Critics have interpreted both villagers and monkeys as Kipling's portrayal of nationalist Indians, ungovernable and subversive – the kind who caused the Mutiny in 1851. Kipling's enthusiastic endorsement of colonialism made him a pariah among 20th-century readers, especially after India became independent in 1947; and the Disney film of The Jungle Book drew accusations of racism, for inventing the character of King Louie, the head orang-utan, who cavorts and swings like the jazz singer and bandleader Cab Calloway while telling Mowgli, "I wanna be like you-hoo".
Campus Reform magazine reported in April this year that American university professors hoped that Disney's new film would make amends for the song, because King Louie "is not just a cartoon animal wishing to be human. Rather, Louie represents an African-American stating that he wants to be a member of the white race, which is represented by Mowgli."Who’s….a little orphan Indian boy.
Oh, FAIL, wackademics!!
Which only goes to prove that it is possible to find offence in ANYTHING!
ReplyDeleteRadical Rodent
The stupidity of that is WAAAAAAY off the scale. No-one associated Jungle Books King Louie with blacks. He was a monkey. Do we associate Genies (an Arab invention) with American comedians ? These are no doubt the peabrained rantings of "wimmin" in the student brigades. They've got away with laughably idiotic claims in the past because the gutless p[enis-shrivelled "males" among the students dont have the cajones to say owt against 'em. But really.....this staggers even me.
ReplyDeleteEven as a student in the 1970s I don't remember any such outcry about King Louie. Even Kipling's colonial aspects were seen as relatively humane and made him seem passe, or at worst paternalistic, rather than a pariah.
ReplyDeleteThe Indie picture of Kipling and The Jungle Book seems like a wildly exaggerated rewriting of history to me.
A little delving into the history of British India tells us that racism and religious interference was indeed the cause of 1851 mutiny. In the 17th and early 18th Century the British in India lived very harmoniously with the indigenous population. It was only the increasing numbers of British women and religious NGOs with their Victorian attitudes arriving in India that subverted that harmony. So by the time of Kipling racism and bigotry was endemic and so he did of course write in that vain. However airbrushing the standards of that time because of political correctness that we all have to suffer under today tells us that we have not learned the lesson that righteous indignation does more harm than good.
ReplyDeleteKing Louie was voiced by Louis Prima. A white man, an Italian-American.
ReplyDeleteThese people are ignorant tossers.
Pedant alert - King Louie was voiced by Italian-American Louis Prima, not Cab Calloway.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV8HrpOu1FA
Through the prism of USA black revisionism, Asians are white.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise "people of colour" wouldn't be nearky as downtrodden as the race hate industry needs them to be.
"Which only goes to prove that it is possible to find offence in ANYTHING!"
ReplyDeleteYou can probably get a degree course in it these days...
"These are no doubt the peabrained rantings of "wimmin" in the student brigades. "
No, sadly, I think this is a bloke.
"Even Kipling's colonial aspects were seen as relatively humane..."
'You have to be carefully taught...'
"However airbrushing the standards of that time because of political correctness that we all have to suffer under today tells us that we have not learned the lesson that righteous indignation does more harm than good."
Spot on!
"Pedant alert - King Louie was voiced by Italian-American Louis Prima, not Cab Calloway. "
Well spotted, Tomfiglio & Dr Cromarty! I missed that.
"Through the prism of USA black revisionism, Asians are white."
As we saw, in the US, even Hispanics can be 'white' when it suits!