I remember when political correctness was a joke of the Left. It was the 1980s, and it wasn’t even called political correctness yet. The contemporary term of art was ‘ideologically correct’. It was usually deployed with a smirk against comrades and fellow travellers who were so performatively uptight on matters of doctrine that their resulting anal pucker had its own gravity well. When the term—or at least the concept—was mainstreamed, ‘ideological’ became ‘political’, and all sense of nuance and whimsy was lost. That happens when you weaponise things, and political correctness was definitely weaponised; by the bad faith and cynicism of rightwing grifters, many of them employed by Rupert Murdoch, and sometimes by the wooden-headed cluelessness of leftwing numpties, without whom old mate Rupe wouldn’t have a business model anymore.
My memory was the phrase was "ideologically sound", but that's probably just a regional variation, so whatever. But the really funny thing to me is that Rik Mayall from The Young Ones was the exact caricature of the original university socialist numpty you're talking about, and when I occasionally settle in for a re-watch he's still the funniest thing about the show. I think recent editions have cut out the racist cop scene from ep. 3, Boring, for being too racisty, even though the terminally dim cop ("Police IQ shocker!") is naturally the joke
This is the issue with the literary estate passing to the authors family. @pixelatedboat suggests "The censoring of Roald Dahl highlights the dangers of letting ownership of an author’s work pass to their greedy children when they die. In a better system, control of the intellectual property rights would instead be given to a coalition of their most deranged fanfiction writers".
According to the history types (i.e., Wikipedia) political correctness as a term is a lot older than that, having been used back in 1917 by the Soviet revolutionary types (non-ironically, apparently).
Thanks for the tip about the identity of the Roald Dahl Estate: that factoid has been neatly left out of all of the reporting that I've seen (which hasn't included limited news sources). I'm a bit ambivalent about it myself. Horrified at first, but then I started to remember what a horrible old bigot and misanthrope he was, and how culture that wants to stay current and popular (and on TV) is always updated to suit the times. It's not as though the originals are going to go away, for anyone who wants to study the sense of the times, rather than enjoy a rollick about misbehaving kids getting what they deserve.
The bit about News fearing viewer loss to OAN and deciding that making things up was the only solution is hilarious though. That one's never going to wear out.
To add some extra spice to the Dahl story, it's worth noting that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has already been revised. In the 1970s the oompah loompahs received a makeover to make them less "slavey".
Mmm I don't like this, I don't like it at all. (the article is great) it's everything it talks about, the Cooker Network, the Dahl IP belonging to Netflix., the Fox network completely caught out with its junk showing and yet nothing may change, I mean c'mon how much can a koala bear?!
This cultural war situation fueled by RWNJ's Vs the Ideologically sound--and the rest of us in there somewhere trying to be decent humans and make shite better gets me down.
You see, because I'm basically a grumpy old wog from a working -class background with a chip on my shoulder big enough to have its own Medicare number. In my darker, more cynical moments, I don't see much difference between these two groups. Both tend to know everything already, see things as black and white, both have no hesitation in being loud about what others can and can't do/see etc. Both come from the safe warm bosom of suburban white Anglo middle class+ Australia, with the unswerving confidence that they are right, because well...why wouldn't they be right?
Fascists Vs White Missionaries... good grief.
PS: Totally open to someone respectfully explaining that this theory of mine is completely wrong, has never been right, can never be right..I would sleep better at night.
Roald Dahl is credited for bringing "gremlins" out of the RAF and into common English. Well, we have ourselves some gremlins here alright and they must be laughing their heads off.
I see John Michael Howson as Aunt Spikelet in a new gremlinised James and the Giant Peach.
Dahl was first best known for his adult stories, (but not in the US). It's as this fact and the stories themselves have been hidden -maybe to not ruffle the American religious right and compromise the $$$ his children's books generated? They sure didn't hold back. "Tales of the Unexpected" was made into a UK television series which is not streaming anywhere to speak of, and then there's "Switch Bitch" and "Kiss Kiss" etc. I want to see what the owner will do with this pot of gold.
Hi JB thanks for finally letting me know what this week's literary "concern" about Roald Dhal is. I had an inkling that something was wrong when I heard some jokes about a rewrite of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The thing is dous anyone read Newscorpse newspapers let alone Roald Dahl anymore?
