This is getting fucking ridiculous!
We are living in a society where_in the quest to be as sensitive as possible_we are turning into a bunch of fucking pussies.
All we feel and know, all we learn and like, is barred from the world until we tack letters to it. Words are a means to communication, and communication is a means to civilization. Therefore, there is nothing greater for society than the richness of words_and nothing worse than their destruction.
This is because a language is only as effective as the range and clarity of its words. These words have to describe everything before us, everything worth noting as real, but they must do so with accuracy, not ambiguity. "Cat" is a good term, but "Minx" and "Siamese" are better. The more specific our words, the more we can understand our world, our friends and ourselves.
But there is a great disturbance in the Force!
It goes by the name "political correctness." It is out to destroy our words, to maim in the name of ignorance. In the book, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, Diane Ravitch has conducted a study of how tight-assed, humorless guardians on the left and the right have successfully stripped American textbooks of words and images that anyone_anyone at all_might possibly on a bad day consider offensive. The resulting texts are not only bland they're unrealistic and dishonest. Here are a few of the more absurd examples of banned words, ideas and images, as pointed out in the New York Times review:
Mickey Mouse and Stuart Little (because mice, along with rats, roaches, snakes and lice, are considered to be upsetting to children).
Stories or pictures showing a mother cooking dinner for her children, or a black family living in a city neighborhood (because such images are thought to purvey gender or racial stereotypes).
Dinosaurs (because they suggest the controversial subject of evolution). Tales set in jungles, forests, mountains or by the sea (because such settings are believed to display "a regional bias").
Narratives involving angry, loudmouthed characters, quarreling parents or disobedient children (because such emotions are not "uplifting").
Owls are out because some cultures associate them with death. Mentions of birthdays are to be avoided because some children do not have birthday parties. Images or descriptions of a mother showing shock or fear are to be replaced by depictions of both parents "expressing the same facial emotions.
And of course words like brotherhood, fraternity, heroine, snowman, swarthy, crazy, senile and polo are banned because they could be upsetting to women, to certain ethnic groups, to people with mental disabilities, old people or, it would seem, to people who do not play polo.
So you strip all these things away, what do you have? Characters without any real identifiable race or sex interacting in undefined locations, speaking in painfully controlled terms. Of course this is nothing new. A little more absurd and extreme, maybe, but textbooks have always been unrealistic and dishonest. A similar, but much more heinous and dangerous attempt to "protect" our young people got underway some 20 years ago.
I, along with millions of other well-balanced types, cite classic Warner Brothers cartoons as major, formative influences upon our development and general well being. Along with the books I read and all the movies I saw, that 90 minutes worth of mayhem, carnage, pill-popping, insults, explosions and what-have you every Saturday morning kept me sane and taught me much.
Then in the late 1980s, something started to change. Suddenly, Elmer Fudd no longer shot Daffy Duck. The Coyote never hit the ground after falling off the cliff. Neurotic and jittery Claude the cat no longer gobbled a bunch of pills when things got to be too much for him. Characters scattered throughout the collective works of Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng and Tex Avery no longer got blown up, were no longer hit in the head with I-beams, no longer got whacked with trees, no longer got drunk_or even acted drunk. Jesus Christ, in One Froggy Evening, the guy no longer offered "Free Beer" to get people into the theater!
It was insane, it was a travesty_not only were they (who? I don't know) fucking with great art_but the resulting "cartoons" no longer made any sense. There were no transitions, there were no payoffs, there were no jokes. I pity the kids who grow up on these monstrosities, just as I pity the kids who are subjected to these sanitized, detoxified textbooks. More than pity them, even, I fear them. And I sure as hell hope I'm fucking dead by the time they take over.
"It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought ... should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words."
_George Orwell, 1984.
