Jokes involving racial stereotypes can be funny and inoffensive if what you're making fun of IS the stereotypes, not the race. The writers of Airplane! being Jewish themselves, I reckon they knew exactly what they were doing. At least the bearded plane is clearly an example of making fun of the stereotype, not the people.
As a German, this is one of the few movies where the dubbed version is just as good as the original, in parts even better.
Especially the part where they're speaking Jive, which is "translated" into a thick Bavarian dialect, including subtitles saying something completely different:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEkI0cH_rK4And for some reason, they translated the movie's title to "Die unglaubliche Reise in einem verrückten Flugzeug" (The Incredible Journey on a Crazy Airplane).
God I love this movie. True irreverent humor that I don't want to know if people contained about. Nude breasts that perfectly fit the MPAA PG nudity guidelines of "brief and non-sexual". So many quotable one-liners. The sight gags were on point and perfectly timed. I WISH movies like this could be made. Scary Movie, Not Another Teen Movie, and all the other parody movies are great, but do not hold a candle to the Airplane! movies.
It's fine, you can still sell it in China, so no big deal.
This movie is straight Gold.
People have gotten less sensitive over time, we just don't laugh at someone saying the n word or making light of sexual assault any more. I grew up on the dark web and the things people say/do nowadays blows even some of the worst stuff I seen there out of the water. Society is maturing, not regressing. Ignore the whingings of hack comedians who still think squinty Asian eyes and bad accents are the pinnacle of humor.
Airplane 2:
A native speaker can correct me, but I believe "Hjelp, vi flyr!" is "Help, we're flying!"
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjelp,_vi_flyr!
Google translate seems to screw up with the missing comma as on the IMDB list, but if you add it it translates properly.
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjelp,_vi_flyr! https://translate.google.com/?sl=no&tl=en&text=Hjelp%2C vi flyr&op=translate
Compare with the missing comma. https://translate.google.com/?sl=no&tl=en&text=Hjelp vi flyr&op=translate
That'd be maybe, "Hjelp oss å fly!"
Seems supported here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TranslationMatchmaking
In Norwegian, a whole ton of completely unrelated movies start with the words "Hjelp, vi" ("Help, we"), followed by whatever the main characters in the movie are doing. Airplane - "Help, We're Flying" ...Freedom of expression.
