So I posted the following on my Twitter account...
ALRtweets: 1 of the kids N Bad News Bears is calld Lupus...inappropriate? funny? offensive? a combination? wht do U think...I am curious
I found the answers interesting. Here is a sampling of responses from Twitter and Facebook...
-That is so not funny or appropriate. If they had lupus, they would not joke about it.
-its combo of both but I'm not surprised because comedies satirically poke at every1 and everything...
-I say that ANYTHING that brings awareness to Lupus- GO FOR IT! lol There's not enough out there, despite us all trying hard to get it to be! I don't think there's anything wrong with something good coming of something bad
Not having lupus, I feel like it is hard for me to say what I may or may not find offensive. The conversation however is a good one.
The kid's surname is "Lupus" rather than there being any reference to lupus, the disease... it's a fairly common last name in England, where it is derived from the Latin, which means (as we all know from our experience with lupus) "wolf." Also, note that the original version of the movie was made in the mid-70's when there was very little known in the lay public about lupus. The remake was done a few years ago, but since it was a remake, it stands to reason that they wouldn't have changed the name of a key character.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, we need to be careful - as a society - not to be offended by such coincidences... they don't actually make fun of the kid because he has lupus... and there's no obvious relationship between his name and the characteristics/symptoms of lupus, so it seems not to have meant to be in any way related.