After complaints regarding its trailer, The Pirates! Band of misfits (aka In an adventure with scientists, if you're in the UK) has, this week, caved into P.C. concerns, ahead of its Spring release... And all because of an 'armless joke.
Leprosy campaigners criticized a scene where the Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) boards a ship, demanding gold. A captive crew member replies, 'Afraid we don't have any gold old man, this is a leper-boat. See'. His arm then flops off.
UK animation giant Aardman have promised to amend/cut the scene in this, their second feature film collaboration with Sony Pictures (the first being 2011's Arthur Christmas).
On one hand, it's great that Aardman have responded positively to an incorrect perception of leprosy. (Limbs don't just fall off.) But, The Pirates! is animated make-believe. Whales fly, a Dodo is the ship's mascot, and monkeys are butlers. Is this politically corrected controversy valid? What's your opinion?
LEPRA's response to trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jO5PnhFj5gSource:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-16692022 
December 02, 2007, 04:26:11 PM
