My very un-PC rant.
To Kill A Mockingbird is the first book I ever loved, I mean really, truly loved. I was probably Scout’s age when I read it.
I felt as if I knew the characters - Scout in all her glorious naivete, her courageous brother Jem, the irrepressible Dill, the reclusive Boo Radley, downtrodden Mayella Ewell and her terrifying father, Bob Ewell, poor Tom Robinson, and the ethical, honest attorney and father, Atticus Finch.
I’m aware that To Kill A Mockingbird is one of those books that occasionally shows up on the list of books certain groups want banned from our public schools. Why? I can’t for the life of me imagine. But that’s not the reason for my rant.
Here’s the reason: My parents are, as we speak, at a stage version of To Kill A Mockingbird. The book also happens to be one of my father’s favorites. I was as horrified as he was when he told me that an African American actor was cast as the sheriff in the play - in order to be politically correct.
The story ain’t broke! Don’t fix it!
As a member of an ethnic minority, I am personally insulted. As if a Black man could have been a sheriff in Maycomb, Alabama, or anywhere in the States during the Great Depression!
The theme of the book is prejudice and the tragic chain of events set in motion by a lie. Would it make sense to cast a White man in the role of Tom Robinson? C’mon! Where’s your brain?
To Kill A Mockingbird is meticulously crafted around the story of a Black man living in rural Alabama who is falsely accused and convicted of raping a White woman, who was, in actuality, raped by her own father - and the whole town knows it. To cast a Black man in the role of the sheriff says, in effect, hey, Harper Lee didn’t mean it…this kind of stuff never happened…just kidding, folks.
Really pisses me off.
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I agree - it pisses me off too!
I loved To Kill A Mockingbird. It’s one of those few stories, like Gone With The Wind, that always stays with you. Classic and perfect just the way it was written. The play casting just minimized the racism of that time period, something that was MEANT to be highlighted BECAUSE it was wrong.
That is ridiculous!
I’ve never read To Kill a Mockingbird, but I have added it to my TBR pile. It’s one of those I always meant to read.
When did “they” decide to go through all these pieces of classic literature and make them PC? “They” are totally whacked and seem to be on a foolish mission. Stories like these are based on the culture of the time…that’s the point. It’s not about saving someone’s feelings. It’s about bringing to light the very prejudices “they” seem to be trying to sweep under the carpet.
I view changing an iconic story - trying to make it more PC - as a from of censorship. I love Gone With the Wind. Were there characters who were slaves in GWTW? Yes, of course. Would I re-write it to pretend there weren’t slaves? Never! Altering To Kill A Mockingbird is a form of censorship.
Someone wasn’t thinking… In trying to be politically correct (and I’m not at all sure how they came to that conclusion) the core of the story is insulted. They killed the mockingbird!
XXOO Kat
No kidding - they smoked the mockingbird! I just found out that bad-to-the-bone Bob Ewell was played by a deaf man who signed! Signed! I’m stunned. First of all, that gives him an excuse to be bad, a reason he’s the way he is. In the book there’s no reason presented, he’s just an awful excuse for a human being. Second, second….I…I…I’m rendered speechless!
Is this a regional dinner theater that might be short “actors” who can regularly attend rehearsals and stay awake past 9 pm? This may not be a political statement at all. Maybe they cast whomever showed up and read, begged or signed for the part? lol
XXOO Kat
No, Kat. This is a theater ‘destination’ - considered a location for world class theater. They get actors from all over - killing each other for parts.
Last summer I flew to Colorado to watch my nephew play Dill in a local theater production of To Kill A Mockingbird. The production was quite possibly one of the best plays I’ve ever seen.
