Month: January 2022

The sixth season of Revisionist History has landed, and Malcolm Gladwell is back, striving to reveal the overlooked and the misunderstood. Some of you may recall my embrace of Gladwell when I first started this blog, with me going so far as saying that I wanted to be Gladwell (just a bit of hyperbole). But I must say, the gloss is wearing thin.      

Season six starts with a bizarre episode on self-driven cars. Rather than address the massive logistical and technological issues outstanding, Gladwell “waves a magic wand” to get us to the point where there are only self-driven cars on the road, as if that is all it will take for this transition. He then suggests that if all cars were self-driven there would be gridlock, because people would feel free to step in front of these cars, knowing that sensors would force them to stop.  It strikes me that if we can get to a world of only self-driven cars, we can solve the pedestrian issue, but what do I know?  

Then there were a couple of decent, though hardly groundbreaking, episodes on the ridiculous U.S News and World Report college rankings (Springfield College, voted number one among yellow skinned cartoon characters). Followed by a somewhat interesting profile of an unrepentant American Communist subject to the blacklist in the 50’s. So far, so blah. 

At that point, Gladwell heads off the rails, taking three episodes to attack Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Yes, The Little Mermaid. He is not satisfied to simply point out problematic aspects of the film, and they do exist, but labels the film as a bloated pinata (whatever that means) that’s not fit for children. Really? The Little Mermaid? 

Oddly, the first attack on the film is a legal one. Gladwell spoke with Laura Beth Nielson, a law professor and sociologist, who wrote a piece called “Law and Morality in Disney Films”. I must admit that this sounds more interesting than most of the law review articles I have slogged through. However, she seems to have trouble distinguishing between what adults may grasp, and what kids absorb. 

Nielson’s big complaint with The Little Mermaid is that Ariel signs a contract with the sea witch Ursula which dictates that Ariel must give Ursula her voice (which is the part of Ariel a human fell in love with) and, in exchange, Ursula will make Ariel human for three days. Ariel stays human forever if she can get the human to kiss her by the end of the third day. If not, she becomes Ursula’s slave.  

According to Neilson, it is outrageous for a children’s movie to depict the law in this way. This contract is immoral, she rants. It would be totally unenforceable. It teaches kids that the law is all powerful, and can be manipulated by evil people to do whatever they want. How dare we allow young ones to see this? (She doesn’t actually say that, but it’s the implication). 

Neilson said that after the movie ended, she explained the problem to her two pre-teen sons, and while she was careful to claim that the conversation was age appropriate, I have my doubts. I imagine that conversation otherwise. 

Mom: Now, boys. You know that the contract Ariel signed was Malum in Se, contrary to public policy, and would be annulled in any court of law, above or below the sea. 

Son 1: Right, mom. But wasn’t it cool when all the animals attacked Ursula and stopped her wedding to Eric? Especially when Max bites her in the butt.  

Mom: Don’t say butt dear. It’s bottom. But you’re missing the point. Ariel, or her guardian ad litem, should have sued Ursula to have the contract declared Void Ab Initio, and then all would have been well. 

Son 2: I like it best when Eric rams Ursula with the ship. That was dope!!!! 

Mom: Both of you to your rooms. And while you’re there, read what Corbin has to say on this. 

Son 1 and Son 2: Aw, Mom. That’s injustus.  

The children emerge two hours later, having emersed themselves in the difference between mutuality and competency, only to find that their mother has channeled Be Kind Rewind to create a new ending to the Little Mermaid. Gone is the climactic battle between Ursula, Ariel and Eric in the roiling sea. Instead, Ariel has hired Perry Mackerel to get her out of the contract. Ursula is defended by F. Lee Barracuda. The Honorable Judge Judy Jackfish presides. 

At trial, Mackerel ruthlessly pummels Flotsam and Jetsam on cross-examination (in an understated and professional manner) until King Triton can take it no more. He leaps to his feet and admits that he was in cahoots with Ursula all along to rid his kingdom of undesirables, including his annoying youngest daughter. Judge Jackfish dissolves the contract (literally) as King Triton slinks away in shame. The full cast then breaks into a rousing reprisal of Poor Unfortunate Souls (Who Can’t Afford a Good Lawyer) as the credits roll. Mom is in tears, as the boys look at each other in bewilderment. 

