I cancelled my TV licence. At least I’m not contributing to this crap.
The BBC has injected a strong anti-colonial message into its adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel Great Expectations, it has been revealed.
Written by Peaky Blinders creator Stephen Knight, the beloved novel has been given a new twist, referencing the evils of Empire which were not present in the original Victorian book.
In one scene, criminal Magwitch, one of the central characters, describes the British Empire as having been ‘built on the lies of privileged white men’, The Telegraph reports.
Because, of course, that’s exactly how Victorians spoke. I can’t stop this vile assault on our literature, culture and heritage, but at least I can refuse to pay for it.
The show’s lead actor, Ffion Whitehead, expressed his hope that the BBC’s dramatisation will make the canonical novel ‘more accessible for younger people’.
The actor, who is no stranger to period dramas having previously starring in Dunkirk, plays orphan Pip, the novel’s protagonist.
He described Empire as ‘a horrible thing’ in an interview while promoting the show, challenging anyone who disagreed.
‘The Empire was a horrible thing which involved a lot of British people going out and enslaving, pillaging and destroying a lot of cultures around the world.
‘It was powered by greed. If there’s anyone walking around believing that the Empire was a great thing they are kidding themselves.’
The lack of awareness is staggering. I won’t be taking lectures on history from this ignorant pipsqueak.
I am reminded of Monty Python. “What did the Romans ever do for us, apart from…….”
It was so bad that many of the previous colonies decided to maintain their relationship with their oppressors by joining the Commonwealth. What an evil empire.
In truth, the British Empire was both good and bad. To concentrate on the bad and pretend that the good didn’t happen is the true evil.
Ireland didn’t, notably. Malta nearky didn’t after the early ’70s.
Sigh, ‘many of’ doesn’t equal ‘all.’
Of course Britain was the only country ever that did any empire building.
Our sin was that we did it better than Johnny Foreigner.
So much better that I wonder if the rest of the world will EVER get over it.
Is there a country in the world that doesn’t have some haughty and condescending opinion of the empire. That is to say some sin, inadequacy or failing that they try to assuage by projecting onto it?
Recently, when idly wondering through youtube, there was a channel called “Let’s Walk Around” – what swedes think about uk.
A few minutes in a woman said she quite liked the sense of humour but said that this was obviously a compensation for the evils of colonialism.
I thought there was no infantilised “woke” inanity that could surprise me.
I was wrong!
France, Spain, Germany, Italy did.
Oh, FFS! He was being sarcastic.
I would not want to live in any colony, except for Hong Kong circa 1980s/1990s.
It is my belief that many of the woke persuasion confuse the British and the Roman Empires. I blame schools.
Shvatio
“The show’s lead actor, Ffion Whitehead, expressed his hope that the BBC’s dramatisation will make the canonical novel ‘more accessible for younger people’.”
No. It makes it not the canonical novel, you feckin’ idiot.
I’ve got the book. No need to watch some left-wing ‘adaptation’.
Best way. Sooner or later, the sensitivity readers will rewrite it.
How many disabled POCs in the cast?
There’s certainly at least one black woman from the images.
No good unless she is being screamed at and beaten.
You can always rely on the awful BBC to savage a perfectly normal story from it’s day, and inject a sad, limp-wristed wokery into the narrative which then ruins the whole scenario that Dickens envisaged.
We don’t pay for their rubbish either…
At least Dickens had an explicit social reform agenda, even if this intrusion takes extrapolation too far.
In recent years, the BBC has ridden roughshod over some of my favourite books and introduced elements of crude political propaganda at odds with the opinions expressed by the characters in the originals, if not changing them completely – in their adaptation of The Cruel Sea’, a bitter diatribe linking the deaths of sailors on fuel tankers to ‘spivs and Flash Harries’ trading black-market petrol coupons became a rant about ‘fat cats and businessmen driving their Jaguars to pheasant shoots and race meetings’ .
‘The Kraken Wakes’ and ‘The Day of the Triffids ‘. meanwhile, were shorn of every vestige of wit and subtlety in order to preach a heavy-handed environmental message with clunking left-wing overtones – highly implausible given that Wyndham’s characters frequently display a healthy cynicism towards such views (take, for instance, the references in ‘Web’ to ‘the naivety of early socialism’ or the idea that man can upset the balance of nature being ‘a piece of arrogance’).
