political correctness run amuck

Chris Knight's avatar

Of all things 1984-ish, this story about Nineteen Eighty-Four itself might be the most 1984 in the history of anything.

Image from the motion picture Nineteen Eighty-Four

Out of all the books that have ever been published, George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (I prefer to spell it out like that when referring to the book or movie instead of shortening it to its numerical equivalent) is the one screaming most against attaching an advisory before reading.  It doesn’t need anything so ridiculous.  Nineteen Eighty-Four speaks for itself, from the first sentence on through the final four words.
I wonder if people like Dolen Perkins-Valdez have ever bothered to try to understand what Orwell was conveying, what his underlying message was, when he first wrote his classic novel about totalitarianism and absolute control of the human spirit.  Perkins-Valdez is the one who has composed a new foreward to Nineteen Eighty-Four
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Chris Knight's avatar

I might have broken whole new ground in op-ed writing by using the word “Pufnstuf”.  But anyhoo, American Thinker this morning has published a new article by Yours Truly.  “And then they came for the Muppets…” delves into Disney’s slapping an “offensive material” disclaimer on several episodes of The Muppet Show.

A sample from the piece:

These declaimers are micro-sermons about the virtues of inclusion. They are meant to “foster dialogue.” But anyone who sits the children down for a heart-to-heart discussion about Muppet morality probably doesn’t get the point of the Muppets anyway. These disclaimers, along with all the others that Disney is slapping onto Lady and the Tramp and Peter Pan and other films, accomplish nothing of the sort. They are nuisances at best. By the end of the show the average child will have forgotten all about them.

That’s the second article in a row ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

If true… IF this is at all true… this represents the most insane turn of events that I have ever seen coming out of the Boy Scouts of America in my thirty-some years affiliated with the organization.

The honor of a Boy Scout, painting by Norman Rockwell

First, I wish to direct your attention to an article by Austin Ruse on the website for Catholic publication Crisis Magazine.  Titled “Something Rotten in the Boy Scouts”, Ruse raises a red flag about apparent manipulation of data at the Boy Scouts home office regarding the possible change of policy that would allow boys of homosexual orientation to have membership in the Boy Scouts.

Awright, let me be put it this way: the home office is ignoring the data from its own survey!  From the article:

There’s deception going on in the front office of the Boy Scouts. It includes

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Chris Knight's avatar

One of the front-page stories of today’s edition of the (Greensboro, North Carolina) News & Record is about DC Comics delaying publication of science-fiction writer Orson Scott Card’s story for the upcoming first issue of DC Comics’ Adventures of Superman anthology.  Chris Sprouse, the artist assigned to illustrate the story, is refusing to work on grounds that the “controversy” about Card’s publicly-stated beliefs that homosexuality is wrong.  Especially his opposition to “gay marriage” during the lead-up to last year’s amendment to North Carolina’s constitution affirming that legal marriage is between one man and one woman.

You won’t find it in the story posted on the News & Record‘s website, but the article’s synopsis in the print edition reads thusly: “An uproar over author Orson Scott Card’s homophobic views leads illustrator to withdraw.”

“Homophobic”  As in, literally, “Orson Scott Card is in fear of homosexuals”.  The implication being that ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

I’m just getting back home from a few days and this is what I find…

Harry Harrison passed away last week, Tony Scott died yesterday and now tonight word is that Phyllis Diller has left us.

Augusta National Golf Club has caved and is now admitting women as members.

And some congressman named Akin is all over my news feed about “legitimate rape” or somesuch, whatever that is.

Last night Kristen and I saw The Expendables 2. ‘Twas the most dumbest fun/funnest dumb gloriously loud hella awesome action movie I’ve seen since the first movie two years ago. And it still makes more sense than too much of real life that I’m looking at this late hour.

(Incidentally, this movie has the highest testosterone level I’ve ever seen in a film… and that’s even before Chuck Norris arrives to show up everyone 🙂

Seriously though: Harrison was a master ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Alan Horn, head of the movie studio at Warner Brothers, demanded that the smoking be cut out of the film adaptation of Watchmen to such an extent that Laurie won’t be enjoying that weird but neat-looking pipe of hers. According to director Zack Snyder, it was either remove the smoking or “the movie wouldn’t have been made, literally.” Although the Comedian will still be puffing his cigars because he was deemed “evil” enough.

So let me get this straight: Watchmen is a story that includes a hero who is racist and anti-black (Captain Metropolis), another who speaks favorably of Hitler (Hooded Justice), features a brutal rape scene, shows a little girl murdered then cut to pieces and fed to dogs, has a main character who is struggling with sexual dysfunction, and maybe a dozen other very bad images and concepts…

…and yet showing a grown woman smoking is supposed to ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

The very first episodes of Sesame Street are out on DVD. But they carry a warning label: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.” And this is not intended to be a joke either, according to this New York Times article. Seems that a lot of things have changed since Sesame Street‘s first broadcast 38 years ago this month. Among the items listed as unacceptable for today’s children: Cookie Monster smoking a pipe during “Monsterpiece Theater”, Oscar the Grouch is now seen as having untreated depression, and how there are too many “rural — agrarian, even — sequences” in the early episodes.

I have a question: how many of the “child experts”, who sit around all day finding stuff like this to nit-pick about, actually have children?...

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