As much as we are aware of anthropomorphism, the attribution of human characteristics to animals, we often ignore adultomorphism, the attribution of adult concerns to children. As we will explore in Part 2 of this diatribe, children do absorb amazing concepts as they interact with the world, both real and imaginary. However, to suggest that pre-teens will draw conclusions about something like the vagaries of law from a cartoon is, at best, questionable.   

While I am not a child psychiatrist, my own sense is that the vast majority of kids quickly understand the nature of stories, and plot devices, especially in movies. They don’t over-analyze, but enjoy. It is real life that provides the lessons, especially what they hear and see from their parents and other adults. I think that is what we should be more worried about that than aquatic agreements by animated krakens.       

Mel Brooks is back in the news. At age 95 he recently released a memoir entitled “All About Me!”, which chronicles his long and illustrious career. The book has gotten good reviews, and is on my list of books to eventually read (along with hundreds of others). You can count on Brooks to be irreverent, funny and shamelessly self-promoting. While he has had hits and misses, Mel has never done anything that was dull. 

The publication of this book has also brought a regurgitation of Brooks’ comments regarding political correctness. Mel is not a fan, to put it mildly. He has gone so far as to say that political correctness is the death of comedy. As Brooks put it, “Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks. Comedy is the lecherous little elf whispering in the king’s ear, always telling the truth about human behavior”. Other comedic legends, such as Jerry Seinfeld and Dave Chappelle, have echoed those sentiments. 

It is hard to argue with Brooks generalizations about comedy. Much of the best comedy is subversive of pretentions and biases. Where would we be without Monty Python’s Upper Class Twit of the Year, or Richard Pryor’s Black and White Lifestyles standup routine. Or, for that matter, Brooks’ Blazing Saddles. We need comedians to burst the balloons we inflate justifying our, often absurd, behavior. 

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But are there limits? Brooks himself has said “I personally would never touch gas chambers or the death of children or Jews at the hands of the Nazis”. Is he suggesting that he would be OK if others did, or that this topic should be verboten for all? Does it matter who is doing the bit, or their intent? Are we, the audience, prohibited from crying foul if we think a comedian has gone too far towards promoting stereotypes, rather than deflating them? 

Political correctness has become a catchall defense for anyone who wants to deflect criticism from nasty, derogatory generalizations. Rather than justify controversial pronouncements, it is easier to blanket naysayers with this meaningless cliché and act as if the critics are the ones being offensive. It is a shallow, but all too often effective, defense.   

That being said, I don’t think that is what Brooks was talking about. Mel was not trying to justify anyone’s misogynistic or ethnic slurs. From everything we know about him, he is probably just as appalled as anyone else by statements from those in power, or seeking power, that denigrate people based on race, gender or sexual preferences. He just wants to carve out a niche for comedy to use those stereotypes to deflate those that embrace them.  

It is not as easy as Brooks suggests to put comedy into its own category, as evidenced by the fact that most of those who lauded his comments were political pundits who could care less about comedy. Whether he likes it or not, some people are going to use comedic bon mots to justify their own prejudices. And those justifications have real life consequences.  

For instance, hiring decisions have all too often been made not on personal qualifications, but on broad ethnic and gender generalizations. The jokes that are told around the proverbial watercooler turn into the bases for decisions regarding suitability for employment. Biases are reinforced and become part of the covert decision-making process. 

Political correctness, for all of the baggage that it has acquired, is nothing more than an effort to make us stop to realize those consequences. It is not an endeavor to protect people’s feelings, but to bury the societal assumptions that have kept certain groups from gaining equal access to opportunities. Isn’t that what this country is supposed to be about? 

By the way, comedy is doing just fine. For example, the movie Don’t Look Up was a biting satire, that managed to “tell the truth about human behavior” without stereotyping any specific group. In fact, the movie was probably stronger because it played off our universal inclination to take almost any issue, generalize it without full understanding, and then proclaim our beliefs. 

Stand-up comedians like Amy Schumer and Tim Heidecker have no problem mining our daily foibles without crossing political correctness lines, whatever they may be. They, and many comedians like them, have found a wide array of outlets, whether it’s through traditional mediums like movies and TV, or through alternative platforms like podcasts, Instagram or YouTube, to practice their craft. We probably have more opportunity to laugh now than we ever have.  

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That doesn’t mean that these comedians do not have to walk the thin line that Brooks has drawn in the sand. Yes, today’s comedians have to be more adept at avoiding casual insult than Brooks generation had to be. But they do not seem to be unduly hampered by having to take that stroll.  

