I think I have a new favorite blog comment. The original post: a rant about how the liberals in control of PBS and the socialists in charge of the BBC have ruined Oliver Twist by, among other things, casting a black actress as Nancy. [link] The comment:
I was offended by Fagin's being played as being Jewish. I didn't remember that from the book - neither did my friends. I consider this anti-Semitism rather than anti-Christian. As a member of the Judeo-Christian faith, I was thoroughly offended and tried to make my opinion known to PBS.
I'm not even sure where to start with all the things wrong with that comment.
In the Little Dorrit over the weekend they cast a black actress as Tattie--she wouldn't have happened to be black in the book, would she?
Anyone know what the racial demographics were for London in Dickens' time? I'm seeing some people arguing that there's no reason that Nancy couldn't be black, and I'm wondering about the stats.
Mac is testing for his orange belt right now. Wtf parents who are talking AND taking calls during the test.
A neighbor that was a landlady and second mom to a very good friend passed away today. Mary was 84, and a woman who tried to live an life as close to her ideals as possible.
I don't need any hugs, but a warm thoughts to her friends and family would be good.
Kick their asses, msbelle. Krav them in their ears.
Hil--I think black people were well enough represented at the time for it to be unremarkable. Not what Dickens meant, but unremarkable. It's not like they're casting black people in enviable or powerful positions.
As for the Fagin/Jewish problem, I have no words. I can see many works of Twist leaving it out, because it seems a bit uncomfortable to deal with (uh, I haven't read the book myself--just going by a few portrayals I've seen), but if you have read the book there's no excuse but your blindness.
The book constantly refers to him as "the Jew" and "the old Jew." Like, when any other character would be "the man stood up" or "the boy stood up," Fagin gets "the Jew stood up." There is no way it's possible to read that book and not realize that Fagin is Jewish.
I just checked Wikipedia:
The first 38 chapters of the book refer to Fagin by his racial and religious origin 257 times, calling him "the Jew", with just 42 uses of "Fagin" or "the old man".
Now, I figured from watching the version they complained about that suddenly creating his Jewishness out of whole cloth would have been even more work than I imagined, but that stat is pretty pointed.
The entry goes on to mention that Dickens later went on to clean up the antisemitism, but it sounds like later chapters, not later versions, as you'd expect from a serial.