Orwell understood that language is power. In "1984," the country of Oceania is ruled by a totalitarian government that controls history, media, and most of all, words. Kinda like current day America, which is sorta like the book. The new language, Newspeak, thrives on eliminating undesirable words and, consequently, undesirable thoughts. Orwell knew that by controlling language, the code used to express consciousness, one controls minds. On the subject of language control, he wrote, "The purpose is not only to provide a medium of expressio n for the 'proper' world-view and mental habits, but to make all other modes of thought impossible." With the death of words comes the death of thoughts.
Political correctness capitalizes on this truth by killing words deemed insensitive, racist, or just plain immoral. It "corrects" a language that could be used to express "dangerous" ideas. Instead of addressing the true problems_insensitivity, racism, and immorality_political correctness goes directly to the source: language. Vaporize bad words and you vaporize badness.
Political correctness does its evil by infecting plain, specific, useful words with vagueness and generality. "Shell shock" becomes "post-traumatic stress disorder." "Freshman" becomes "first-year." "Mankind" becomes "personkind." Words are mutilated. To take that example to it's next conclusion, "manhole" becomes "personhole." This is the victory of political correctness. We want our children to envision both men and women when they think of sewer covers. Lovely! Don't even get me started on spelling "woman" as "Womyn." I'll fucking flip out.
You can't even insult people anymore. Take the word "bitch" for example. If I call a girl a bitch_when she is being one_I am called a sexist because I am equating her with a dog. If I call one of my male friends a bitch_they are the more common recipient of that slur from me_I am sexist because I am implying they are female, and that there is something wrong with being a female! The use of linguistic and political restriction has gotten out of fucking hand. People no longer address issues and problems_they address the grey area in language, and insist that their interpretation (opinion) of the meaning of a word is both the only way to define it, and that every word one speaks is meaning-loaded.
But you can't fucking win!
Obviously, for a long time in this country, criminals on TV and in movies were_more often than not_black (excuse me, African-American). But I don't think even that changing that is politically correct, I think it's just a matter of fairness. Now for several years, Hollywood's preferred vision of a villain has leaned towards a white male, and, in cases of domestic abuse, preferably an affluent white male. Now, however, it seems a movie or TV villain can actually be too white!
Specifically, the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation is complaining about the characters of the Twins in The Matrix Reloaded_those being two identical killers sporting white hair and white skin. One dermatologist_whose site on skin conditions in film is linked to NOAH's site_claims that Hollywood treats albinos as "almost always vicious, inhuman characters, depicted as freaks."
THEY ARE FUCKING FREAKS! HAHA ... ok, but seriously. Too black. Too white. Pretty soon we just are not going to be allowed to depict and criminal behavior whatsoever. Now we can't have albino villains.
This complaint is an assault on both artistic freedom (and really cool imagery). The censors of NOAH simply have to accept that albino villains are a vital part of schlock filmmaking. In fact, albino villains have saved many lousy movies.
Dolph Lundgren's I Come In Peace would lose all entertainment value without Matthias Hues' pale alien presence. The only exciting moment in Contact was when crazed albino Jesus freak Jake Busey sabotaged a space mission. What about the 1976 blaxploitation classic Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde? Bernie Casey looked superbad once he became an albino whoremonger.
Albinos can look suave, as in The Matrix Reloaded. They can also look supremely creepy in films like End of Days and The Adventures of Pluto Nash. So why are those busybodies at NOAH trying to screw up Varnado's career? The guy is genuinely creepy looking. He's no Brad Pitt, the roles avalaiable to him are clearly limted. Would they prefer him starring in pedophile fantasies like Powder?
Can you imagine a TV show like Good Times on TV today? A show rife with racial inner-city stereotypes? Even if they actually exist in the real world? No. On the other hand, the Cosby Show used to catch shit from black people because it depicted an "unrealistic view" of black people. They were "too white." YOU CANNOT WIN!
"I like it that there are no black friends on Friends," writes Michael Moore in Stupid White Men. "Because, in real life, friends like that don't have black friends. It's an honest, believable show."
