The once-prestigious British Film Institute (BFI) is telling audiences how to think and what to feel about James Bond films by way of trigger warnings.
“Audiences at a new season of films at the British Film Institute in London have been cautioned the titles — including two James Bond movies — ‘will cause offence today,’” reports the far-left Guardian.
The season is dedicated to British composer John Barry — the late, great five-time Oscar winner — who scored a dozen 007 films, including the first seven, which set the stage for all 007 scores to come.
The Guardian adds that the disclaimer warns that every movie in the John Barry film series “contains language, images or other content that reflect views prevalent in its time, but will cause offence today (as they did then).”
The BFI’s fascist disclaimer continues: “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You Only Live Twice (1967) earns an additional disclaimer because it “contains outdated racial stereotypes.”
Then comes this:
Peter Sellers crime classic Never Let Go has a specific additional warning alerting viewers to “racist attitudes and language,” as does the Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman film Midnight Cowboy. John Schlesinger’s drama about the friendship between a conman and a sex worker adds that it includes “homophobic language and sexual violence.”
This is a film institute — a film institute! — vandalizing art and taking the fascist position of telling you what to think and feel about that art. It’s obscene and anti-art.
While I am well aware that it is dangerous to hold and express an opinion on this anniversary of the mostly peaceful protest against voter fraud at the U.S. Capitol, I’m still going to take the chance: There is nothing wrong with You Only Live Twice. Yes, Bond (The Mighty Sean Connery) undergoes surgery so he can go undercover as an Asian man, but only the narrow-minded find this offensive. If you actually watch the movie with anything close to an open mind, one of its primary themes is about a white man (Bond) coming to learn and appreciate another culture. Everything is done respectfully. Only fascists and neurotic, all-about-me, thin-skinned babies could think differently.
And where’s the trigger warning for the stereotyped Southern sheriff in Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)? Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) is a deliberately broad caricature, a clown aping on southern stereotypes and the opposite of a respectful portrayal. Oh, but that’s right; some of us are more equal than others…. Actually, some of us truly are superior to others because we can laugh at ourselves.
Here’s what a BFI spokesfascist told the Guardian:
As a cultural charity with responsibility for the preservation of film and moving image work and presenting it to audiences, we continuously face and deal with challenges presented by the history of film and television programmes and how they reflect views prevalent to their time.
Whilst we have a responsibility to preserve films as close to their contemporaneous accuracy as possible, even where they contain language or depiction which we categorically reject, we also have a responsibility in how we present them to our audiences. The trigger warnings/content warnings that we provide in all of our exhibition spaces and online platforms act as guidance that a film or work reflects views of the time in which they were made and which may cause offence.
Can I get a trigger warning before some dandy uses the word “whilst?”
As I asked on Friday, where are my trigger warnings alerting me to gay sex, fat lesbians, Christian hating, and pompous lectures?
This is why you must collect physical media. I’ve seen these warnings added to my digital purchases in movies like 1942’s Holiday Inn, which does have a racist sequence, but no one needs to tell me that. These trigger warnings might seem anodyne at first, but imagine their effect on young minds. This is just another one of the left’s tricks to turn everything into bigotry and our children into a bunch of uptight, unhappy scolds.
I’ve got the movies covered. Who’s going to protect the books and music?
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