lord of the rings filmmaker peter jackson is remaking the 1954 classic the dambusters ,but is embroiled in a bitter row over the 617 squadron mascot ..a black labrador with a now rather offensive name ..obviously guy gibson was a real raf squadron leader who carried out the famous dambuster raids in 1943...
and the dog was real

so change the name or keep to the truth



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... s-dog.html

if that was the dog's name then that was the dog's name. It is acceptable for rap stars to use that term then why not a film based on a real life story.

It's very insulting.

Why not just have a black dog in the film and leave it at that. No need to refer to the name.

As for the point re rappers, well, on a street level (particularly the USA), it's OK for a black person to refer to another black person as ------ but completely unacceptable everywhere else. It blurs the lines, however, especially in music. But that's rap music for you. It originated in the Bronx but the videos seem full of Bentleys, bling and look how fantastically wealthy I am. Quality.

it is an interesting one for sure..insulting yeah but are we insulting guy gibson for in 1943 things were very very different from today

this squadron probably ended world war 2 by 6 months or so earlier by destroying those dams and the dog was the mascot and was regarded as very important back in those dark days of ww 2

Do you agree that the book Huckleberry Finn should also be amended as well then Bluenosy?

I'm not saying amend, I'm saying don't mention.

We can't change history but we can learn from it.

But with the Huckleberry Finn books, they were wrote in a time when it was acceptable language to use. To amend then the word would have to be deleted from a historical book.

I don't think amending historical texts/films/events is acceptable. As changing the past to fit the future is not acceptable in my view.

Many of Shakespears works would also need to be amended to make them politically correct (A number are sexist and derogatory to females).

How about Enid blyton and the Golliwogs (of course they have been changed to naughty goblins and naughty goblins in the Golliwogs books)

But many other Enid Blyton used the term Gay as it was originally meant ***Happy***
Should we go through all Enid Blyton books and remove the Gay terms after all the term gay no longer means happy so should that not be removed?

Its a very thin line between keeping the history of the world intact and not meddling with history based on modern day views.

What would if a pro nazi party ever came to power. Would it be acceptable for that party to rewrite history as well?

The dog's name was also the codename for completion of the raid.

I think changing it to Digger is the right call - unlike Huck Finn where the 'naive' attitudes to "injuns" etc is part of the story and you see their approach change as they get to know the one whose name I forget. The dog's name is just the dog's name.

The Nazi swastika was actually around for thousands of years before Adolf and co adopted it. Shows how some things can change.

I agree it's a thin line. Gay actually means "sad" or "uncool" now, so I am led to believe and not homosexual. Yet in The Kinks "David Watts" covered by The Jam "He is so gay and fancy free" obviously meant something very different...

gay was used years ago as a word for being happy as well i thought


what did people in 1943 think about a dog being called that might be of revelevance . was it classed as being out of order back then

because guy gibson was a high flyer in the raf did it mean people wernt bothered what he called his dog ?

just a few titbits from the raid and after

the raid was called operation chastise

Gibson had a black Labrador called 'N****r' - killed in a car accident the morning before the air raid and buried on the base just outside Gibson's office.

'N****r' was the codeword Gibson used to confirm the breach of the Möhne Dam.


gibson who was awarded the victoria cross died in a mosquito raid in 1944 so never lived to see the end of the war aged only 26

Ridiculous! No-one called Gibson could be racist.........

Hmm...tough, but if you want to be historically accurate you've got to use the correct names and code words. I think you've got to get it into context as well, and im sure the black community would understand that the film etc isn't trying to be offensive to them. Departed and goodfella's use the N word, in what are deliberatly offensive lines. This film isn't trying to do that. But i'm not black nor easily offended so maybe up for black people to say whether it should or shouldn't be in film?

It's a film, not a documentary. Nowadays there is a huge difference.

my mates nan's cat is called sooty? she is a racist though

Does her cat look like a yellow glove puppet then?

nah its black?

It can be explained as follows:

Imagine\pretend that white people had been enslaved to Black people, and one of their accepted\general insults for white people up until relatively recently had been Pikey. When the black people realised that white people are human beings, just like them, they accepted that Pikey was not an acceptable description for white people. Some of the poorer white people then adopt the term Pikey for the lowest of the white people - the petty thieves, soap etc - as they consider the Pikeys to be worse then them. (People often accuse people of being what they are worried about being pubescent boys often insult boys of the same age by calling them gay, thick people insult others by calling them thick etc.)

This is why the people that often use the term Nigger could be considered a Nigger by other Black people, which only adds to white people's confusion.

Google "Chris Rock nigger" for a funny version of the above - but not at work .

The Coach Driver tale is satire at it's very best.

Nice.

Re the dogs name, I'm not that bothered either way. It's just the dogs name. Unlike in Huck Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird, or Of Mice and Men etc etc, it's not an integral part of the tale. It doesn't help place the story, there's no real context. It's just a dog.