GOD STILL FLIES QANTAS
April 25th 2007 01:32
MY GOD, IT"S A BLOODY OUTRAGE
Here’s an odd little story.
On Tuesday the Melbourne Age published this letter from Charlie Watson, Los Angeles, CA.:
Just don’t mention the G-word
ON A recent Qantas flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles, I watched the film The Queen. After about 30 minutes of watching, it struck me that a particular word was being edited out of the dialogue. An actor would be mid-sentence and this particular word would simply drop out of earshot, leaving him or her momentarily mouthing in silence.
The video system came with the ability to rewind, so I kept rewinding portions of the film to figure out what the offensive language might be. I soon realised that the one particular word the Qantas team found necessary to cut out was the word “God”. And I'm not talking about the use of the word as an exclamation, such as “Oh my God” — when the word was used in literal context, such as: “She has been brought up to believe she has been appointed by God …” etc.I then flicked over to other movie channels and I found characters yelling every imaginable swearword at each other.
I'm not a zealot or religious fundamentalist by any stretch, but the question arises: Is Qantas so terrified of religion or spirituality that the very word God becomes unmentionable?
When I asked Qantas if they saw that letter, a PR guy said,
“Of course I saw it. A very odd story that one. The Age rang me and said oh look, we’ve got this thing and then when they found out how old it was they said Oh we’re not going to be running that. That’s what the Age told me.
Let me tell you exactly what happened here. Qantas and many other airlines I must say got delivered an incorrect version of the movie and as soon as we found out we asked for the unedited version which is what we always show. And we’ve got that and we rolled it out to our aircraft. That was about the first of March.
“The distributors sent us an edited version. You would have to talk to the distributor which Jaguar Distribution in the US.
“If you really insist on running this, I’ll give you the line, like I said we acted as soon as we found out about it, yeah, if you want the proper line it’s ‘Qantas ordered the edited theatrical version of the movie The Queen when we became aware that this is not the version provided by the distributor. We demanded the correct version be supplied as requested and this has now been loaded onto our aircraft.’ As simple as that.”
On checking out Jaguar Distribution on the internet this story popped up from the US:
“So much for God and country, at least during some in-flight showings of the Oscar-nominated movie The Queen. That’s because all mentions of God are bleeped out of a version of the film given to some commercial airlines.
Even in these politically correct times, censoring references to God in the film wasn’t a statement of some kind. Rather, it was the mistake of an overzealous and inexperienced employee for a California company that edits movies selected for onboard entertainment.
The rookie censor was told to edit out all profanities, including any blasphemy, for the version of the movie distributed to Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, Air New Zealand, and other carriers.
So the new censor mistakenly bleeped out each time a character said ‘God,’ instead of just when used as part of a profanity, said Jeff Klein, president of Jaguar Distribution, the company that distributed the movie to airlines this month.
‘A reference to God is not taboo in any culture that I know of,’ Klein said. ‘We excise foul language, excessive violence and nudity.’
In-flight viewers of the film at one point heard ‘(Bleep) bless you, ma’am,’ as one character spoke to the queen. In all, the word ‘God’ is bleeped seven times in the version.
Fortunately, at no time in the original film is the common phrase ‘God save the queen’ spoken or else passengers from the United Kingdom might have been royally irritated to hear ‘bleep’ invoked to save Her Majesty.
Klein discovered the mistake after a London-bound Air New Zealand passenger complained earlier this month and the airline apologized for showing ‘the incorrect version of the film.’
Airlines routinely work with studios to get film versions that have removed the kind of graphic scenes and strong profanities that would not be shown on network TV, Delta spokeswoman Betsy Talton said. Officials with Delta and Air New Zealand say their airlines have been showing the edited version of 'The Queen' on many international flights.
Jaguar has been replacing all the cassettes it sent out, in English and other languages, to its airline clients with the original, unedited version of the movie.
The editor responsible for the mistake is still working in the editing laboratory of the Studio City, Calif.-based company, Klein said.”
MY NOTE: Note that the US article capitalises God as is current convention.
The US version also capitalised Her Majesty. But when referring to the anthem, the article said ‘God save the queen.’ This, in an Anglo context, therefore means that God could save any queen including Sir Elton John.