I’m sure the BBC’s writers are convinced that they are doing this for our good and are therefore morally beyond reproach.
Best to watch the David Lean film version.
I always wonder if these people who describe the British Empire as awful are all just secretly pro-slavery and want it back.
The British Empire spent a lot of money, lives and time getting rid of slavery.
Maybe the anti-Empire lot are just fans of cheap labour?
Indentured labour was a thing until the 1920s.
What has this got to do with the price of fish?
Slavery by another name. They were worked to death.
Colonialism was barbaric, although that and modern technology and free markets are what has made the modern world.
Still not relevant to my point. This was a societal issue, not an empire one. The empire was neither all bad nor all good.
Er, it still is, as is slavery.
Modern technology and free markets? A non-trivial legacy of empire I would posit
Next you’ll be telling me the Bengal famine wasn’t to do with Empire.
Of course indentured labour was to do with Empire – it was a colonial policy in India and the Caribbean.
Oh dear. It seems that anything other than 200% hatred for the empire and complete, embarrassed and ashamed, repudiation of all it was triggers you somewhat.
Given that, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to half of the former colonies. Certainly judging by the state of them today.
I eagerly await your further outrage.
Sorry, faux outrage.
Good God, this is getting ridiculous. No one said that the empire was all good, just as it wasn’t all bad and some of the legacy left behind was beneficial.
Indentured servitude was a policy that existed in this country as a part of our society. It was inevitable that elements of our societal values would spread across the empire. I despise the principle, but I don’t judge the past by the values of today.
You are taking a ridiculous, black and white and extreme approach when the reality was nuanced. You are also engaging in historical revisionism in that you are judging the past by the values of today. Precisely as the pricks are over at the BBC.
I am very proud of the British Empire.
I wouldn’t want the Empire back, and I’m a British nationalist.
You’re not going to let this go, are you? No one, not one single person has said that they want the empire back. It was of its time. That time has passed.
I think you’ll find that desperate trolls can’t, and this one seems particularly desperate.
Well, I’m going to put a stop to it by closing comments. This has just got on my nerves now.
I AM willing to join in with this fun and games. Trouble is, my price of entry requires Hugh Grant to play Martin Luther King and Hugh Laurie to play Shaft.
The I’ll admit we have arrived in the Age of Diversity, Inclusion, Equality. And I despise Hugh Grant…
How about Mel Gibson playing Shaka Zulu in the remake of the 1964 film of the same name? Sort of a Braveheart set in Africa … what’s not to like?
Liberal heads exploding in 3, … 2, …
Sorry, I know that I bang on about the BBC lying about climate change a lot but this one is quite a gem. For anyone who doesn’t want to follow the link, the BBC is saying that a slightly drier than usual February means that we are now threatened with drought. The article is accompanied by a picture of a reservoir in Nidderdale in which the water level is somewhat low. The trees around the reservoir are looking remarkably green for mid March, probably because the picture was taken in September 2021. Nidderdale’s tourism people have a website that has plenty of recent photographs showing Nidderdale’s burgeoning waterways so the picture used in the article is deliberately misleading. Unfortunately there is no shortage of people stupid enough to be mislead.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/03/18/drought-risk-to-england-regions-after-slightly-dry-february-scientists-warn/
Presumably they haven’t noticed its been pissing with rain most of March, where we walk the dogs is a swamp, the rivers are high, maybe the wrong sort of rain? where’s the face palm smiley when you need one.
I admire your fortitude in watching or reading or listening to anything from the UK branch of Pravda.
Lots of rain in the Anglia region which is the driest part of the UK. My lawn in parts became very muddy. Guess where the dog loves to walk?
Have you noticed that they never talk about the evils of the Arab Empire or the Ottoman Empire?
They never seem to talk about the wicked colonialist settlers swarming across the Channel either. And their wicked cultural imperialism in abolishing all the good old customs of the native Brits.
About this time, I usually then go on to point out the horrid African slave raids on European countries, including Britain, until the heroic Frogs invaded Algeria to stop them in 1824. Surely they owe all you Europeans reparations??
But I think you’ve heard more than enough, haven’t you?