At the end of the day, it is up to us, the audience, to determine what we will tolerate and what we will not. There will be those we turn away from either because their “humor” does nothing more than denigrate those that are not like them (the Andrew Dice Clay’s of the world), or because their personal behavior makes laughter impossible (hello, Louis C.K.). But hasn’t that always been the way? 

Maybe Brooks is right and some of his movies could not be made today, though I am not so sure. We still long to laugh at ourselves and the silly things we do. But if people want to use the guise of comedy to disparage, diminish and deprecate, we have every right to call them on it. That’s not political correctness. It’s the power of the peanut gallery, and long may it reign.     

Our emergence into 2022 struck me more than most flipping’s of the calendar. Maybe it’s all of those 2’s. Maybe it’s that we are almost quarter of the way through the 21^st Century. It probably has a lot to do with the sci-fi novels and movies that I’ve consumed over the years, many of which prognosticated a much different world by the time we got this far. Whatever the reason, it is taking me some time to absorb where we are on the cosmic timeline.  

Many of the predications, both fictional and otherwise, posited that technology would significantly change the way we live. The Lords of Technology promised that their innovations would do more than enhance our lives, they would transform them. The sense was that would have happened by 2022. Much of the futurist fiction agreed with that premise, but assumed that the transformation would be catastrophic, not beneficial.    

The innovations have been significant. The personal computer, the internet, e-mail, the cell phone, social media. All have altered how we operate on a day-to-day basis (and all were 20th Century inventions). But I am not sure that they have changed how we view the world, or how we relate to each other. They may have brought certain traits to the fore, like social media’s platform for tribalism, but those traits have always been there. 

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A good argument can be made that the real shift was with the industrial revolution, which started in the mid-1700’s, and that the societal changes since then have flowed from there. It was with the industrial revolution, and the enlightenment which promoted it, that science, for better or worse, became central to our world view, replacing a predominantly theistic outlook. That trend may have accelerated through the 20^th and 21^st Centuries, but there has been no significant break in perspective. 

Humans are basically conservative. Not politically, but personally. Most of us take comfort in continuity. We may adapt to technical change, but we still want it to fit within the framework of the familiar. We generally bend the technology to the lifestyle we know, using it as an augmentation rather than a disrupter.  

It will take something more radical than electronic gadgets, no matter how sophisticated, to break us out of the habits and mindsets that currently predominate. Climate change has that potential. If trends play out as some scientists predict, parts of the globe could become uninhabitable, and scarcity more prevalent. That could well result in deep seeded alterations in how we connect to the earth and each other.  

The current chip shortages prefigure another possible radical shift. Perhaps at this juncture our world is not as threatened by new technology as it is by a loss of the technology we have come to depend on. So much of what we use in daily life requires those chips to operate. A more permanent disruption of that supply chain would entail a step backwards, which would be much more difficult than steps forward.  

Of course, none of that will happen in 2022, if it ever does (the climate change scenario is obviously much more likely). Even if any of these catastrophes do occur, they will play out in ways that we cannot imagine. They will demand flexibility and innovations that are beyond my ability to conjure. 

It is that personal inability to envision the future that will keep me going back to dystopias. The ability of books like Blindness by Jose Saramago or The Children of Men by PD James to awaken a future when humans are forced to rethink life’s basic assumptions are fascinating. The power of movies like Mad Max: Fury Road, Blade Runner 2049, or even Wall-E in creating a broken-down world is striking.      

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That is the fun of dystopias. They let you explore worst case scenarios without actually experiencing them. At the same time, they reinforce that the future is not set in stone, and that we need to carefully consider the impact of what we are doing today on future generations. Not a bad message to receive. 

I would be remiss if I did not give a shoutout to depictions of the future that are not so grim. The various Star Trek series are at the top of that list, providing a possible societal evolution that is positive. I think that goes a long way towards accounting for its continuing popularity. As gripping as the dystopias can be, it is heartening to imagine a world where we are not careening through deserts in search of remnants of water and food, while fighting off drug addled automatons. 

2022 will undoubtedly be a year with surprises. They all are. But it is unlikely to be a watershed that will change the basic structure of our society. We will continue to muddle along as we have with incremental steps to who knows where. In the meantime, the futurists will continue to give us plenty to think about, and look forward to, or not.