Why would the BBC do this?

mmj_uk

mmj_uk

mmj_uk

Caporegime
Joined
26 Dec 2003
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I noticed tonight that "American High School: Straight Outta Orangeburg" which I watched a couple of years ago is being rerun on the BBC, only they've renamed it "Segregated America: A School in the South".

If you've not watched it I can recommend it, the series is about students at a majority black highschool in a poor area of the US but it baffles me why they would rebrand it to something so divisive in the current climate. The BBC would be the first to attack Trump for 'divisive' comments and yet all this renaming really achieves is creating division.
 
Haven't looked it up but potentially the name change was for legal reasons some of the combinations in the original title are used by established franchises, etc. who might have moaned.
 
StriderX said:
Or indeed because the BBC editors love making their mark, so will rewrite things to do so.
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Quite unlikely, things like renaming a series tends to require the permission of the rights holders who will likely want a good reason for it (as it requires all their promotional stuff to be amended at the very least).

As Rroff says it was likely done either because it was deemed too similar to something else, or even because it's the title the rights holders originally wanted but had been over ruled in when it was originally aired in America.

It's not unusual for films/tv/books to have multiple names depending on when they were released, where they were released or even just because at some point the makers decided to change the branding to fit in with another related but more well known/successful series they've done (something that drives me nuts with books at times, although at least with the internet I can find out easily, unlike back in the day)..
 
mmj_uk said:
I noticed tonight that "American High School: Straight Outta Orangeburg" which I watched a couple of years ago is being rerun on the BBC, only they've renamed it "Segregated America: A School in the South".

If you've not watched it I can recommend it, the series is about students at a majority black highschool in a poor area of the US but it baffles me why they would rebrand it to something so divisive in the current climate. The BBC would be the first to attack Trump for 'divisive' comments and yet all this renaming really achieves is creating division.
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tv shows and movies are renamed all the time for different markets, even blockbusters like the first Avengers movie and Die Hard 4. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...er-countries-movies-translation-a7929166.html
 
Rroff said:
Haven't looked it up but potentially the name change was for legal reasons some of the combinations in the original title are used by established franchises, etc. who might have moaned.
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Most likely yes, Marvel's The Avengers was renamed to Avengers Assemble in the UK because of the Avengers TV series in the 70s and the movie remake in 1998.
 
cheesyboy said:
Makes it seem more relevant: the Straight Outta Compton reference was hot at the time of the first run. Now, not so much.
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I'm going with this. I wouldn't watch the first name, but the latest one sounds relevant to what's going on today and would be something I'd watch and will now probably end up watching it.

The latest name could also allow it to be one of a series of programmes. They can now make segregated America: guns in schools etc
 
Divide and rule (or divide and conquer, from Latin dīvide et imperā) in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. The concept refers to a strategy that breaks up existing power structures, and especially prevents smaller power groups from linking up, causing rivalries and fomenting discord among the people.

It was heavily used by British Empire in India and elsewhere.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule
 
Email them and ask, I bet they reply.

I emailed ITV once as they cut chunks of dialogue out of Die Hard when shown on ITV1. They replied within 24hrs...."To fit with scheduling"
 
mmj_uk said:
Why would the BBC do this?.
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To annoy you. All the top BBC staff got up one morning, had a conference call, and asked 'How can we **** off mmj_uk today? What would really grind his gears?' And then they did this.

So now you know.
 
They have a documentary on the KKK on tonight, yeah the BBC definitely aren't trying to stoke racial tensions or anything....
 
mmj_uk said:
They have a documentary on the KKK on tonight, yeah the BBC definitely aren't trying to stoke racial tensions or anything....
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How would a documentary about the KKK stoke racial tensions? We've never had anything like the KKK in Britain.

[FnG]magnolia said:
I agree, they're not and have no need to. POTUS is doing a damn fine job without needing anyone else's help. Good people on both sides, you know.
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There was definitely good and bad people on both sides of those Charlotteville protests. On one side you had a lot of traditional Conservatives there to legitimately protest the taking down of a statue, there was also a minority there who were basically racist and who were happy for the situation to turn violent. On the other side you had people who legitimately believed the taking down of the statue was the right thing to do because they viewed it as a symbol of a racist past, and then you had groups like Antifa who ironically are basically Facists - they've decided everyone opposed to them are Nazi's which means they can do whatever they want to them ("punch a Nazi").
 
Roar87 said:
How would a documentary about the KKK stoke racial tensions? We've never had anything like the KKK in Britain.



There was definitely good and bad people on both sides of those Charlotteville protests. On one side you had a lot of traditional Conservatives there to legitimately protest the taking down of a statue, there was also a minority there who were basically racist and who were happy for the situation to turn violent. On the other side you had people who legitimately believed the taking down of the statue was the right thing to do because they viewed it as a symbol of a racist past, and then you had groups like Antifa who ironically are basically Facists - they've decided everyone opposed to them are Nazi's which means they can do whatever they want to them ("punch a Nazi").
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they literally wore swastikas and waved confederate flags at the same time even without the attacks with weapons and the murder by running down. They were not good people at all, on any level.
 
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