O/T:- The Dam Busters!

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Originally Posted by Jampie

I had never heard anyone use "coon" to describe native aussies prior to that campaign, and thought it was downright weird to change the company's name after all these decades. But, whatever.

As for "wog" I had definitely heard that used as derogatory toward mediterranean descended folk.

Edit: And for the actual change of the dog's name in a film, good. It doesn't change the history one iota and will remove a distracting element from an otherwise good old film.

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Of course it changes history! The call sign for breaching the dam was "Nigger".

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Originally Posted by uysapie

Of course it changes history! The call sign for breaching the dam was "Nigger".

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It appears that powers that be believe we do not have the intelligence or ability to take such things in context. Maybe we could all pretend it never happened. It's Trigger from only fools and horses I feel sorry for, I bet he doesn't know if he's coming or going !

I await the changing of the word honky in countless films, etc.

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Originally Posted by Magpies1959

I await the changing of the word honky in countless films, etc.

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And Agatha Christie's book Ten Little Niggers.

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Originally Posted by Jampie

I had never heard anyone use "coon" to describe native aussies prior to that campaign, and thought it was downright weird to change the company's name after all these decades. But, whatever.

As for "wog" I had definitely heard that used as derogatory toward mediterranean descended folk.

Edit: And for the actual change of the dog's name in a film, good. It doesn't change the history one iota and will remove a distracting element from an otherwise good old film.

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I have only used it in the same way someone may say "bloody poms" for example. So perhaps pom is also racist. I had never ever heard of the c word being used here but I did find it weird being British by birth that the cheese was called that. Most people here would have no clue. I probably agree with you in regards to the film though. However I now have a near neighbor who has decided to call the substantial ( and beautiful) garden near his house " black mans gully" ( I kid you not) he is obviously a 65+ year old white Australian male Queenslander. His choice I guess but probably not the best choice. And people wonder why Australians are accused of casual racism a lot.

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Originally Posted by Old_pie

So kids today will grow up believing that Guy Gibson had a dog called Trigger. Roy Rogers had a horse called Trigger. Maybe Dixie Dean needs to have a new name as the name Dixie has Confederate connotations.

Ok, no-one in their right mind would today name their dog in that way but then we think we wouldn't have done lots of things that our ancestors did, and in a few generations time our offspring will criticise us for what we are doing now. Just wait until "the b&w army is banned".

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Well... a lot of Everton fans don't call him "Dixie" because he hated that nickname. It's either "William Ralph Dean" or "Billy". It's not that the nickname had confederate connections exactly, but it was because he had a slightly darker complexion and dark curly hair. Problem is, a lot of people probably don't know that (a) it's a nickname; or (b) where it comes from. And it's difficult to refer to him without using it, because most people don't know him as Billy Dean.

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Originally Posted by uysapie

Of course it changes history! The call sign for breaching the dam was "N".

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Wikipedia states that the film Dambusters is largely historically accurate, but lists 13 bullet points worth of changes made for reasons of "dramatic license" and full details not yet being in the public domain.

Pretty much all of these inaccuracies seem to me to be of greater historical importance than the name of someone's dog. If it's historical accuracy that we're worried about, that ship has already sailed when it comes to pretty much any film.

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Originally Posted by uysapie

Of course it changes history! The call sign for breaching the dam was "Nigger".

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It could have been "Giraffe" and it wouldn't change history.

Unless you think "white people were casually racist in the 40's" is the important lesson of the film? I think it's a worthy factoid but maybe in a film that actually deals with it instead of it being a throwaway, uncommented-on dog's name.

If anyone's interested in more detail on the raid The Operations Room on youtube has a nice animated run-down that's pretty accurate IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYMN...bWJ1c3RlcnM%3D

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Originally Posted by uysapie

And Agatha Christie's book Ten Little Niggers.

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This was changed to Ten Little Indians decades ago, because the Niggers were in fact little porcelain ornaments of American indigenous people. It is largely referred to now as 'And then there were none.'

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Originally Posted by Newish Pie

Well... a lot of Everton fans don't call him "Dixie" because he hated that nickname. It's either "William Ralph Dean" or "Billy". It's not that the nickname had confederate connections exactly, but it was because he had a slightly darker complexion and dark curly hair. Problem is, a lot of people probably don't know that (a) it's a nickname; or (b) where it comes from. And it's difficult to refer to him without using it, because most people don't know him as Billy Dean.

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Interesting. I was in Liverpool the other day to see Boys From the Blackstuff at the Royal Court and noticed the Dixie Dean Hotel opposite the Shankly. That’s the problem when someone is known internationally by a name they hated - the Billy Dean Hotel would mean nothing to most people, even football fans, outside of Merseyside.