Amen fatass.
We are living in a society where_in the quest to be as sensitive as possible_we are turning into a bunch of fucking pussies.
All we feel and know, all we learn and like, is barred from the world until we tack letters to it. Words are a means to communication, and communication is a means to civilization. Therefore, there is nothing greater for society than the richness of words_and nothing worse than their destruction.
This is because a language is only as effective as the range and clarity of its words. These words have to describe everything before us, everything worth noting as real, but they must do so with accuracy, not ambiguity. "Cat" is a good term, but "Minx" and "Siamese" are better. The more specific our words, the more we can understand our world, our friends and ourselves.
But there is a great disturbance in the Force!
It goes by the name "political correctness." It is out to destroy our words, to maim in the name of ignorance. In the book, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, Diane Ravitch has conducted a study of how tight-assed, humorless guardians on the left and the right have successfully stripped American textbooks of words and images that anyone_anyone at all_might possibly on a bad day consider offensive. The resulting texts are not only bland they're unrealistic and dishonest. Here are a few of the more absurd examples of banned words, ideas and images, as pointed out in the New York Times review:
Mickey Mouse and Stuart Little (because mice, along with rats, roaches, snakes and lice, are considered to be upsetting to children).
Stories or pictures showing a mother cooking dinner for her children, or a black family living in a city neighborhood (because such images are thought to purvey gender or racial stereotypes).
Dinosaurs (because they suggest the controversial subject of evolution). Tales set in jungles, forests, mountains or by the sea (because such settings are believed to display "a regional bias").
Narratives involving angry, loudmouthed characters, quarreling parents or disobedient children (because such emotions are not "uplifting").
Owls are out because some cultures associate them with death. Mentions of birthdays are to be avoided because some children do not have birthday parties. Images or descriptions of a mother showing shock or fear are to be replaced by depictions of both parents "expressing the same facial emotions.
And of course words like brotherhood, fraternity, heroine, snowman, swarthy, crazy, senile and polo are banned because they could be upsetting to women, to certain ethnic groups, to people with mental disabilities, old people or, it would seem, to people who do not play polo.
So you strip all these things away, what do you have? Characters without any real identifiable race or sex interacting in undefined locations, speaking in painfully controlled terms. Of course this is nothing new. A little more absurd and extreme, maybe, but textbooks have always been unrealistic and dishonest. A similar, but much more heinous and dangerous attempt to "protect" our young people got underway some 20 years ago.
I, along with millions of other well-balanced types, cite classic Warner Brothers cartoons as major, formative influences upon our development and general well being. Along with the books I read and all the movies I saw, that 90 minutes worth of mayhem, carnage, pill-popping, insults, explosions and what-have you every Saturday morning kept me sane and taught me much.
Then in the late 1980s, something started to change. Suddenly, Elmer Fudd no longer shot Daffy Duck. The Coyote never hit the ground after falling off the cliff. Neurotic and jittery Claude the cat no longer gobbled a bunch of pills when things got to be too much for him. Characters scattered throughout the collective works of Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng and Tex Avery no longer got blown up, were no longer hit in the head with I-beams, no longer got whacked with trees, no longer got drunk_or even acted drunk. Jesus Christ, in One Froggy Evening, the guy no longer offered "Free Beer" to get people into the theater!
It was insane, it was a travesty_not only were they (who? I don't know) fucking with great art_but the resulting "cartoons" no longer made any sense. There were no transitions, there were no payoffs, there were no jokes. I pity the kids who grow up on these monstrosities, just as I pity the kids who are subjected to these sanitized, detoxified textbooks. More than pity them, even, I fear them. And I sure as hell hope I'm fucking dead by the time they take over.
"It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought ... should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words."
_George Orwell, 1984.
