On “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” Why Romanticize Thieves and Murderers?

jack-en-piratas-del-caribeOn this the official “Talk Like A Pirate Day,” all I can say is, “No, thank you. I would rather not.”  The problem is that there are still real pirates plying their trade around the globe, abusing and and too often killing merchant seamen.  So, pretending to speak in some stilted form of 17th century nautical English, by way of Hollywood and Disney, while pretending to be a faux-pirate, seems in bad taste, at best.  The larger question is, why romanticize pirates in the first place?  In the real world, pirates, whether of the so-called “Golden Age of Piracy,” or of today, were and are nautical thieves and, more often than not, murderers as well.

There is a vast disconnect between the actual pirates and the perception of pirates in current culture as delivered to us from Hollywood, popular books and video gaming. Pirates are presented as either slightly comical figures, rascals, perhaps, but not really dangerous, or as heroic underdogs, fighting against oppression. All well suited to comic books or romantic fiction, but having little to do with history.

The indoctrination begins very early on. Search for “children’s books” and “pirates” on Amazon and you’ll get 4,454 results. The first books on the list include Pirate Boy by Eve Bunting, The Pirates Next Door by Jonny Duddle, The Six Pirates: A Rollicking & Rhyming Picture Book. (Fun Rhyming Children’s Books) by Lily Lexington, Do Pirates Take Baths? by Kathy Tucker, The Pirate Who Couldn’t Say Arrr! by M.S. CCC-SLP Angie Neal, and How to be a Pirate (Little Golden Book) by Sue Fliess.

If being instructed on how to be a pirate by a Golden Book is not enough, there is also Pirate Potty by Samantha Berger, to teach pirates aged 2-4 years old about potty training.

For adults the story-line doesn’t change much.  Pirates are rascally rogues perhaps, but they signify freedom and independence from authority. They go their own way and live as they choose.  And on and on ad nauseam.  Cut to Errol Flynn and Johnny Depp.  And let’s ignore the unpleasantness like theft, torture and murder.

Even during the so-called “Golden Age of Piracy,” whatever freedom and independence the pirates may have experienced was short-lived.  For that matter, so were the pirates. Few pirate captains had careers of more than a few years before being killed in battle or hung from a gibbet.

Even Bartholomew Roberts, considered to be one of the most successful pirates of the era, survived for less than three years before being trapped by a Royal Navy cruiser and having his throat torn open by grapeshot. Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was a pirate captain for only about two years before his severed head ended up tied beneath the bowsprit of a Royal Navy sloop.  Calico Jack Rackham also lasted about two years.  Black Sam Bellamy was dead within about a year. “Ned” Low, known as a sadistic torturer, had a run of almost three years.  The image of pirates as free spirited swashbucklers just doesn’t jibe with their history as fugitives who invariably were caught and killed, fairly swiftly.

The problem is that pirates have been infantilized.  Pirates have been repackaged as cute and cuddly. Their images bear as much relation to real pirates as teddy bears are to grizzlies.

Or maybe the larger problem is that we have been infantilized.  Rather than looking at history, we buy into movie marketing. We take the faux-pirate lore at face value. Too many folks go to “pirate festivals” and come away actually knowing less about nautical history than when they started.

So, no, I will not talk like a pirate. And by the way, why should you?

Comments

On “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” Why Romanticize Thieves and Murderers? — 12 Comments

  1. Belay that snivel, cully. ’tis mere west country talk and that used by men before t’ mast. Let them have their fun.Smugglin”s not unknown in t’ west country.

  2. It appears that the enthusiasts for Disney-style piracy have effectively hijacked the modern conception of a few thousand years of nautical history with bad imitations of Captain Jack Sparrow. To that I will say Arrrrgh.

  3. Neil, I didn’t mean to suggest that you were imitating Jack Sparrow. Only that the pirate fans on the East Coast seem to have erupted into countless bad Sparrow clones.

  4. Pirates are the hero’s of the underclass, the characters born through the romance. Of the sea and exotic places.

    I live in Australia, settled by The English in the late 1700s, a collection of rag tags of all different classes. The majority were basically convicted criminal class and perhaps termed “white slaves”. Many of the people who lived in our early settlements had suffered great hardships in survival.

    The last criminals convicted and hung for piracy on the seas in British history were pirates, formally escaped convicts from Van Diemens Land (Tasmania). The capture of the Brig Cyprus in 1829 by convicts and their voyage to China was the greatest embarisment to the Empire. Songs, poems and a stage play were produced by London’s lower classes.

    This pirate stories and many others of hero’s, mateship and teamwork have a theme of romance and adventure that excite people today. As they have done for hundreds of years

    Hollywood has crafted and redeveloped the piratical theme and simply brought it into our time.

    Yes, the stories have occasional violence and bloodshed, but unlike the realistic media entertainment created today, the concept of the hero pirate gives us something that modern media seems to lack. Imagination

  5. You are buying into the fantasy and not the history. There is along tradition of making outlaws and murderers into folk heroes. Nevertheless, they were still outlaws and murderers. Romanticize them all you like, that never changes. In history, and to this day, the overwhelming majority of pirate victims were average sailors. Pirates never struck blows for freedom against they ruling classes. They most murdered working class men trying to make a living. To claim that there was “occasional violence and bloodshed” is funny. Pirates, by definition, are professional thieves. Violence is how they do business.

  6. You are right, of course, Rick. I would like to point out however that “prizes” didn’t always drop their flags and the “privateers” were just licensed pirates that sometimes fought to take a prize.

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