In this age of political correctness, one now has to be very careful about what one says. To some degree I can understand and even agree with that. After all, we should be mindful of the feelings of other when saying certain things… but on the other hand… have we have allowed special interest groups (all of them apparently) to bully us, and Hollywood, into what can be said or done, even at the cost of sacrificing reality?
Here’s a couple of examples of where Political correctness has gotten in the way of truth and reality.
1) Sopranos – I’m Italian (no really, I am) but remember a couple of years ago an Italian American organization protested and called for a boycott of the TV show “The Sopranos” because they felt they were showing Italians to be mobsters? Yeah… well that’s all well and good… but studies have shown that a good chuck of the organized crime in NY is populated by Italians. That’s not to say all Italians are in the mob… but it seems to make sense then, if you’re going to do a show about mob stuff in NY, that you would have your main characters as Italian.
2) Basic Instinct – A large group of Gay and Lesbian organizations protested the film because the leading psychopath character was a lesbian
3) Arab American groups protested recently the TV show 24 because the terrorists in the show are often of Arab descent.
Look, I could go on and on… but you get the point. It just feels these days like unless a bad guy is a white anglo saxon American male, then someone is going to get upset.
So here’s a question. Is it WRONG for a TV show or a movie to show Italians in the mob, if in fact statistics show that a lot of the mob is italian? is it WRONG for a TV show or a movie to portray terrorist characters as coming from Arab descent if statistically most anti-american type terrorists are indeed of Arab descent? Are we so fragile that we can’t show a gay person, or Italian person, or Arab person, or Mexican person going something wrong in a fictitious role without everyone getting totally bent out of shape and claim that the film maker is making a broad general statement about that ethnic/sexual orientation/religious group as a whole????
Are there stereotypes out there? Yup… there sure are. But is it a bad thing to use them if they GENERALLY reflect the world in which we live? Can’t gays be evil sometimes? Can’t Italians break the law? can’t Jewish people be criminals? What are your thoughts?
