I remember the Stones getting into a lot of trouble for been caught having a pee by the roadside , the British press were very snotty about such behaviour in those days .
(santa4)
Nowadays, you can't have a Hollywood movie without a man peeing in it somewhere! But you're right, those were stricter days.
Still, I assume the Rolling Stones were having a real-life pee, whereas George is playing a character in a silly Bond-spoof movie. George was not a shoplifter in real life, and he was noted for his generosity to charitable causes-- starting in a big way with the concert for Bangladesh. In the moptop era, his generosity was not well known except among his friends-- I think it's Mal who wrote how George was always giving money away to his friends. I think it amused George to play a shoplifter-- a flight of fancy for him. It wasn't meant to be taken seriously. I give the fans credit, too. I don't think there was a huge shoplifting spree following "Help!" of fans trying to imitate George by ripping off jewelers. I think those that got the joke chuckled and moved on.
It reminds me of that Australian Supreme Court judge who ruled that an internet cartoon in which lookalike child characters from The Simpsons engage in sexual acts is child pornography-- that cartoons are actual people. As someone pointed out, cartoons are rife with murder and atrocities of every kind-- but they are
cartoons. They aren't really smashing people flat with steamrollers. A lot of our comedy comes from taking terrible things and making fun of them - "A Fish Called Wanda", anyone? People understand that it's comedy. It's escapism, fantasy. I think a person would have to be disturbed to think otherwise. (Yes, we have disturbed people, but they are already that way. The rest of us who enjoy absurd humor should not have to alter our way of life because somebody somewhere who is already unstable might take it the wrong way.)
