I'm trying to figure out the exact moment at which "cancelled" became the shorthand term for "a white guy suffered from being disagreed with publicly."
This column is the best. I will share this with some people who need to see it. Here's the thing: Exposing young kids to the uglies is not good even with context, if they are not mature enough to actually understand that context. Are you familiar with Tintin? I have the Tintin books in my attic, every one of them. My kid learned to read with them, took them with him on road trips, read them constantly (pre-internet). If you want to see bigotry of absolutely every kind, I refer you to Tintin. Gottta say my kid is an OK adult, but I would not go down this path now, and I have not passed them on to my granddaughter. I doubt that they are available in libraries or book stores anymore. However, I would not burn them.
And yes, I agree--there are some things that benefit from contextualization, some dated portrayals even in stuff that's only a few decades old--but there's some, like the pages in "If I Ran The Zoo", that simply aren't worth sharing with them in any context.
Occasionally we'll lean on a "some people thought this was okay to say at the time, but it wasn't", but it's best to just excise those completely.
Little House on the Prairie is a weird problem — I can’t really skip over the Native American interactions because they’re important episodes, I just have to be ready to contextualize everything afterwards.
Yeah, and I think the disclaimers like Disney has been doing with a lot of their properties are a decent solution. People always talk about “how do I explain this to my kids” but you can explain anything to kids! They listen! There are plenty of things I don’t want to give up on watching with the kids but I feel like I need to contextualize for them.
I've been thinking about this very thing! My daughter will be ready to listen to "Little House in the Big Woods" soon and I feel confident she will understand after her kind reaction to me reading the cultural sensitivity warning Disney+ provides before Aladdin.
Yeah, the Laura Ingalls Wilder problem is a bad one. I loved those books so much when I was a kid, but there is so much cringe over and above the horrible Native American stuff. I think should it ever come up in my life, I'm gonna have to pass on sharing them. I don't have any issue with studying them as historical artifacts, or even as a study in mythmaking, but only for older students. The more I learn about the Ingalls/Wilder families and how bad it really was... whew.
I saw the warning in front of some of those Muppets episodes but didn't realize they pulled one entirely because of the host, I wonder what he did. *Looks it up* ..... oh.
Not that I think any of this nonsense is being presented in good faith but it is a little too on the nose that they were clamoring about the Muppets. Just as recently as Mitt Romney's awful presidential campaign he was calling to cut funding to Sesame Street and PBS. That's fine but God forbid our kids don't get exposed to the casual racism and stereotypes presented in a show from the 70's.
> I don’t know why this man—who I’m not at all familiar with but based on appearance and demeanor alone I believe to be a struggling actor who impersonates Ellis from Die Hard at office parties—would lie about such a thing?
I ran into something like this recently with my daughter and singing "Wheels on the Bus." Did you know that the bus driver does not say "move on back," but now "have a seat, or good day (this does not fit rhythmically)." And yes it's a younger children's song but it does make Mom and me pause and think about those lyrics. Same thing with Ring around the Rosy, gotta love the plague.
You know, I was thinking about something similar recently -- how the "cancel culture" claimants dig in on any stupid thing, when it's so much easier to look at something from one's own childhood and just say "oh yeah we shouldn't have done it that way".
For instance, maybe 5-6 years ago, without thinking about it, I described sitting on the floor (what's now known as "criss-cross applesauce" by the term more commonly used the last time I consistently sat that way, and my wife pointed out "ohh people don't say that anymore" and I felt silly, because-- yeah, OF COURSE that's offensive. I had just internalized it without realizing it, and I immediately changed my lexicon, rather than dig in and be an asshole about it for no reason.
Oh I've been there. And it's not just childhood things. I've found myself asking the question can I still say this or that and wondering if some old sport sayings should survive especially when yelling at a ref to fashion a QB for a piece of clothing (because a roughing the passing has been called) for example.
