Gawsh ... - The sequel (*Not so long*)

[gadducci@di.unipi.it]

Well, my 2 cent coin about political correctness in Italy.
There had been no problem with translation or political correctness in the
DD & MM stories here in Italy till the '80s, and an eagle was an eagle. Now
the current editors (Gaudenzio Capelli and Elisa Penna) and the
wimmens'staff (yes, almost all of those involved with 'Topolino' editorial
staff are women...) chose a environment-safe politics (maybe under the
direction of the new management of the Italian branch of Disney): as an
example, usually ducks are vegetarians in current Italian stories....
Another example: there is an ongoing series called 'Zio Paperone' that
reprints at a low price the CBL. They presented the revised edition of
Darkest Africa, obviously, but the art of the political uncorrect stories
is not changed (if CBL did not change it)!! Anyway, they sometimes modify
the text to give it an environment-safe flavour; I do not remember if the
eagle is still an eagle, but an interesting example is the old story about
DD trapping a fake wolf. The nephews decide to make DD a joke, using
Daisy's fur coats, and in this modern translation those fur coats are
"false ones"...
There was an article in the "cultural" pages of 'La Repubblica' (maybe the
most important Italian daily newspaper), some months ago: the author was
Luca Raffaelli (a well know expert of comics and cartoons), and was devoted
to the topic of censorship in Disney comics...


Now talking about Disney and moral corruption (yo, Don :-): did anybody
read "Walt Disney, the dark prince"? It was out some month ago, even if I
did not yet received it! I read a brief summary, however, and it seemed a
kind of "Disney, Babylon" book: very interesting!!


And this quote is for you, Don: "Cuteness is a worldwide problem of major
proportion. Though cuteness has been with us for centuries, its most recent
proliferation threatens to smother us in a plethora of plastic Snoopy
pillows". And more "At the hearth of the cuteness impulse is the desire to
trivialize everything... to remove the presence of real-life & substitute
for it a blande, reassuring 'cleanliness'..." (in 'Griffith Observatory',
an underground strip by Bill Griffith -the same of Zippy- reprinted last
summer by Fantagraphics: go and buy it!!)
Well, he used Porky-Pig as a graphical example, but it could work for
Chip&Dale, too, I think... :-)

Bye for now

Fabio

================================================================
Fabio Gadducci           Dip. di Informatica
                         Universita` di Pisa
Tel. +39-50-510268       Corso Italia 40, 56100 PISA (ITALY)
FAX: +39-50-510226       E-mail:gadducci at di.unipi.it
================================================================