Cancel Culture’s Newest Victims
Cultural power is shifting, decentralizing—one might say diversifying. And it is actual, meaningful diversity—that is, diversity of thought rather than diversity of appearance.
By Dan Gelernter
March 9, 2021
Ebay will no longer list certain Dr. Seuss books, and the Dr. Seuss Foundation has decided to “recall†six titles. The reporting on the subject, even in the Wall Street Journal, was too cowardly to tell us exactly what in these six books was offensive, but we are given to understand that they contained anti-wokeness.
Following hard on the heels of this courageous cancellation, Turner Classic Movies has decided to “reexamine†18 “troubling and problematic†films of the past, including “My Fair Lady,†“Gone with the Wind,†“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,†and “Psycho,†all of which are now considered deeply sexist or racist or both. (This despite the fact that “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,†for example, is explicitly and aggressively antiracist.)
That TCM’s list contains just 18 movies shows how little the woke brigade knows about movies. I grew up watching classic films almost exclusively, and can think off the top of my head of more than 200 movies that the modern Left would find offensive for one reason or another: Women in traditional roles (sometimes even happy about it), other cultures being mocked (and mocking us back), blackface routines (like Fred Astaire’s extraordinary homage to the African American dancer Bill Robinson), and more besides.
It’s hard to think of a single film from more than a couple of decades ago that wouldn’t upset the Left in some way. These films are products of their times, and often great masterpieces. They can’t be blamed for reflecting prevailing prejudices any more than you could blame someone for believing in a geocentric solar system before Galileo came along.
What’s next? Will it turn out that Pepé Le Pew normalized rape culture? According to the New York Times, the answer is “yes.†So how do we deal with all these former cultural icons?
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https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/09/cancel-cultures-newest-victims/
