I’ve noticed there’s this new trend where people take old movies, songs, recorded moments, and quotes, and judge them as audacious in light of modern sensibilities. Taking politically correct (PC) culture to the extreme can lead people to misconstrue some art and not acknowledge the art for what it is as a whole, instead basing our evaluation of it on the fact that some parts of it are insensitive.
The movie Airplane! is a classic movie from the 1980s with witty humour. However, there is one scene where two black men are talking in jive with subtitles underneath, implying that they are obviously unintelligible to the audience. The scene is inappropriate, and it personally made me uncomfortable. However, I will not discredit the entire movie based on this blatantly racist scene because I consider the time period it was made in. I find it unfair to expect the standards of today be put on art produced in the past, in times which had completely different guidelines for what was okay and what was not. The rest of the movie is quite hilarious. I suggest instead of saying “Airplane! is a bad movie because of the one racist scene,” we should approach it as “Airplane! is a good movie except for the one scene with the racist joke.”
I hope that in the future, people can see these movies and appreciate the good aspects and leave the bad ones. It’s unfortunate when we ban a whole piece of art for a mistake that was considered okay back in the day. Racism appeared more in TV and movies from the ‘80s than it does today and often in casual fashion rather than a critical one.
Another example would be the song “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” An article from CBC describes the perception of the song in the wake of the #MeToo movement and how it is perceived as being sexist and a manifestation of rape culture. In the Variety article “End the War on ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside,’” Chris Willman argues that the woman in the song is essentially saying no while nodding her head when invited to spend the night with a man she isn’t married to not because the man won’t take “no” for an answer, but because society won’t take “yes”. That’s a perspective on the song that no one would have if they jumped to the PC conclusion. This is an example of how we can take an old song, misconstrue it through the lense of political correctness, and throw it away without really looking at the state of the world in which it was created.
I understand the goal of PC culture is to strive for equality, but the concepts should be applied to today’s society and its creative productions. Obviously there are some works of art that completely miss the mark with what was correct at the time. However, using a critical eye, art is a great way to peer into the past. I find the best we can do is reflect on what we did wrong but not dismiss the entirety of art based on its lack of political correctness today. I find it best to focus critique on art that is produced today that doesn’t coincide with today’s inclusive ideals and judge it accordingly; it’s a real-time criticism that can actually make a change. By judging and throwing away the entirety of an art piece from the past, it does not contribute to the purpose of political correctness, which is to make the world as it is today have an inclusive and sensitive society.
Illustrations: Kat Hine/The Cascade
