Written version in case someone doesn't want to click on random links:
The Guard's flag waved, his whistle blew, and they were off. Soon in the distance they saw the bridge. There were the boys and they all had stones. "Are you ready, Henry?" said this Driver. "Sneeze hard when I tell you." "Now!" he said, and turned the handle. "Atisha Atisha Atishooooooh!" Smoke and steam and ashes spouted from his funnel. They went all over the bridge, and all over the boys who ran away as black as ####.
fuck censorship. historical context is important when referencing historical facts. society must be reminded of why language like this is no longer acceptable in order to keep it unacceptable, least we forget.
All this means is that the Thomas franchise has existed long enough to be publishing books since when that word was still in common parlance. I'm sure if you looked at anything from that era, it wouldn't take long to find something that appears problematic through a modern lens.
Believe it or not, it was not "normal" to use slurs in children's books in 1952.
There are Marvel comics from the 1940's with characters straight out of ministrel shows and they still don't use the word. Would you like to guess why?
Edit: not that it stopped Dr Seuss a couple times in the 30's, mind you, but he reserved it for comics and not his children's books, those only got racist caricatures.
The word carried somewhat less of a charge in the UK at the time, where black people were relatively uncommon until waves of labour migration from the Caribbean in the 1950s, than in the US, where it was freighted with the weight of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow laws and such. Agatha Christie could call a book “10 Little N_s”, alluding to a children’s rhyme. This was an age in which the children who casually sang that rhyme probably had golliwog dolls.
The TV adaptation definitely glosses things over. For instance, in the show Henry has a big crash and is sent to England to be repaired. In the canon of the books, he was scrapped and swapped out for a better locomotive, who was then given the same name.
No, he’s sent to Crewe for a rebuild and returns with a new shape - mostly changes to his firebox iirc as he’s been struggling to build up enough steam with anything other than high-quality (expensive) Welsh coal.
Source: literally re-read the relevant book over the weekend.
The canonical history book The Island of Sodor expands on this:
Since 1922 there have been two Henrys…
We never saw Henry I, but we talked to men who had crewed him. Henry I had a superficial likeness to Gordon, they said, but that was as far as it went. They remembered hearing rumours of a scandal at Doncaster in 1919 or thereabouts, about the theft of some drawings. Nothing was proved, but it was alleged that a Locomotive Builder with a grudge against Gresley had engineered a "leak" so as to steal a march on him. His spy, however, blundered and took the wrong drawings. The mistake was discovered too late. The locomotive when built, showed so many faults that the builder was glad of chance to unload his "white elephant" on to a desperate customer.
No-one was better pleased than Topham Hatt when the Killdane accident occurred in 1935. At last he had an opportunity of having Henry completely rebuilt at Crewe.
It has been a mystery to many that Topham Hatt was able to send the deplorable Henry I to Crewe in 1935, and receive back a Stanier Class SMT in tip-top condition as Henry II.
So as Henry I was a bootleg Gresley and then a Stanier Black 5, they are two different engines.
They also punish a locomotive by sealing it behind a brick wall. Considering those things are sentient and basically immortal that's some new levels of fucked up.
Some youths were throwing rocks at trains going under a bridge, so one of the engines purged soot from its chimney as it went under the bridge as revenge, covering the youths in sticky black stuff.
They've been doing that for a while to work around copyright claims. And as someone with less than perfect hearing, I always appreciate transcripts/subtitles.
42 replies
Context: https://www.scribd.com/document/899239966/Henry-the-Green-Engine-1951-Scanned-by-ThatERTLGuy#page=64 page 60 of the book, 64 of the document.
Written version in case someone doesn't want to click on random links:
fuck censorship. historical context is important when referencing historical facts. society must be reminded of why language like this is no longer acceptable in order to keep it unacceptable, least we forget.
he doesn't even look sorry
(75 years i.e. 1951)
Pretty sure 75 years is prior to the other three existing, so Thomas & Friends has technically gone longer without dropping an N-bomb.
@snooggums @The_Picard_Maneuver this is in fact correct. Sesame Street started in the 60s
yeah but barney's a dinosaur. he's at least three point something gajillion years old.
