Uschi Glas is irritated by the debate over Western classics and the word “Indian”. The 79-year-old told the German Press Agency: “I think this is absolutely ridiculous.” The popular actress played the “half-blood Apanatschi” in the “Winnetou” films of the 1960s.
“The hook is really Karl May and that these films are supposed to be racist,” Glas said of the debate. “And I have to speak firmly against this: Karl May always defended – this was his life and also his dream – that he wanted to connect people. In other words: Winnetou and Old Shatterhand, they were blood brothers. They were both good guys.” She doesn’t understand what’s racist about that.
Glas said he still couldn’t understand the confusion surrounding the use of the word “Indians.” It was “somehow pulled out of nowhere, out of a bag, that now people say, ‘Oh, we’re not going to do that anymore and that’s not politically correct. And then we have something new that we’ve banned. And you can keep working to ban it. further.'”
The crowd favorite continued: “And if that’s the case now: what should we call this group of people who have always been called that? There is nothing offensive in the word Indian, someone has to enlighten me.
Uschi Glas does not believe in new translations of children’s books with political motivation, made by the British Roald Dahl, for example. “As far as I’m concerned, you can always say, ‘That’s how it was back then, today we’ve moved away from that, we don’t say things like that anymore.’ But you can’t rewrite all the literature now.”
Logically speaking, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” should no longer be performed. “Because the two of them probably had something together before the wedding. Yes, for God’s sake, then of course it can’t be mentioned anymore.” The actress emphasized that she “can’t believe the new things that are continually coming out, what we can no longer say and what is now really not correct.”
A year ago there was a debate about racism over the “Winnetou” films. At that time, Ravensburger Verlag stopped delivering the children’s book “The Young Chief Winnetou”. In a post on Instagram, the company justified this with comments from users who showed “that we hurt the feelings of others with Winnetou titles”.