Royale with Queen
Dec. 31st, 2006 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
undyingkingFrom Language Log:
The writer concludes: "Something is profoundly wrong with our beliefs about the evil powers of everyday language, and with the movie guidance that is being supplied to us."
Well, I suppose being a linguist he would say that. I was more struck by the alternative interpretation, ie. that something is profundly wrong with our beliefs about the harmlessness of gruesome violence. It may be sad that a stray "Bugger" is forcing people to accompany their eleven-year-olds to see The Queen (presumably so they can cover their ears at the crucial moment -- and how many eleven-year-olds are going to want to see it, anyway?), but the idea that children of any age can be taken to cheer on James Bond getting his bits bashed is quite an surprise, isn't it?
In this poll, use notional children if you don't have any real ones:
[Poll #898108]
"There is a scene in which Queen Elizabeth drives her Land Rover solo across a ford on the Balmoral estate and breaks the drive shaft on a rock, stranding her vehicle in shallow water. As she gets out to check under the vehicle, suspecting the worst, she quietly mutters 'Bugger' to herself. For this, parents are strong cautioned to consider keeping their twelve-year-olds home... In Casino Royale a naked man is tied to a chair with the bottom ripped out of it and is tortured by having a knotted rope slammed into his testicles again and again until he howls in agony. The film gets the same rating as The Queen: PG-13."
[Both are 12A in the UK, so substitute "eleven-year-olds" above.]
The writer concludes: "Something is profoundly wrong with our beliefs about the evil powers of everyday language, and with the movie guidance that is being supplied to us."
Well, I suppose being a linguist he would say that. I was more struck by the alternative interpretation, ie. that something is profundly wrong with our beliefs about the harmlessness of gruesome violence. It may be sad that a stray "Bugger" is forcing people to accompany their eleven-year-olds to see The Queen (presumably so they can cover their ears at the crucial moment -- and how many eleven-year-olds are going to want to see it, anyway?), but the idea that children of any age can be taken to cheer on James Bond getting his bits bashed is quite an surprise, isn't it?
In this poll, use notional children if you don't have any real ones:
[Poll #898108]