We do not talk about what Barney was doing during the 1940s.
"NOT THE MAMA!"
wait what was Barney doing in the 1940s
All this means is that the Thomas franchise has existed long enough to be publishing books since when that word was still in common parlance. I'm sure if you looked at anything from that era, it wouldn't take long to find something that appears problematic through a modern lens.
Believe it or not, it was not "normal" to use slurs in children's books in 1952.
There are Marvel comics from the 1940's with characters straight out of ministrel shows and they still don't use the word. Would you like to guess why?
Edit: not that it stopped Dr Seuss a couple times in the 30's, mind you, but he reserved it for comics and not his children's books, those only got racist caricatures.
The word carried somewhat less of a charge in the UK at the time, where black people were relatively uncommon until waves of labour migration from the Caribbean in the 1950s, than in the US, where it was freighted with the weight of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow laws and such. Agatha Christie could call a book “10 Little N_s”, alluding to a children’s rhyme. This was an age in which the children who casually sang that rhyme probably had golliwog dolls.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None (Agatha Christie, 1939)
pretty sure that racism in the days of yore was still racist (please remember who decided what was appropriate in common parlance back then)
And nobody denied that. The statement was "racism was normal in those days", and not "the n-word wasn't racist in those days".
You're not allowed to criticize or point out Southern Klans members because it was the style of the time.
Lemmy's just becoming worse and worse these days.
...are you okay? automatically assuming the worst possible meaning of ambiguous statements doesn't seem healthy.
what about this: "pointing the klansmen out to people back then was harder because the average person was more racist."
I grow more and more tired of humanity being a constant idiot parade but that's nothing new.
they do say that if you always expect the worst you're never disappointed... but it definitely won't make you happy.
the hays code didn't apply to colloquial speech, it applied to movies.
The Hayes Code didn’t apply to books at all, it was movie specific. I assumed they were talking about the dominant culture at the time.
it just cracks me up because if you look for Hays violating shit, it's everywhere back then. If they wanted to sing about sex, they sang about food.
Okay, I need more context to this. N-word in any of these franchises feels something so far off.
Boys on a bridge threw rocks at a train, smashing windows. Next time the train made sure to cover them in soot so they were “black as n—“.
And here I thought George Carlin was the hardest Thomas ever went. Turns out he used to roll coal on hooligans 🤣
The TV adaptation definitely glosses things over. For instance, in the show Henry has a big crash and is sent to England to be repaired. In the canon of the books, he was scrapped and swapped out for a better locomotive, who was then given the same name.
No, he’s sent to Crewe for a rebuild and returns with a new shape - mostly changes to his firebox iirc as he’s been struggling to build up enough steam with anything other than high-quality (expensive) Welsh coal.
Source: literally re-read the relevant book over the weekend.
The canonical history book The Island of Sodor expands on this:
So as Henry I was a bootleg Gresley and then a Stanier Black 5, they are two different engines.
They also punish a locomotive by sealing it behind a brick wall. Considering those things are sentient and basically immortal that's some new levels of fucked up.
That was also Henry I. The whipping boy of Sodor.
Some youths were throwing rocks at trains going under a bridge, so one of the engines purged soot from its chimney as it went under the bridge as revenge, covering the youths in sticky black stuff.
I convinced a girl to watch "Battle Of Briton (1969)" with me one time. I forgot to warn her about the dog. She was shocked to say the least.
Does the Nword have the same cultural significance in the UK?
You’re thinking of Dambusters.
And it was still derogatory, but not as weaponised as the US. More like how they used the lesser N word.
wtf is the lesser N word can we just write them in quotes? It's not like Voldemort.
Looks over shoulder
Whispers: "numpty"
Runs away
Oh god, worse than I could possible have imagined D:
Candyman candyman candyman lol.
That word was unfortunately rather common in the past:
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/0Nbh9JC3Wgw
What the filter is that?
I thought vertical videos and word by word transcripts was aweful, now they add shitty filters?
They've been doing that for a while to work around copyright claims. And as someone with less than perfect hearing, I always appreciate transcripts/subtitles.