me

 

Watched a film on tv called None but the Lonely Heart. It's an oldie with that guy with the dimple in his chin, (Gregory Peck?) made in 1944. It was v complex and brilliant excpet something odd had happend to the sound on it. The film is set in the East End of London just before the blitz (pretty much contemporary with when it was made). At that time the Eastend was predominately Jewish and Irish as well as white English and therefore there was a Jewish character.
V sympathetic. He was in love with the hero's mum and helped the hero out during the course of the film. So we're not talking about some Fagin or Shylock character.
But when the Jewish guy was being attacked by local thugs (nothing to do with religion - just Eastend mafia, gang-like behaviour) - the words, "Jew" and "Kike" were dubbed for "crew" and "kak".

I don't really know why censors decided to do that. It's not like the guys beating up the old Jewish character were the heroes of the story or even that it was the hero who used those words.

For me, it was more an act of a unthinking liberal racism to dub them out, pretending that those words weren't or aren't used. A denial of what really goes on.

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