And I think it's also how people handle it is more important. So for both of us, we learned, changed our actions and lexicons and moved on. One day we will probably use these experiences to illustrate something to our children or grandchildren about "back in my day" and get the look we give our parents and grandparents when they share similar things such as their opinions on lawn care, cohabitation, Congress.
Ya I think it's pretty easy to skim over things and not really think about the context of it or where it came from. Like the wheels on the bus thing! I have never once stopped to think about that line but right now I realize that's pretty messed up!
There is also this lady on tik tok who's bit is mentioning old songs or sayings and then being like, "oh no honey that is not a good one." lemme see if i can find one...
You’ve expressed how I feel almost exactly. These BS faux grievances are insane. There are certainly valid criticisms to the idea of cancel culture, mob mentality, etc. but as soon as the items you mentioned are brought up (Muppets, Mr. Potato Head) there’s no way to take that argument seriously. “Cancel culture” has become another conservative buzzword/phrase that’s used to strike up fear in the Fox News crowd.
I seriously tense up every time I hear the word "cancel" now. It's a word that has lost all meaning. And when people say it, I look at them and think, welp, that's a person whose opinions on things I will no longer take seriously. Because come on. I so appreciate people like Jane Coaston who keep calmly and patiently just repeating THIS IS A WORK over and over again. I've been able to reach a couple of people with her writing, somehow.
It's yet another enduring lesson of tHeSe TiMeS: the sheer volume of people who will double down on hideous behavior in the name of freedom rather than join the rest of us trying to be better to each other.
I'm trying to figure out the exact moment at which "cancelled" became the shorthand term for "a white guy suffered from being disagreed with publicly."
When Rupert Murdoch slithered ashore?
I watched a long video a while back that makes a case for tracing it back to "THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS"
Based on the ads I see starting before Halloween, Christmas clearly won that skirmish.
This column is the best. I will share this with some people who need to see it. Here's the thing: Exposing young kids to the uglies is not good even with context, if they are not mature enough to actually understand that context. Are you familiar with Tintin? I have the Tintin books in my attic, every one of them. My kid learned to read with them, took them with him on road trips, read them constantly (pre-internet). If you want to see bigotry of absolutely every kind, I refer you to Tintin. Gottta say my kid is an OK adult, but I would not go down this path now, and I have not passed them on to my granddaughter. I doubt that they are available in libraries or book stores anymore. However, I would not burn them.
Thank you!
And yes, I agree--there are some things that benefit from contextualization, some dated portrayals even in stuff that's only a few decades old--but there's some, like the pages in "If I Ran The Zoo", that simply aren't worth sharing with them in any context.
Occasionally we'll lean on a "some people thought this was okay to say at the time, but it wasn't", but it's best to just excise those completely.
Little House on the Prairie is a weird problem — I can’t really skip over the Native American interactions because they’re important episodes, I just have to be ready to contextualize everything afterwards.
Yeah, and I think the disclaimers like Disney has been doing with a lot of their properties are a decent solution. People always talk about “how do I explain this to my kids” but you can explain anything to kids! They listen! There are plenty of things I don’t want to give up on watching with the kids but I feel like I need to contextualize for them.
I've been thinking about this very thing! My daughter will be ready to listen to "Little House in the Big Woods" soon and I feel confident she will understand after her kind reaction to me reading the cultural sensitivity warning Disney+ provides before Aladdin.
Yeah, the Laura Ingalls Wilder problem is a bad one. I loved those books so much when I was a kid, but there is so much cringe over and above the horrible Native American stuff. I think should it ever come up in my life, I'm gonna have to pass on sharing them. I don't have any issue with studying them as historical artifacts, or even as a study in mythmaking, but only for older students. The more I learn about the Ingalls/Wilder families and how bad it really was... whew.
I saw the warning in front of some of those Muppets episodes but didn't realize they pulled one entirely because of the host, I wonder what he did. *Looks it up* ..... oh.
Not that I think any of this nonsense is being presented in good faith but it is a little too on the nose that they were clamoring about the Muppets. Just as recently as Mitt Romney's awful presidential campaign he was calling to cut funding to Sesame Street and PBS. That's fine but God forbid our kids don't get exposed to the casual racism and stereotypes presented in a show from the 70's.