Regarding the above world class theater - last year they put on The Music Man. You know the story of that, right? Takes place in small town Iowa around the turn of the 20th Century. The same director cast a African American actress as Marion the Librarian. That would ruin the play for me - in the same way casting White people for the roles in Raisin in the Sun would ruin that outstanding play for me. You just can’t do that - these plays must be set in context, into the situation/time period when they were written. The angst and pain in Raisin in the Sun would be lost with White actors - that’s what I mean. Re-writing like this demeans the story, the characters and the audience.
Sure, I know directors are always modernizing Shakespeare - yeah…whatever. I can cope with it, sort of. Shakespeare in modern garb…fine. But even that kind of bugs me. I’d rather see an entire rewrite with the same theme like Taming of the Shrew/Ten Things I Hate About You.
OMG. Really? Too many times political correctness goes out of control. Why not just stick to the way it was? Seriously, that’s just ridiculous like you said Julia. A Black man as sheriff in Alabama during that time period.
Get real, he would have been dead in a minute. The thing is, when we try to gloss things over for the sake of modern convention and political correctness, we also run the risk of taking away from the events of the past and making people think, “Oh well, it wasn’t that bad and things like that don’t happen anymore.” Yeah, okay.
I agree, Delilah. As if a Black man could have been a sheriff back then - really? You’re right, dead in a minute. It’s like taking the theme of the book and saying - it ain’t no big thing, what happened to Tom Robinson wasn’t racism, just a misunderstanding. This P.C. crap bugs me soooo much!
I think the book should be left alone. It was not meant to harm. I read this book when I was in high school.
I think political correctness is going to far. To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic. It’s a classic because it causes us to think about the themes of the book. When it is changed, those who change it want to pretend that time period and those actions never occurred. They want to rewrite history so our past is clean, not dirty. I find it reprehensible to take an author’s work and update it to fit today’s sensibilities. It is a denial of what the author was trying to say, trying to change for the better. How would these directors, writers, actors like it if someone went in and rewrote/changed their work? They’d be screaming about denying them their first admendment rights of free speech, of denying them artistic freedom, of censorship, and others trying to sweep the dirt under the carpet. It is wrong to deny our past. It is how we learn and, hopefully, become better people. America’s past is not always pretty but it is our past and we can change what we do in the future. We cannot change the past.
Julia, it just gets sadder and sadder. We are so caught up in not offending anyone that we are losing our own identities. We have to double think anything we say, or write, because someone might be offended. An employer can look at something — like your post and your objection to messing with the story — and label you as less than PC. We aren’t allowed to have opinions anymore — if it’s one where someone might be offended. Some day readers will look at the double versions of the greatest literature and wonder which one was the real one because they will have been so mired in making everyone look and sound alike.
Well, Regan, I hope someone doesn’t think I’m not P.C. enough. I think people should treat each other with decency. Yes, sometimes there is a need for political correctness, but I agree, literature should not be changed. Even if we don’t like it. And I do, under all circumstances, dislike hate-speech.
Amazing response, Sheila. I honestly wonder if a director who does something like this has a clue what he or she is really doing. Seems pretty clueless to me.
Say what? I saw your post about this on Romance Lives Forever and had to come see what it was all about. I think “PC” has become an acronym for “let’s see how ridiculous we can make this.” To see what others thought of it, I Googled “examples of political correctness” and came up with some doozies. One that seemed especially fitting…
Ignorant: factually unencumbered
What a perfect way to describe political correctness, Kayelle, factually unencumbered!
I know the feeling. The recent flap over correcting Mark Twain twisted my nickers into a knot. Mark Twain wrote about the time in which he lived. For “PC” dweebs to come along and start to change it, is just out of bounds. I want to read about that time, and I understand the social and economic issues of that time. Those issues are a part of what made Huck, Tom, and all Twain’s characters so real. There is more history in Mark Twain’s works, than in most history books.
It’s real simple, all you simpletons that want to re-edit these works: if you don’t like it, DON’T F***ING READ IT! But keep you damned hand off of it, and leave it intact for the rest of us.
(Yeah, this is a raw nerve for me, in case you couldn’t tell
)
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