Piratical Fantasies

[LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

Jody wonders:
"Cockney or no, there is also the question of just how racist Pirate is,
e.g., beginning with..."-it was during his Kipling Period, beastly
Fuzzy-Wuzzies far as eye could see, dracunculiasis and Oriental sore
rampant among the troops, no beer for a month, wireless jammed by other
powers who would be masters of these horrid blacks, God knows why..."
 
Not that it would be surprising if Pirate were a racist, or anti-semitic
for that matter, but is that a correct reading of the above?"

I think it is generally correct, but only in the popcult, schoolboy fantasy
literature that is evoked here.  Kipling's poem, "Fuzzy-Wuzzie," for example
is in the  persona of his prototypical "Tommy Atkins" soldier, who finally
admires (somewhat condescendingly) his opponent: "Here's to you, Fuzzy Wuzzy!"
But this also links in Pirate's imagination with George Stevens' film of
GUNGA DIN, loosely based on the Kipling poem (again condescending to the native:
"You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din").  

The problem is that Pirate's fantasy doesn't connect with Hollywood happiness
("no Cary Grant larking in and out slipping elephant medicine in the punchbowls
out there"--which is indeed a scene from the film).

Once Pirate begins to be exploited by The Firm, he begins to discover how it
is to be used and what it is to be Other.  (Watch the transformation of Leni
Pokler for what I think may be a similar point.)


Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)