Google wants film censorship to whitewash medieval Frankish monarchy

This video says about itself:

REDBAD Official Trailer (2018) Jonathan Banks Adventure Movie HD

During the year 754 A.D. the monk Bonifatius was killed in a Dutch town called Dokkum [in today’s Friesland province], according to history this was done by barbaric warriors. But was he indeed murdered in cold blood, or is that just the Christian take on the story?

Release Date: 2018
Genre: Adventure
Director: Roel Reiné
Writer: Alex van Galen
Stars: Jonathan Banks, Søren Malling, Renée Soutendijk

The film is about 8th century conflicts between the (polytheist) Frisian kingdom and the (Christian) kingdom of the Franks. The Frankish rulers used Christianity as a tool in their attempts to violently subject Frisians and other tribes.

The Frisian King Redbad is the hero of the film. According to tradition, Redbad was nearly baptised, but refused when he was told that he would not be able to find any of his ancestors in Heaven after his death, since he preferred spending eternity in Hell with his pagan ancestors than in Heaven with his enemies, especially the Franks. Reminiscent of a native Cuban in the 16th century. Captured by the Spanish invaders for opposing them, and about to be burnt alive at the stake. A priest asks the Indian to convert to Christianity; so, that after his horrible death he may go to heaven. “Do the Spanish soldiers go to heaven?” the Indian asks. “Yes, being Christians”. “Then, I do not want to go to heaven”.

As the trailer video says, now the film Redbad will soon be in the cinemas.

Unexpectedly, there was an attempt by Google corporation (its AdWords branch) to censor that trailer and that film. It is not that unexpected that Google corporation which censors critical sites, will do censorship: eg, their YouTube affiliate has censored German anti-nazis. The unexpected thing is that they now do not censor to save the ‘honour’ of United States President Trump, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, President Macron of France, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch or some other twenty-first century powerful person. The censorship attempt is to save the ‘honour’ of kingdom of the Franks autocrats who died 1300 years ago.

Google says they objected to the supposedly ‘offensive’ depiction in the trailer and the film of a Frisian princess being tortured by the Frankish rulers to force her to convert to Christianity. The censorship is in the name of defending Christianity. I doubt very much whether all twenty-first century Christians agree with early medieval Frankish autocrats abusing religion as a tool in their wars and oppression of Frisians and others.

Questions in the European parliament on this: here.

The producer of the film, Klaas de Jong, says about this (translated):

I really fell off my seat: it is bizarre that US Americans now want to determine what should be offensive to Dutch people.

Google corporation reminds me of the military dictatorship in Thailand. Which persecutes people for supposedly insulting a king. Not even the present king of Thailand (or the royal dog), but a king who died four centuries ago.