Orwell understood that language is power. In "1984," the country of Oceania is ruled by a totalitarian government that controls history, media, and most of all, words. Kinda like current day America, which is sorta like the book. The new language, Newspeak, thrives on eliminating undesirable words and, consequently, undesirable thoughts. Orwell knew that by controlling language, the code used to express consciousness, one controls minds. On the subject of language control, he wrote, "The purpose is not only to provide a medium of expressio n for the 'proper' world-view and mental habits, but to make all other modes of thought impossible." With the death of words comes the death of thoughts.
Political correctness capitalizes on this truth by killing words deemed insensitive, racist, or just plain immoral. It "corrects" a language that could be used to express "dangerous" ideas. Instead of addressing the true problems_insensitivity, racism, and immorality_political correctness goes directly to the source: language. Vaporize bad words and you vaporize badness.
Political correctness does its evil by infecting plain, specific, useful words with vagueness and generality. "Shell shock" becomes "post-traumatic stress disorder." "Freshman" becomes "first-year." "Mankind" becomes "personkind." Words are mutilated. To take that example to it's next conclusion, "manhole" becomes "personhole." This is the victory of political correctness. We want our children to envision both men and women when they think of sewer covers. Lovely! Don't even get me started on spelling "woman" as "Womyn." I'll fucking flip out.
You can't even insult people anymore. Take the word "bitch" for example. If I call a girl a bitch_when she is being one_I am called a sexist because I am equating her with a dog. If I call one of my male friends a bitch_they are the more common recipient of that slur from me_I am sexist because I am implying they are female, and that there is something wrong with being a female! The use of linguistic and political restriction has gotten out of fucking hand. People no longer address issues and problems_they address the grey area in language, and insist that their interpretation (opinion) of the meaning of a word is both the only way to define it, and that every word one speaks is meaning-loaded.
But you can't fucking win!
Obviously, for a long time in this country, criminals on TV and in movies were_more often than not_black (excuse me, African-American). But I don't think even that changing that is politically correct, I think it's just a matter of fairness. Now for several years, Hollywood's preferred vision of a villain has leaned towards a white male, and, in cases of domestic abuse, preferably an affluent white male. Now, however, it seems a movie or TV villain can actually be too white!
Specifically, the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation is complaining about the characters of the Twins in The Matrix Reloaded_those being two identical killers sporting white hair and white skin. One dermatologist_whose site on skin conditions in film is linked to NOAH's site_claims that Hollywood treats albinos as "almost always vicious, inhuman characters, depicted as freaks."
THEY ARE FUCKING FREAKS! HAHA ... ok, but seriously. Too black. Too white. Pretty soon we just are not going to be allowed to depict and criminal behavior whatsoever. Now we can't have albino villains.
This complaint is an assault on both artistic freedom (and really cool imagery). The censors of NOAH simply have to accept that albino villains are a vital part of schlock filmmaking. In fact, albino villains have saved many lousy movies.
Dolph Lundgren's I Come In Peace would lose all entertainment value without Matthias Hues' pale alien presence. The only exciting moment in Contact was when crazed albino Jesus freak Jake Busey sabotaged a space mission. What about the 1976 blaxploitation classic Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde? Bernie Casey looked superbad once he became an albino whoremonger.
Albinos can look suave, as in The Matrix Reloaded. They can also look supremely creepy in films like End of Days and The Adventures of Pluto Nash. So why are those busybodies at NOAH trying to screw up Varnado's career? The guy is genuinely creepy looking. He's no Brad Pitt, the roles avalaiable to him are clearly limted. Would they prefer him starring in pedophile fantasies like Powder?
Can you imagine a TV show like Good Times on TV today? A show rife with racial inner-city stereotypes? Even if they actually exist in the real world? No. On the other hand, the Cosby Show used to catch shit from black people because it depicted an "unrealistic view" of black people. They were "too white." YOU CANNOT WIN!
"I like it that there are no black friends on Friends," writes Michael Moore in Stupid White Men. "Because, in real life, friends like that don't have black friends. It's an honest, believable show."
Amen fatass.