But all Anglo-centric nations, including our arid patch, use Queen when referring to that dreary old Pommy tart. And would the heavens fall in if we stopped capitalising god?
Here’s an odd little story.
On Tuesday the Melbourne Age published this letter from Charlie Watson, Los Angeles, CA.:
Just don’t mention the G-word
ON A recent Qantas flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles, I watched the film The Queen. After about 30 minutes of watching, it struck me that a particular word was being edited out of the dialogue. An actor would be mid-sentence and this particular word would simply drop out of earshot, leaving him or her momentarily mouthing in silence.
The video system came with the ability to rewind, so I kept rewinding portions of the film to figure out what the offensive language might be. I soon realised that the one particular word the Qantas team found necessary to cut out was the word “God”. And I'm not talking about the use of the word as an exclamation, such as “Oh my God” — when the word was used in literal context, such as: “She has been brought up to believe she has been appointed by God …” etc.I then flicked over to other movie channels and I found characters yelling every imaginable swearword at each other.
When I asked Qantas if they saw that letter, a PR guy said,
“Of course I saw it. A very odd story that one. The Age rang me and said oh look, we’ve got this thing and then when they found out how old it was they said Oh we’re not going to be running that. That’s what the Age told me.
Let me tell you exactly what happened here. Qantas and many other airlines I must say got delivered an incorrect version of the movie and as soon as we found out we asked for the unedited version which is what we always show. And we’ve got that and we rolled it out to our aircraft. That was about the first of March.
“If you really insist on running this, I’ll give you the line, like I said we acted as soon as we found out about it, yeah, if you want the proper line it’s ‘Qantas ordered the edited theatrical version of the movie The Queen when we became aware that this is not the version provided by the distributor. We demanded the correct version be supplied as requested and this has now been loaded onto our aircraft.’ As simple as that.”
On checking out Jaguar Distribution on the internet this story popped up from the US:
“So much for God and country, at least during some in-flight showings of the Oscar-nominated movie The Queen. That’s because all mentions of God are bleeped out of a version of the film given to some commercial airlines.
Even in these politically correct times, censoring references to God in the film wasn’t a statement of some kind. Rather, it was the mistake of an overzealous and inexperienced employee for a California company that edits movies selected for onboard entertainment.
The rookie censor was told to edit out all profanities, including any blasphemy, for the version of the movie distributed to Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, Air New Zealand, and other carriers.
So the new censor mistakenly bleeped out each time a character said ‘God,’ instead of just when used as part of a profanity, said Jeff Klein, president of Jaguar Distribution, the company that distributed the movie to airlines this month.
‘A reference to God is not taboo in any culture that I know of,’ Klein said. ‘We excise foul language, excessive violence and nudity.’
In-flight viewers of the film at one point heard ‘(Bleep) bless you, ma’am,’ as one character spoke to the queen. In all, the word ‘God’ is bleeped seven times in the version.
Fortunately, at no time in the original film is the common phrase ‘God save the queen’ spoken or else passengers from the United Kingdom might have been royally irritated to hear ‘bleep’ invoked to save Her Majesty.
Klein discovered the mistake after a London-bound Air New Zealand passenger complained earlier this month and the airline apologized for showing ‘the incorrect version of the film.’
Airlines routinely work with studios to get film versions that have removed the kind of graphic scenes and strong profanities that would not be shown on network TV, Delta spokeswoman Betsy Talton said. Officials with Delta and Air New Zealand say their airlines have been showing the edited version of 'The Queen' on many international flights.
Jaguar has been replacing all the cassettes it sent out, in English and other languages, to its airline clients with the original, unedited version of the movie.
The editor responsible for the mistake is still working in the editing laboratory of the Studio City, Calif.-based company, Klein said.”
MY NOTE: Note that the US article capitalises God as is current convention.
The US version also capitalised Her Majesty. But when referring to the anthem, the article said ‘God save the queen.’ This, in an Anglo context, therefore means that God could save any queen including Sir Elton John.
But all Anglo-centric nations, including our arid patch, use Queen when referring to that dreary old Pommy tart. And would the heavens fall in if we stopped capitalising god?
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