Isn't Political Correctness Racist?

[matt72582]

One example of irony - white people telling black people what they can or can't handle.. I would counter by saying "As a black man, why do you feel I'm too ignorant or sensitive to understand....". A new kind of McCarthyism. The entire purpose of art is to create beyond what we have with nature, and to even self-censor is hurting everyone, in favor of the perceived recipients of bias. If anything, it turns me off, and I'll FF any kind of tokenism. The oppressed become the oppressors isn't progress.


I made a post about movies that couldn't be made today, and it was full of movie favorites of many. Imagine if you couldn't even decide for yourself what's suitable for you. And if you like sanitized, manufactured stuff, you can still avoid things that offend you. Things offend me, too, but life is offensive. If people can't handle something said on the internet, or on a movie, what about real life?

[Iroquois]

So your argument against white people telling black people how they should respond to something is to...be a white person who talks about how they would respond if they themselves were a black person. You're right, that is an example of irony.

Seriously, though, assuming that your definition of "the entire purpose of art" is correct, then surely the flip-side is that art that actively attempts to counter said offensiveness is at the very least equally valid since it's also "creating beyond nature". Pulling the "you couldn't make this today" card doesn't help your case because, well, no sh*t. That's not so much a matter of limits as it is a recognition of how we've evolved over the past hundred or so years - what, am I supposed to feel bad that you can't do a shot-for-shot remake of Birth of a Nation without earning people's disapproval? Same goes for the "life is offensive" card - I could say that the people who complain so much about "forced diversity" or "tokenism" or whatever are easily offended by real-life diversity.

[ashdoc]

Let us wait for 20 years to let the argument solve itself . Maybe by then immigrants will be majority of population in western countries and they won't bother so much about political correctness.

[matt72582]

We couldn't even have that discussion if Birth of a Nation was never made. I've never seen it (tried once or twice), but I know many who think it's great, despite the racism; movie always has conflict. And if there's criticism, boycotts, etc., great - free speech, although it seems everyone screams censorship when it's their side, and vice-versa. There's always the risk of the tables being turned, as well as more resentment being created between the people.

The movie I remember everyone mentioning was Blazing Saddles. I don't think censorship is the way. Maybe you have to let a lot of junk pass by for a chance to find some brilliance.

[Iroquois]

I never said anything about censorship, though - I just think that "political correctness" is an inane buzzword that puts a rational face on an irrational mentality (and it doesn't help that it ends up coming close to out-and-out bigotry either). Tokenism may be a thing, but people's standards for what qualifies can be so low as to render the term meaningless.

I seem to recall mentioning that Blazing Saddles, for all its individual jokes and scenes that could not be so easily replicated today (if at all - thinking Brooks himself playing a Native American), at least had something of a progressive (one might even say politically correct if one were so inclined) thematic backbone underneath it all. Black guy and white guy team up to cure impoverished small town of its racism and turn their attention to fighting the racist white executive who was exploiting them all along...solid enough for a goofy Western parody, anyway. Of course, the surface-level jokes obscure that quite a bit. Again, it comes down to a matter of personal standards and how political correctness in and of itself doesn't strike me as a particularly useful standard against which to judge a movie.