When Will We Stop Worrying About Whether Old Entertainment Will Offend People?
by Chris Queen
The wokescolds won’t stop until they’ve ruined everything. In recent years, we’ve seen the bowdlerization of novels by Roald Dahl, woke remakes of Agatha Christie classics, and disclaimers on classic Disney cartoons.
Now, the British Film Institute is getting in on the game. The BFI, the institution dedicated to preserving the heritage of British cinema, is screening the James Bond films from the ’60s along with some other similar movies, and it has decided to slap trigger warnings on the films on its website.
Before you start rolling your eyes, there’s a slight twist in this tale. Not only is the BFI warning that mid-20th-century spy thrillers might be offensive to modern snowflakes, but it’s also claiming that audiences found these movies offensive when they first hit theaters.
“The BFI has warned on its website: ‘Please note that many of these films contain language, images or other content that reflect views prevalent in its time, but will cause offence today (as they did then),'” reports GB News. “‘The titles are included here for historical, cultural, or aesthetic reasons and these views are in no way endorsed by the BFI or its partners.'”
You’ve got to be kidding me. Who would’ve been offended by these movies in the swinging ’60s? Grubby Communist henchmen? Megalomaniac billionaires intent on taking over the world? SMERSH? SPECTRE? (Someone should tell the BFI that both of those organizations are fictional.)
Others who might have taken offense to these films back in the day include sexy Japanese secret agents, rifle-toting henchmen on skis, mute Korean butlers with razor-brimmed hats, kidnapped cosmonauts and astronauts, gorgeous Russian double agents trying to defect, and power-hungry half-Chinese-half-German scientists who neither look Chinese nor German.