> I don’t know why this man—who I’m not at all familiar with but based on appearance and demeanor alone I believe to be a struggling actor who impersonates Ellis from Die Hard at office parties—would lie about such a thing?
[extremely Twitter voice]
Scott.
The Shakespeare of our time.
I can only picture in "memoriam" as the one from I Think You Should Leave:
Tiny Dinky Daffy, 1927-2019. Pancaked by Drunk Dump Truck Driver
"CALM DOWN, THEY'RE OLD ONES. THEY DON'T STAY BABIES FOREVER, IDIOTS."
you know what this is dumb. trash it, this ones' garbage
"In Memoriams don't usually include how they died" "SHUT UP"
I ran into something like this recently with my daughter and singing "Wheels on the Bus." Did you know that the bus driver does not say "move on back," but now "have a seat, or good day (this does not fit rhythmically)." And yes it's a younger children's song but it does make Mom and me pause and think about those lyrics. Same thing with Ring around the Rosy, gotta love the plague.
You know, I was thinking about something similar recently -- how the "cancel culture" claimants dig in on any stupid thing, when it's so much easier to look at something from one's own childhood and just say "oh yeah we shouldn't have done it that way".
For instance, maybe 5-6 years ago, without thinking about it, I described sitting on the floor (what's now known as "criss-cross applesauce" by the term more commonly used the last time I consistently sat that way, and my wife pointed out "ohh people don't say that anymore" and I felt silly, because-- yeah, OF COURSE that's offensive. I had just internalized it without realizing it, and I immediately changed my lexicon, rather than dig in and be an asshole about it for no reason.
It should be a good thing that, by and large, our children and grandchildren are more considerate and kind than we were.
Oh I've been there. And it's not just childhood things. I've found myself asking the question can I still say this or that and wondering if some old sport sayings should survive especially when yelling at a ref to fashion a QB for a piece of clothing (because a roughing the passing has been called) for example.
And I think it's also how people handle it is more important. So for both of us, we learned, changed our actions and lexicons and moved on. One day we will probably use these experiences to illustrate something to our children or grandchildren about "back in my day" and get the look we give our parents and grandparents when they share similar things such as their opinions on lawn care, cohabitation, Congress.
Ya I think it's pretty easy to skim over things and not really think about the context of it or where it came from. Like the wheels on the bus thing! I have never once stopped to think about that line but right now I realize that's pretty messed up!
There is also this lady on tik tok who's bit is mentioning old songs or sayings and then being like, "oh no honey that is not a good one." lemme see if i can find one...
https://www.tiktok.com/@mackenziebarmen/video/6927700119412296965?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1
https://www.tiktok.com/@mackenziebarmen/video/6935061358228671749?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1
Wow. There is a lot to unpack with these.
You’ve expressed how I feel almost exactly. These BS faux grievances are insane. There are certainly valid criticisms to the idea of cancel culture, mob mentality, etc. but as soon as the items you mentioned are brought up (Muppets, Mr. Potato Head) there’s no way to take that argument seriously. “Cancel culture” has become another conservative buzzword/phrase that’s used to strike up fear in the Fox News crowd.
How da fuq you figure out whether a potato was born as a man? #SOUR
"WHERE IS THIS POTATO'S DICK?!?!??!"
I loved every single word of this Scott, thank you.
I seriously tense up every time I hear the word "cancel" now. It's a word that has lost all meaning. And when people say it, I look at them and think, welp, that's a person whose opinions on things I will no longer take seriously. Because come on. I so appreciate people like Jane Coaston who keep calmly and patiently just repeating THIS IS A WORK over and over again. I've been able to reach a couple of people with her writing, somehow.
It's yet another enduring lesson of tHeSe TiMeS: the sheer volume of people who will double down on hideous behavior in the name of freedom rather than join the rest of us trying to be better to each other.
Yesterday I came up with a hot take: Dr. Seuss is the Eminem of children's books.