, in a thread that starts with McEwan cheerfully admitting she hasn’t seen the film she’s about to denounce!
Adam Sagi
The best movies are made by Disney