Thought Police: Are we allowed to query 'woke'?

[sintec]

The defund the police argument is, to me, largely irrelevant in the context of the direction I'd like to see society take. Policing, in my view, requires a more comprehensive and integral rethink.

I believe that's largely the argument being made by those suggesting we defund the police.  Less police and more support for people with mental illnesses, more support to help people leave abusive relationships, better education and support for young people so they don't turn to crime in the first place e.t.c.

The underlying idea is that by supporting the $s on supporting the community there will be less crime to police.  Basically the plot of the current Dredd in the prog (it'll be interesting to see where they go with that).

[Professor Bear]

I liked the bit where they claimed the PC Brigade are trying to cancel Thomas Jefferson.

The 14 year old who bore six of Jefferson's children was clearly in a consensual relationship with the man who literally owned her as property.

[Funt Solo]

"Do you know how much a slave cost, back then?"

[repoman]

I agree with political correctness and think all people should be judged by their character and not their race, sexuality, gender etc but 'wokeness' has become almost like a parody of itself now.  Teens and young adults collectively trying to cancel things.  The problem is that when they are cancelling comedy, or trying to, they don't have anything to replace it.  We all grew up on sitcoms, some out of line with current values, but they are growing up on memes and cat videos.  This is the least funny generation ever and when they become the barometers of what's acceptable, it gets a bit too close to censorship.  At times it is like watching the puritans from Black Adder 2.

[IndigoPrime]

Frankly, I find most sit-coms date very badly. Friends is cringeworthy now, and so so white (not least given where it's set). I don't see much in the way of cancelling—it's just people saying they don't want to give any time to a specific thing, and people who like that specific thing getting in a huff. (Front vs. Fox shows this in microcosm.)

As for woke, I got called it on Facebook. Someone was thinking of subscribing to The Beano. Some bloke said it's rubbish now, and not a patch on the GOOD OLD DAYS. I noted that I thought the modern Beano was far superior in writing and I also liked the fact it's inclusive. For that, I was branded woke. Apparently, I deserve that for being happy my daughter has a comic to read where Dennis isn't a massive arsehole (and is instead streetwise), there are actual girls in it, there are a few (although not many) people of more diverse backgrounds, and where some of the extremely problematic characterisation of e.g. Walter has been replaced by something a lot smarter.

[Funt Solo]

As for cat videos and memes, it's easy to argue that there's over-saturation, but The Wall explored an over-saturation of consumable screen media back in 1982 (so this is not a new phenomenon).

As for the quality of the comedy, that's in the laugh-circuits of the beholding droid. If they're amused by the memes, who are we to say it's not funny? I'm not going to win any arguments shoving Butterflies, The Good Life, To The Manor Born or even Only Fools and Horses in front of the young 'uns and telling them that those are *real* funny but this isn't:

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Once I gave my old Beanos a flicking* and was honestly taken aback by the constant casual child abuse. It would make a cardinal blush.

*I could have phrased that better.

[TordelBack]

This is the least funny generation ever and when they become the barometers of what's acceptable, it gets a bit too close to censorship.

That sounds suspiciously like an old man talking, and I should know. There's edgy young person humour a-plenty out there in social media land, which is the coalface of popular culture, and not the restrictive and financially conservative old media (and even there you have lots of material that would never have been broadcast in the '70s, where the average height of wit was Mrs. Slocum's pussy).

In conversation with my two today, I discovered the hard borders of my own wokehood, and apparently it extends to just short of cultural appropriation.

[JOE SOAP]

Comedy generally doesn't age well. When you look back at many of the comics you used to like, the yucks aren't so plentiful.

[Funt Solo]

Even Bill Hicks slipped on a homophobic banana peel.

(So many ways to read that sentence.)

[radiator]

This is the least funny generation ever

Said every older generation about every younger generation ever....

Comedy is much like music - people cherry pick the classics and forget that the vast majority of whats popular at any given time is almost always lowest common denominator crap.

I remember my dad sadly shaking his head when he discovered me listening to The Chemical Brothers, as it wasn't 'real music', and telling me that rap wasn't 'music' either, and was at most a 'street art'.



The only thing that riles me about 'cancel culture'* is that the right likes to pretend it's a one way street, when it absolutely is not. The right are always trying to get people on the left 'cancelled'.


*which frankly I'm not convinced is even a thing. Is Michael Jackson 'cancelled'? Last time I checked, most people were still listening to his music. If people like Louis CK lose work and credibility as a direct result of their own grubbiness and stupidity then I don't really have any sympathy for that.

[Tjm86]

Frankly, I find most sit-coms date very badly.

I think for the most part this is quite true.  I would like to stick my neck out, my head in the lion's jaw, above the parapet and so forth and suggest MASH as a possible exception.  I'm currently on a re-viewing at about season 4. 

Given its tendency to tackle racial prejudice, homophobia and the treatment of natives by American armed forces, there is little that would be overly problematic to a modern audience.  Possibly the objectification of women, but even there that is called out for what it is.

Can't think of many others that can make such a claim.

[IndigoPrime]

The Tories are busy wrecking the creative industries in the UK. That's a lot worse than people refusing to watch a shitty sitcom or not hanging on the every word of a xenophobic b-list actor.

[TordelBack]

MASH certainly stands up brilliantly, but I still can't persuade my kids that it's remotely funny.

There's a lot that's odd about what  intergenerational humour works: my Dad foisted Round the Horne, TW3 , Hancock and The Goon Show on me, all from long before I was born, and I loved them all. Similarly my kids love Monty Python and Father Ted, but don't seem to get Fawlty Towers or Dad's Army at all.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I wonder how Brass Eye, for my money the funniest comedy programme ever*, would appear to the younger generation.  There are some very, very non-PC (hate to use that expression, but I can't think of another one) scenes there, but clearly made by snowflake (well, I'm on a roll now) liberals. Quite a few of the
celebrities being made idiots of are no longer with us, so it's clearly lost that bit of its bite, and one of them was Rolf Harris.

*I will post this then immediately remember a funnier one.