Political Correctness Gone MadFreddy Woo writes: "I once worked on an animation to help highlight the issues homeless people face in winter. The client was happy with the work, then a note came back that the ethnic mix of the characters were wrong. These were cartoon characters. They weren't meant to be ethnically anything, but we were forced to make one of them brown, at the cost of about 10k to the charity. This is how your donations are spent. Wisely as you can see."
How has PC affected you? (Please add your own tales - not five-year-old news stories cut-and-pasted from other websites)
(, Thu 22 Nov 2007, 10:20)
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I've just remembered this one...Back when I was a right-on lefty student writing for the student union mag, I found myself part of a political correctness storm regarding the works of one Marshall Bruce Mathers III.
Sheffield University, as some of you will know, have their own part-time radio station, SURE, of which I was one of the producers on the late-night rock show presented by my mate, who we shall call Richard (for that is his name).
Anyway, after one show, Richard informed me of the University's ban on the airplay of any records by Eminem. Apparently, there had been fervent complaints by the Women's Support and LGBT sections of the Student Union with regard to Eminem's 'chauvinistic, misogynistic and homophobic and frankly offensive lyircs', how he had a negative opinion of women and how the Union had an obligation to disapprove of such injustice.
Now, I actually studied at Sheffield Hallam, and my friends on the Union paper (SPress - how I miss it so) had got wind of this too, so we decided to get one over on our academic rivals and stage some kind of stunt.
So, with me as photographer, 6 Union-employed lovelies with t-shirts displaying one letter each of EMINEM burst into the Sheffield Union, made a silent protest at the bar, then demanded that 'Brown Sugar' (the Rolling Stones song covering such topics as slave rape), 'Boom A-Bye-Bye' (Buju Banton's famous advocacy of shooting homosexuals) and 'Polly' (Nirvana famous song supposedly about rape) should be stuck on the jukey, seeing as none of these artists have been banned despite the fact that they're seemingly promoting the very things that Eminem was being castigated for. I recall us chanting 'FREE SPEECH' as we piled in through the doors but I think that might have been the beer talking.
Anyway this caused furore in the storm-in-a-teacup factory that was the Sheffield Union offices, and to save face (and being shown up further by the oh-so-hilarious protests we had got planned) Eminem was restored to his full glory, celebrated by my good friend Richard supplanting his heavy rock broadcast the first week back with plenty of Slim Shady's finest recordings, then finishing his show off with a play of Nine Inch Nails lovelorn ballad 'Closer' (you know the one, it's got the line "I want to fuck you like an animal" in it).
We've all worked hard to create a fair society, and am an advocate for egalitarianism (look it up), but it really frustrates me that such situations occur, and it's fair to say that much of the uber-Political Correctness hindering our society germinates in the right-on student unions across the country. If we ban Eminem for a few misplaced lyrics about wanting to kill his missus, what next? The Beatles going off air because John Lennon used to slap Yoko Ono about a bit?
Of course not.
(, Sat 24 Nov 2007, 18:39, 1 reply)
Aaah. Good ol' SURE.They used to make us play their only paid advert on the hour, every hour. It was for a cosmetic surgery clinic and under no circumstances were we allowed to make any comments about plastic boobs and suchlike.
We mixed it into "Smack My Bitch Up" instead. At 10am. Apparently they loved it in the pasty shop.
(, Sat 24 Nov 2007, 21:15, closed)
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