Beige Society - Aardman's leper scene falls off 'Pirates!'

Let me just preface this post by saying - I f'n love Aardman, and everything they do. In their commercial and short film work, they're innovative and funny, and their features, stop-motion and computer-generated, are hilarious, well-animated, structured beautifully and always have their hearts thoroughly in the right place.

In fact, Aardman's heart has never, ever been in the wrong place. If it ever found its way there it wouldn't know where it was or what to do.

So it's extremely disheartening to see that thanks to some complaints, Aardman have not only removed the very funny leper boat scene from the trailer to The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists, the indications are that it's gone from the film too.

What a disappointment.

Here is the trailer, with the offending clip (who knows how long it'll be on Youtube):



This is what I refer to, using a Billy Connollyism, as a beige decision (if you'd like a definition of beigeism, see this video. It's an angry and foul-mouthed tirade about the overly-politically correct crowd from Connolly, but let's face it, if you take offense, you're being a bit beige).

The complaining company was LEPRA, who have now helpfully pointed out on their website, in case we didn't know, that "no - limbs don't just fall off. Not even for comic effect."

(Personally, I think that's a fantastically funny statement in itself, because it was intended to be serious.)

Well, no, obviously. In real life people's limbs don't fall off, and if they did it wouldn't have much comic effect. But this is a cartoon. Last time I checked, in real life coyotes don't hire Batman outfits to chase roadrunners around the desert - not even for comic effect. But they do in cartoons.

The thing is, I appreciate that some people can take offense at this. But frankly, so what? If artists the world over only created art that couldn't offend, or provoke, or challenge, what would they be creating?

Shit. That's what.

I understand as well why Aardman have retracted the scene. It's not often an animated comedy gets this kind of backlash, and they probably want to forget about it and move on as soon as possible. If this had been something made by someone like Ricky Gervais, he'd likely (well, definitely) have just ignored it and carried on as he was.

In fact, Gervais and his co-star Warwick Davis both tweeted a link recently to a Facebook page by a particularly beige woman who was trying to get 'Life's Too Short' off the air before it had even started as her son suffers from dwarfism. She assumed they'd just be taking the piss out of dwarfism and got offended before she'd even seen it. She thought it might directly affect her own son getting picked on when he's older for being a dwarf. The thing is, the attitude of "if someone picks on you because you're different, you tell on them and get someone to make them stop" attitude gets no-one anywhere. As Gervais pointed out, by being able to take a joke, and make one back, by rising above it, you make yourself bullet-proof.

Her page has got less than 400 'likes', despite being tweeted by both huge stars and watched by millions on the BBC. There's hope then.

Getting back to Pirates! - this was a joke delivered in a light-hearted manner about a disease that was common in the times the film's set in and isn't so much any more. Whilst LEPRA were correct to flag it up, it should not have been pressuring Aardman into changing their film, and instead upping its own ante to ensure that people know it's just a cartoon and does not represent reality. And if they're worried about kids getting the wrong idea about leprosy, how about some faith in the parents? Or teachers?

But no, the beige response is to kick up a fuss. It has to stop.

Otherwise, are we soon going to live in a world where Homer Simpson can't bash himself in the eye with a hammer in case stupid people get offended?