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The Dark Depths of Political Correctness
I have now seen it all. I believe that the best clues for ascertaining the direction of the culture lie not in big, noisy events (such as the "Sensations" art show) but in the small, quiet things that happen in the hidden backwaters. But I get ahead of myself...
I was flipping through the satellite channels the other night after I got tired of hearing Chris Matthews laud the virtues of John McCain, and stumbled across a showing of "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" on Ted Turner's TNT. Poor Mel Brooks. How could a man who produced such classics as "The Producers" and "Blazing Saddles" have turned into such a hack? In essence, he has tried to reproduce "Blazing Saddles" for every film genre he could lay his hands on. Sometimes he came close (Young Frankenstein), other times he produced sheer garbage (History of the World, Part 1). But there is something about even bad Mel Brooks movies that makes me want to stop and spend of minute or two.
So it was that I stopped to watch "Men in Tights". And just in time.The single best part of the movie is when Robin's burly Merry Men break into a song & dance number about their silly and frilly little green tights. Right on cue they broke into their chorus line dance and sang "Weee may looook like [silence]". Wait a sec. That wasn't right. So I perked up and paid extra attention the next time the line came up. Again, it was "Weee may looook like [silence]". I have seen this scene many times, so it didn't require lip reading skills to figure out that the word TNT had excised from the song was "cissies". I was stunned. In an age in which television networks are in a race to incorporate as many crudities as possible into their shows, TNT cut the word "cissies" from a comic song & dance number!
It's not as if they were on a censorship rampage. All of the other remarkably crude moments in the movie were left intact (befitting its 12:15 a.m. time slot), from the circumcision demonstration, using a carrot and a mini-guillotine, to the final discovery of the key to Maid Marian's chastity belt. Why, then, this one single edit?
It can only be because we have reached a stage at which "cissies" has become an unacceptable term, somehow viewed as a politically incorrect afront to "gays". This is quite odd if you think about it. Among other things, "Cissie" is not even synonomous with "homosexual". Sure it is a perjorative term, but I've always thought it had more of a Caspar Milquetoast/Momma's Boy association. I might be somewhat understanding of the editor's actions if Brooks had used a nastier word. But the point is that he would not have, because he wasn't spoofing the sexuality of the Merry Men, but rather the contrast of their machismo and their tights. Cissies was exactly the right word to use, and the fact that it was snuffed says volumes about how far down into the culture the PC illness has absorbed. We have reached the stage where a common word that might possibly be construed, against its meaning, by some viewers, as a synonym for "gay" is on that basis alone to be banished.
If TNT has decided to be cutting edge PC, they really ought to leave Mel Brooks off their schedule altogether. He may not always be funny, but he is never politically correct. Imagine how they woud handle the scene from "Blazing Saddles" in which the townspeople, led by their new black sheriff, are attempting to enlist the aid of Irish, Black and Chinese railroad workers in defending their town against the bad guys. The workers are willing to help, but only if in return they are given plots of land to farm. After much worried discussion, the mayor turns to the assembled workers and says "We'll take the niggers and the chinks, but no Irish!".
That is a brilliant line, deftly encapsulating 19th Century ethnic and racial biases. It could not have been written differently. Just as the song "Men in Tights" could not have been written with any word other than "Cissies". The fact that Ted Turner doesn't understand this is more proof (as if we needed it) that he is a philistine and a boor and a blight on the culture.