EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION: The popular culture fun killers remain in force, but their influence is waning
You have to hand it to progressives — they never give up.
I’m guessing many of you were rolling your eyes and snickering in disgust at SUNY Professor Mtume Gant’s attempt at convincing viewers that 1987’s Thanksgiving-themed “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” has a “’dangerous’ pro-capitalist message.”
I’ve seen the Steve Martin/John Candy classic innumerable times and it never, ever occurred to me that the former’s character “uses family as an excuse” for his and “other capitalist bourgeois’s poor treatment of the working class.” I guess I’m just not that … “deep.”
More recently, U. North Texas Literary Professor Nora Gilbert and Carleton University’s James Deaville er, dissected the Christmas staple “It’s a Wonderful Life” — the former claiming she “can’t help but see parallels” between the dystopian Pottersville and Donald Trump’s America,” and the latter alleging it contains clandestine racist and “bigoted” messages.
How special.
And don’t forget the UC at San Francisco professor who said she wants to see TV shows depicting Christians supportive of abortion. Or the University of Portsmouth adding a “trigger warning” to the James Bond novel “Dr. No.” Or the Colby College professor who’s cheesed at the lack of climate change messages in movies.
This same dopeyness has infected popular franchises such as “Star Trek,” Marvel Entertainment, (see also here, here, and here), “Star Wars,” DC Comics, and more.
Believe me, I know it’s tough for long-time fans of these properties to get excited about new entries to the canon … because we’ve been (severely) disappointed by either the all-too common over-injection of social justice nonsense and the God-awful abilities of the writers to weave a good story.
People across the political spectrum rightly chide seventy-year-old-plus efforts like the Hays Code, the Television Code, and the Comics Code Authority (who wants government censorship pressure?), but today these codes simply have been replaced by their ideological mirrors.
If Professor Gilbert has Amazon Prime, she’ll probably be relieved to read the recent story about the streaming service’s deletion of “It’s a Wonderful Life’s” Pottersville sequence (even though it’s kind of integral to the plot).
And TV classics have been subjected to politically correct “editing” for many years now. While some instances certainly are understandable (like use of the hard n-word in “Sanford and Son” and elsewhere) some outlets (like Amazon) delete key plot moments, usually in the name of “sensitivity.” Take the “M*A*S*H” episode edited by MeTV where Hawkeye and Trapper teach a racist soldier a lesson by bringing in the lunch he “requested”: fried chicken and watermelon.
Instances of “blackface,” too, are virtually impossible to find these days. The 50-year celebration of “Saturday Night Live,” a show supposedly on the “edge,” even pixelated past segments showing such. Oddly enough, MeTV’s airing of The Three Stooges’ “Uncivil War Birds,” at least so far, hasn’t cut its blackface moment … but TBS cut the episode where Larry drops to one knee and says “Mammy!” after Moe is hit in the face with a bottle of black ink:
Don’t get frustrated by this nonsense if you’re a normal, non-humor-impaired individual. Just do your little bit, such as:
— continuing to make fun of idiocies like those noted above. Whatever you do, ‘tho, don’t call for the government to “do something” unless it involves long-honored laws/traditions like keeping inappropriate material out of the hands of minors.
— collecting original, non-PC-edited items. You may have to search a bit, but they’re out there. When you find ’em, buy from a private dealer wherever possible.
— not giving your cash to creators and actors who routinely spit in your face, so to speak. If you still find enjoyable some of these folks’ past work(s), see above.
— not giving up! The Left pushed the pendulum too far the other way and signs indicate it’s now moving back. Late night hosts Colbert, Kimmel, et. al. are on life support. Post-COVID Hollywood box office receipts have been awful (and they didn’t have to be during the “pandemic” — thanks progressives). Traditional networks like Great American Family are gaining in popularity.
Even the King of Woke, Disney, may be waking up. So keep the chins up.
MORE: Student entertainment chief forced into diversity training for producing ‘insensitive’ songs