The other thing is I have heard that Rupe is going to back DeSantis (and probably any other republican who runs against Trump). I believe AON isn't being shown on a number of cable TV channels and it isn't doing so well. The only thing that might happen is Trump could run as an independent or third party candidate which could split the conservative vote.
JB, liked the hat tip to Ronni Salt for the Shrieking Pikelets, laughed out loud when I first read that.
My memory was the phrase was "ideologically sound", but that's probably just a regional variation, so whatever. But the really funny thing to me is that Rik Mayall from The Young Ones was the exact caricature of the original university socialist numpty you're talking about, and when I occasionally settle in for a re-watch he's still the funniest thing about the show. I think recent editions have cut out the racist cop scene from ep. 3, Boring, for being too racisty, even though the terminally dim cop ("Police IQ shocker!") is naturally the joke
This is the issue with the literary estate passing to the authors family. @pixelatedboat suggests "The censoring of Roald Dahl highlights the dangers of letting ownership of an author’s work pass to their greedy children when they die. In a better system, control of the intellectual property rights would instead be given to a coalition of their most deranged fanfiction writers".
According to the history types (i.e., Wikipedia) political correctness as a term is a lot older than that, having been used back in 1917 by the Soviet revolutionary types (non-ironically, apparently).
Thanks for the tip about the identity of the Roald Dahl Estate: that factoid has been neatly left out of all of the reporting that I've seen (which hasn't included limited news sources). I'm a bit ambivalent about it myself. Horrified at first, but then I started to remember what a horrible old bigot and misanthrope he was, and how culture that wants to stay current and popular (and on TV) is always updated to suit the times. It's not as though the originals are going to go away, for anyone who wants to study the sense of the times, rather than enjoy a rollick about misbehaving kids getting what they deserve.
The bit about News fearing viewer loss to OAN and deciding that making things up was the only solution is hilarious though. That one's never going to wear out.
To add some extra spice to the Dahl story, it's worth noting that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has already been revised. In the 1970s the oompah loompahs received a makeover to make them less "slavey".
Mmm I don't like this, I don't like it at all. (the article is great) it's everything it talks about, the Cooker Network, the Dahl IP belonging to Netflix., the Fox network completely caught out with its junk showing and yet nothing may change, I mean c'mon how much can a koala bear?!
This cultural war situation fueled by RWNJ's Vs the Ideologically sound--and the rest of us in there somewhere trying to be decent humans and make shite better gets me down.
You see, because I'm basically a grumpy old wog from a working -class background with a chip on my shoulder big enough to have its own Medicare number. In my darker, more cynical moments, I don't see much difference between these two groups. Both tend to know everything already, see things as black and white, both have no hesitation in being loud about what others can and can't do/see etc. Both come from the safe warm bosom of suburban white Anglo middle class+ Australia, with the unswerving confidence that they are right, because well...why wouldn't they be right?
Fascists Vs White Missionaries... good grief.
PS: Totally open to someone respectfully explaining that this theory of mine is completely wrong, has never been right, can never be right..I would sleep better at night.
Curiouser and Curiouser.
Even Rupert thought his attack dogs sounded unhinged.
Great article Birmo.
C'mon fox said it has 1st admt rights to broadcast lies, if they be inherently newsworthy amongst other deranged shit
Roald Dahl is credited for bringing "gremlins" out of the RAF and into common English. Well, we have ourselves some gremlins here alright and they must be laughing their heads off.
I see John Michael Howson as Aunt Spikelet in a new gremlinised James and the Giant Peach.
Dahl was first best known for his adult stories, (but not in the US). It's as this fact and the stories themselves have been hidden -maybe to not ruffle the American religious right and compromise the $$$ his children's books generated? They sure didn't hold back. "Tales of the Unexpected" was made into a UK television series which is not streaming anywhere to speak of, and then there's "Switch Bitch" and "Kiss Kiss" etc. I want to see what the owner will do with this pot of gold.
Hi JB thanks for finally letting me know what this week's literary "concern" about Roald Dhal is. I had an inkling that something was wrong when I heard some jokes about a rewrite of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The thing is dous anyone read Newscorpse newspapers let alone Roald Dahl anymore?
The other thing is I have heard that Rupe is going to back DeSantis (and probably any other republican who runs against Trump). I believe AON isn't being shown on a number of cable TV channels and it isn't doing so well. The only thing that might happen is Trump could run as an independent or third party candidate which could split the conservative vote.