Leprosy Anti-Defamationists Condemn "Tasteless" Joke In Aardman's Pirates Trailer

[BC Blog Poster]

After taking a tour of Aardman studios and the set of their new film The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists, this is one film that I'm very much looking forward to. However, it's not all smooth sailing for this venture (last pirate pun I'll make in this article, honest) as the World Health Organisation, The Society For Leprosy Affected People, and a number of leprosy sufferers are forming an outcry against a particular throwaway joke that can be seen in the trailer below.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJJSdRwmRbY[/youtube]<For those who don't want to see the trailer, the scene goes something like this: the Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) boards a ship and demands that its passengers hand over all their gold. "Afraid we don't have any gold, old man!" replies one of them. "This is a leper boat!"

And then his arm falls off.

Alright, not the funniest gag in the world, but also not one you'd generally think of as offensive. Since the disease is fairly uncommon in Britain and effective treatments have since been developed to cure it if caught in the early stages, leprosy is not a disability that people in this country are much aware of outside of the notion of leper colonies created to keep the contagious disease away from main settlements. However, it is estimated that between 2 and 3 million people worldwide still suffer from leprosy, many cases of which continue to go unreported until it is too late due to the social stigma attached to leprosy sufferers.

It's a tough one to judge, since I doubt anyone believes that Aardman created the scene with a particular hatred of lepers in mind; it's a tasteless joke, but one created from ignorance rather than spite. Some of the accusations levied against the film seem perfectly reasonable. WHO leprosy experts claim that,

?The film shows a derogatory scene on leprosy and is spreading an unscientific picture of leprosy. Such pictures will undo the benefits of health education.?

Sarah Nancollas -CEO of UK charity Lepra Health in Action - also protested against the offending scene. In a letter to Aardman, she states that,

?It is with deep regret that Aardman has decided to put comedy ahead of common sense and made this joke in such poor taste. Whilst we understand that film makers tread a fine line with many forms of discrimination, it appears little thought has been given to this particularly sensitive issue.

?Would Aardman poke fun at other illnesses and disabilities??

It's not the first time that a children's film has come under fire for negatively influencing the mindset of young people. The Lion King was not only criticised for promoting a segregationist model of society, but it was also condemned by hyena lovers for its unfair portrayal of hyenas, a protest that resulted in one hyena researcher suing Disney for defamation of character and others attempting to organise a boycott of the film.

Boycott is also the suggestion being given by some of the more hard-edged voices of protest. Leprosy sufferer Jose Ramirez says that she has written directly to Michelle Obama, asking her to refuse to show the film in the White House.

?I know that this may be a symbolic gesture but considering the she has two daughters who may be exposed to this film is an oxymoron as she is against bullying......and the pirate animated film is about bullying of children with disabilities, especially those affected by leprosy.?

This, I think, may be taking things a little too far, the rather erroneous use of the word "oxymoron" aside. The scene no doubt plays a very small role in the film, which in general is a silly romp about the Pirate Captain's attempt to win the Pirate of the Year Award with the help of Charles Darwin, a dodo and a fish in a hat. To argue based on one scene that the film is "about bullying of children with disabilities" borders on ridiculous and undermines the valid points made by other voices in the protest.

No word yet on whether the scene will be removed from the film, but Aardman responded almost immediately:

?Aardman take matters like this most seriously and is reviewing the situation."

The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists is still in the last stages of post-production and will not be released until 28th March this year, so it remains to be seen whether the scene will survive the final cut. Also important to note is the fact that the film is not purely an Aardman Animations production, but is part of a collaboration with Sony Pictures Animations. Sony, however, have been strangely free from any criticism so far and have yet to comment on the situation.

Story found via The Independent.

[thekeith82]

the pirate animated film is about bullying of children with disabilities, especially those affected by leprosy.?

I cannot even begin to describe how many things are wrong with this sentence. Clearly these campaigners for a serious disease have fuck all better to do for their time. Which is worrying, really...

[mquitney]

This has been the standard leper joke for as long as I've been alive.
He's a cheery leper, that's a good thing right?

[Knut Robert Knutsen]

I think the WHO is just a bit misleading when they characterize a man's arm falling off as "spreading an unscientific picture of leprosy". The fact is that leprosy and it's accompanying secondary infections and other problems do cause damages to fingers and toes that may at least appear to "fall off" or simply shorten and shrivel up because the cartilage/bone disintegrates and there is tissue loss etc. Sometimes larger parts of arms or legs might have to be amputated.

In the context of cartoon comedy, having an arm fall off in one go is merely comic exaggeration. One would hardly call a man's head blowing up to the size of a weather balloon because he's holding back a sneeze (another trope of cartoon comedy) "spreading an unscientific picture of influenza".

And it's not like there isn't reason to include lepers in a pirate story. England, along with Norway and Iceland, were the last to beat leprosy in Europe, and they bore the brunt of the re-emergence of leprosy in the 18th and 19th Century. Commonly attributed to contact by seas with the West Indies (home of all the famous Pirates of the Caribbean). Here in Norway, they didn't close the last Leprosy hospital wing until the 1970s. (Even our word for leprosy, "Spedalsk", is merely a corruption of the word "hospitalized", that's how common it was.)

Yes, there is a huge stigma attached to leprosy, causing lepers to be ostracized or quarantined for life in special hospitals and being victimized in many other ways. However, those problems go far beyond an animation movie using an old gag about lepers casually losing limbs. What's next? Monty Pythion and the Holy Grail being banned for unscientific portrayals of a quadroplegic?

[tralfaz]

Would Aardman poke fun at other illnesses and disabilities??

making fun of a disease happens all the time. It's the way people fight it. I have lupus, it's a running joke in the show House. There was a joke about lupus last night on 30 Rock. Am I offended? Hells no.

These self righteous people need to get over themselves

[barbabravo]

Leprosy sufferer Jose Ramirez says that she has written directly to Michelle Obama, asking her to refuse to show the film in the White House.
?I know that this may be a symbolic gesture but considering the she has two daughters who may be exposed to this film is an oxymoron as she is against bullying......and the pirate animated film is about bullying of children with disabilities, especially those affected by leprosy.?

This woman has clearly lost her... um...

Never mind.

[Joe Kalicki]

These people deserve their horrible disease!

But seriously - shut up.

[_OM_]

I cannot even begin to describe how many things are wrong with this sentence. Clearly these campaigners for a serious disease have fuck all better to do for their time. Which is worrying, really...

...Lepers have been like that for the past generation or so. Make a joke at their expense, and they just totally fall apart.

[Lou]

Next the Somalis will take Aardman to task for trivializing pirates...

[Rootfireember]

@Lou
-very inaccurate description of pirates, far too old to be real Somali pirates. Also, where's the machine guns. Heck it's inacurate in description of pirates in general, but where are they to protest?
And if they did who would listen?