The Avatar "controversy"...?

[Moonshroom]

So... this is interesting.

When the show "Avatar: The Last Airbender" premiered in South America, it did so as "Avatar: The Legend Of Aang"... apparently because "bender" is a slur in English-speaking counties (chiefly the UK) and they requested it changed, which, in turn, led to the change carrying over to all subsequent dubs and localizations.

I found that quite interesting, honestly... I had always wondered what had prompted the change.

Thoughts?

[JHG]

Yeah…probably something in British English. Works out anyway because The Legend of Aang works fine.

[Jarkko]

I looked it up and apparently it is used as a homophobic slur in the UK. If so, I bet they don't show "Futurama" over there because one of the characters is named "Bender." Here in Canada it's simply something or someone that bends things, or a night of excessive drinking, a usage I've heard since my high school days a quarter of a century ago.

Funnily enough, "Bender" is also the name of one of the largest cities in Moldova (provided you don't support Transistrian independence ).

[Moonshroom]

I looked it up and apparently it is used as a homophobic slur in the UK. If so, I bet they don't show "Futurama" over there because one of the characters is named "Bender." Here in Canada it's simply something or someone that bends things, or a night of excessive drinking, a usage I've heard since my high school days a quarter of a century ago.

Funnily enough, "Bender" is also the name of one of the largest cities in Moldova (provided you don't support Transistrian independence ).

Yeah, mate... I was also wondering about that.

Bender is a huge character in Futurama. No way they can censor him.

[Bryn]

So, the name of the series caused an uproar there, just because of its name? 😐

Probably not the first for this to happen...

[Kyng]

I looked it up and apparently it is used as a homophobic slur in the UK. If so, I bet they don't show "Futurama" over there because one of the characters is named "Bender." Here in Canada it's simply something or someone that bends things, or a night of excessive drinking, a usage I've heard since my high school days a quarter of a century ago.

Funnily enough, "Bender" is also the name of one of the largest cities in Moldova (provided you don't support Transistrian independence ).

Yeah, the idea is that it's the opposite of being 'straight'. But fortunately, it's not something I've heard for years. Indeed, when I first heard of "Avatar: The Last Airbender", I thought nothing of it: the homophobic connotations of 'bender' never even crossed my mind.

I can see why this might have been more controversial when the show first aired (when that slur was more common) - but, if a show was released with that title today, I imagine it'd be pretty uncontroversial TBH.

[Moonshroom]

I forgot to mention that, in South America, we got the aforementioned title change, but the actual letters on screen didn't change, so it still read as "Last Airbender". Amusingly, sometimes the dubbing crew dubbed it as "El Último Maestro Aire", which is the literal translation of the original title.