Phileas Fogg has been wokeried.
A new adaptation of Jules Verne classic Around The World In 80 Days has been dismissed as ‘woke nonsense’ by furious BBC license payers.
The eight-part adaptation starring David Tennant as globetrotting Phileas Fogg launched on Boxing Day, but a series of socially conscious tweaks to the legendary tale left viewers choking on their turkey sandwiches.
Two notable departures from Verne’s original 1872 text sees Passepartout, Fogg’s loyal valet, played by a black actor – French star Ibrahim Koma – while Detective Fix also gets a modern-day makeover.
Traditionally a suspicious Scotland yard inspector, the male character is transformed into aspiring female journalist and full-time feminist Abigail ‘Fix’ Fortescue, played by French actress Leonie Benesch.
After the complete abortion that was War of the Worlds, I had my suspicions that this would be butchered and it seems that I was right.
A black plus an emotionally retarded and infantilised feminazi. The perfect team and no doubt without them the stupid white man wouldn’t have managed 80 feet.
I’m sure on the way they will sew the seeds of the destruction of the empire of racist exploitation (plus a few other racist exploitative empires as well)
Simon Webb did his usual on this a few weeks ago. As he points out, there was a perfectly acceptable diverse female character in the original – one would have thought. What do they have against Indians. It’s a valid question.
I’d missed that one, but, yes, he’s usually on the money. The BBC is racist. Simple as that.
Utterly and calculatedly racist. I’m not even bothered that it will be risible shite, it’s the sheer arrogance of the “fuck you” decision to make it.
I have been watching this on French TV. Yes it’s woke.
Having black people in subservient positions is woke now? I’m having trouble keeping up. Giving an old story a modern twist by putting it into a contemporary setting can sometimes work, although going around the world in eighty days wouldn’t be much of a challenge. Putting modern ideas into a period setting is just silly.
I learned my lesson with their production of War of the Worlds. Risible claptrap. The main character was shacked up with his girlfriend (in Edwardian England), complained loudly about the evils of empire and was killed off so that the girlfriend could become the focus of the story. Bugger all to do with anything H G Wells wrote. Pure unadulterated vandalism. I presumed this would be much the same and it seems that I am not wrong.
Works like ATWIED became classics because they reflected their own time, not because they kowtowed to 21st century wokeism. And Guy Gibson’s black labrador, like thousands of others, was called NIGGER!
Come on now. It’s not all bad.
Nobody does Wide Eyes like Tennant.
I accidentally saw about 30 seconds of this.
Steam engine runs out of fuel in a forrest.
So they get the axes out and….
Start chopping up carriage woodwork.
A real steam engine is far more likely to run out of water.
Switched channel then.
I thought that Tennnant was risking his career by getting soot on his face. Ooh Err, Missus.
Yep wokeshite. As soon as i saw Passpartout was black that was me done. I’m fed up with seeing blacks all over terrestial television.
Ditto when I first heard about planet of the Anne Boleyns.
Black people in the UK. 3% of the total population. 50% plus of characters in ITV and satellite channel adverts. WHY?
And like many, I’m heartily sick of it. I have no problem with black people in fiction where they are relevant and fit into the story. My current novel has two black characters, but most of the story is set in the Caribbean during the golden age of piracy, so, yes, a coupe of black characters makes perfect sense.
Trick is, refuse to buy any products which exaggerate such minorities in their advertising. The marketing analysts will soon spot the data and dump the offensive tokenism once it starts to hit them in the sales charts/profits.
One would hope.
I watched it for about 10 minutes to ‘give it a chance’ but it was contrived tripe and not faithful to the book. Far preferred the David Niven film. It would be like making Sherlock Holmes start swearing. Not faithful to the stories. Great to see Jeremy Brett on ITV 4 again. Most brilliant Holmes ever.
I have the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes boxed set. I watch it from time to time. And the David Niven Phileas is the archetype. I saved myself the misery of watching the latest cack.
“Trick is, refuse to buy any products which exaggerate such minorities in their advertising.”
The problem is that those of us who are bothered by this stuff are a tiny minority. So our not buying the product in question hardly causes a noticeable blip. The only exception that I can think of was when Gillette decided that insulting their entire customer base was a good idea. This turned out to be a really successful ad campaign for Harry’s.
I’m surprised it isn’t Around the World with 80 Gays … or is that in future episodes?
Or ‘Around The World With 80 Gay Ethnics’.
I was looking forward to watching this. Then I heard Tennant’s whining on British Imperialism, and it turned me right off. I’m so sick of celebrities coming out with woke BS, especially when they have something to promote. It’s pathetic and cowardly in my opinion.
In the original, the ‘Imperialist’ rescues a woman from the barbaric practice of suttee. What an awful thing to do. Obviously.
I used to like David Tennant – and then he went full luvvie.