Once more bowing to pressure from the powerful leprosy lobby, Aardman Animations has been forced to change a scene in its newest stop-motion animated adventure The Pirates! Band Of Misfits, after receiving complaints from groups like Lepra Health In Action and the International Federation of Anti-Leprosy Associations. The scene, which holds a prominent place in the trailer, shows the pirate captain (voiced by Hugh Grant) storming a ship and demanding gold, only to be informed that it’s a leper boat—followed immediately by a crew member’s arm falling off. It’s a quick, pointedly exaggerated gag that lasts barely more than a few seconds, but leprosy advocates believe it could increase worldwide discrimination against sufferers of the disease, as Pirates audiences would then begin to associate the word “leper” with a negative connotation.
Convinced, Aardman Animations agreed to change the scene and instead “honor the efforts made by organizations like ILEP to educate the public about this disease”—perhaps by having the pirate captain storm a ship and demand gold, only to be informed that he’s on a leper boat, followed immediately by one of the crew members negating the many myths about the disease and explaining how they continue to be productive members of society. Anyway, this interference comes as something of a surprise, considering most lepers tend to be very hands-off. *
*A satirical example of the sort of leper joke an uninformed person would make, because they are so woefully uninformed, and certainly not an actual joke that would be, say, cause for filing a complaint.