Scrolling through social media and seeing conservatives outraged at “Cancel Culture” amuses me in a way mere words cannot do justice. They act as if this was something created by liberals and social justice warriors. They say they are trying to control what people watch on T.V. and what type of books they can read, and so forth. And of course, these people, the likes of Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens get applauded by their legions of fans, many of whom are clueless to the fact. Clueless to the fact that the seeds for what conservatives claim to despise were planted year ago. To be frank, crying about cancel culture is just conservatives yelling at the tree they planted.
Now, I should say the books written by Dr. Seuss
that are being discontinued are books that I’d never heard of, not a single one
of them. And some of the images in the book are wildly inappropriate, but they
fit the times in which they were written because that was the mindset of
society. I’ve had to research the books and looking at them through the prism
of modern times, I get why people are offended. As someone of Sicilian and Italian
heritage, I get why people are upset. Me, I just roll at laugh at the stereotypes
I see. I don’t let it bother me at all. I get that many times, the stereotypes
exist because they fit the narrative of the story or the joke.
Let’s address cancel culture. It’s a rather new buzzword
that is completely meaningless. Yeah, it gets clicks on the internet and gives
news networks something to fill T.V. time with. It is, however, something that
has its roots with conservatives and it’s something much more sinister than
what exist today.
Lenny Bruce is one of the greatest comedians of
all-time. Bar none, just bar none. He’s the guy that started it all, the counter-culture
humor that gave us George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Sam Kinison, among many
others. Bruce was arrested for saying the word ‘cocksucker’ on stage.
Conservatives, especially the Christian conservatives, set their sights on him.
They didn’t like that he poked fun of religion. And when Bruce faded away, they
set their sights on Carlin and Pryor. And each time, they used children as
pawns, saying that they unbridled comedy of these men would destroy impersonable
children. It would lead to the breakdown of polite society. Simply because they
found it offense, they felt it gave them license to set the tone for everyone else.
And it wasn’t just comedians these conservatives tried to cancel.
M*A*S*H and All In The Family were like no
sit-coms before them. Yeah, sit-com provided great entertainment and provided
and escape, but in no way shape of form going to address social issues. Star
Trek used thinly storylines to address issues like racial tensions and
other social issues. M*A*S*H may have been set in Korea, but its attempts to
show the true horrors of war were clearly aimed at Vietnam. And All In The
Family addressed racism, and other social issues. And because conservatives
did not like these shows, these shows became the targets of write-in campaigns,
if not to get the shows canceled, but perhaps to get the shows utterly revamped
to fit their taste.
If you need a modern example, The Simpsons has
been the bane for conservatives since the 1980’s. Same goes for South Park.
Conservatives have been trying to cancel comedians and shows for decades.
However, they want everyone to forget their history. They seek to re-cast
themselves as the protectors of the first amendment, when they are the same
ones that literally put Larry Flynt on trial over a parody interview of Jerry
Falwell.
One thing that the likes of Candace Owens, Tomi
Lahren, and Ben Shapiro don’t want their follows to do is to research. If they
did their own research, they’d see that the very people they follow and though
were champions of freedom of speech are themselves products of those that
created what would become cancel culture in the first place. Fox News, Newsmax,
OAN, of the conservative news outlets as well will declare this an assault on
the first amendment, yet they are the ones that champion and take pride in the
fact that Colin Kaepernick has been blackballed from the NFL. And all Kaepernick
do was take a knee during a song to shine a light on police brutality. Funny
how they fail to mention Kaepernick, they man they tried to cancel. I guess its
okay for them to cancel someone. And that’s just it, when you boil it down to
the essentials. Conservatives started something years ago, and when the tables
get turned, they don’t like it. So next time a conservative gets angry and
cries cancel culture, just mention Colin Kaepernick, and see what type of response
you get. I’m sure they will come up
excuses and do a lot of verbal tap dancing to avoid admitting they are guilty
of doing that which they decry.
