Political correctness.

[NWO Sentryman]

Yes, pretty much. We live in a world where minority wants and needs dominate the majority, the smaller the minority, the greater effort is made to meet their needs, often at the expense of the majority.

e.g. schools with populations numbering in the hundreds, where the children are not allowed to put up Christmas decorations because it might offend the three Muslim children in the school.

Well, I'm of a "if you're going to say something, don't faff around and just say it." school of thought. I mean, watch the English dub of One Piece, and how political correctness screwed that up (For example, Death and any mention thereof was obliterated - Because Death scares children, which makes it politically incorrect - , ANY depictions of firearms, tobacco and alcohol - ZOMG, parents, especially Soccer moms and religious figures would be offended by everyday things, at least in the US/Canada, that's politically incorrect - were edited out). And I haven't even gotten into the more egregious edits. It is important to remember that this dub was made in 2004-6. Other anime shows got even worse treatment when it went to the dubbing phase back in the 80s and 90s. It's stuff like this which has damaged the credibility of the Anime industry among fans (and why Fansubs have been a persistent cancer on it - but that's for another topic)

 

[angrysoba]

Well, I'm of a "if you're going to say something, don't faff around and just say it." school of thought. I mean, watch the English dub of One Piece, and how political correctness screwed that up (For example, Death and any mention thereof was obliterated - Because Death scares children, which makes it politically incorrect - , ANY depictions of firearms, tobacco and alcohol - ZOMG, parents, especially Soccer moms and religious figures would be offended by everyday things, at least in the US/Canada, that's politically incorrect - were edited out). And I haven't even gotten into the more egregious edits. It is important to remember that this dub was made in 2004-6. Other anime shows got even worse treatment when it went to the dubbing phase back in the 80s and 90s. It's stuff like this which has damaged the credibility of the Anime industry among fans (and why Fansubs have been a persistent cancer on it - but that's for another topic)

I'm not sure if Victorian-style prudishness or parental pressure on commercially-available magazines or movies really counts as "political correctness". From what I understand, Victorian attitudes to sex and violence in entertainment were much more censorious than they are today. In everyday language as well, women (or rather ladies) were supposed to swoon at the word "trousers" because of the obvious sexual overtones of the word, and I have read somewhere that the word "leg" was considered absolutely filthy in the US. In fact, there are lots of terms from that time, such as Bowlderized, which refer to the way in which filthy publications such as the Bible and Shakespeare had to be edited for sexually explicit content. Not only that but words such as "rooster" in the US replaced positively disgusting "cock", and "arse" was replaced with "ass", and more recently "toilet" with "restroom".

All of this predates the modern phenomenon of "political correctness" which is largely concerned with language that is considered offensive to minority groups or women. There is some cross-over with the censorship you are talking about and maybe some of the health concerns like smoking and drinking are a form of political correctness but mostly seems like modern-day Puritanism. In fact, I think most people with Victorian-Puritan attitudes are more likely to be opposed to what they call "political correctness" because of its apparent assault on what they consider to be age-old traditions.

 

[Ryokan]

The first thing I think of when I hear 'political correctness' are people complaining about it not being acceptable for them to be bigots in public anymore.

 

[Ryokan]

As for the dubbing and release of Japanese anime, I think that has more to do with how animated media is seen in the west. While animation and comics are published for all ages and all possible genres in Japan, in the west it's still seen strictly as a kids media.

Did you really not expect a company called 4kids to 'clean up' an anime to make it more kid friendly according to western standards? That has nothing to do with political correctness. I'm sure some other company, someone who didn't plan to market the series strictly towards children, would probably have done a better job at introducing One Piece to a western, English speaking audience, if they had aquired the rights instead.

 

[angrysoba]

As for the dubbing and release of Japanese anime, I think that has more to do with how animated media is seen in the west. While animation and comics are published for all ages and all possible genres in Japan, in the west it's still seen strictly as a kids media.

Did you really not expect a company called 4kids to 'clean up' an anime to make it more kid friendly according to western standards? That has nothing to do with political correctness.

Yeah, I agree with this except for one small point. You may be surprised by what kinds of things do appear in anime aimed at junior high school-aged readers in Japan. Things such as sadistic rape of young teenaged girls appear in these comics. I wasn't sure if the one that I saw was just a one-off so, for the sake of science, I had to browse through all the other editions that I found at the barber's.

 

[Ryokan]

I'm well aware of that. It's why I wrote kid friendly according to western standards, to differentiate it from the Japanese standards.

But as western publishers of Japanese media goes, 4kids are the ones most likely to target young children. That really shouldn't come as a surprise. If you can't handle that, get hold of the originals with subtitles instead. They're better in 99% of cases anyway.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

As for the dubbing and release of Japanese anime, I think that has more to do with how animated media is seen in the west. While animation and comics are published for all ages and all possible genres in Japan, in the west it's still seen strictly as a kids media.

Did you really not expect a company called 4kids to 'clean up' an anime to make it more kid friendly according to western standards? That has nothing to do with political correctness. I'm sure some other company, someone who didn't plan to market the series strictly towards children, would probably have done a better job at introducing One Piece to a western, English speaking audience, if they had aquired the rights instead.

Well, they did (mildly NSFW)

It's just that in Anime circles, Political Correctness is synonymous with censorship and bowdlerisation.

 

[angrysoba]

Well, they did (mildly NSFW)

It's just that in Anime circles, Political Correctness is synonymous with censorship and bowdlerisation.

So, what you mean is that absolutely nobody is preventing one of those cartoons from being sold in its more-or-less original form, but some companies with the rights to the movies have made a commerical decision (i.e some crazy scheme to turn a profit) to make it more child-friendly ensuring more customer satisfaction?

 

[Stomatopoda]

The stuff that gets butchered in dubs/localization these days is pretty much just the thousand-episode shows aimed at children, or maybe tweens. Material aimed at teens and adults is usually left intact.

for example (NSFW language): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj5cdBnS5SA

 

[smartcooky]

The first thing I think of when I hear 'political correctness' are people complaining about it not being acceptable for them to be bigots in public anymore.

Oh, it still allows bigotry in public, it just limits some targets while allowing open slather on others.

e.g. white man calls a black man the "n" word and the clappers of hell will descend upon him from a great height; he'll be labelled racist and a bigot (and rightly so) but black man calls a white man a "honky" or "whitey" or "white trash" and guess what? Nothing happens to him! The silence will be deafening

This is a double standard of the worst kind. Perhaps someone can justify why this should be so. I can't think of why!

Additionally, there are many examples of language ignorance that lead to false accusations of bigotry. Take the case of the aide to the mayor of Washington D.C. who used the word "niggardly" (which means "miserly") to describe a budget, and was forced to resign because the Mayor (who incidentally, was black) took it as an insulting racial slur.

The etymology of the "n" word and of "niggardly" are not related in any way.

 

[Morrigan]

In fact, when was the last time a heavy metal album was released on a record?

...Is this for real?

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

1. You can't tell Irish/Polish/Jewish or race based jokes any more, but telling jokes that denigrate or disparage white, middle-class adult males is considered to be perfectly acceptable.

Er, many Poles and Irish are white, middle-class adult males...

To be honest the only time I've heard jokes that promoted stereotypes against men and Whites is from comedians who also told stereotypes against non-Whites and women.

And this leads to the question of who you are attacking when attacking "political correctness". I am against all of those above, but clearly you only targeted a population that was okay with some but not others. Which of us is carrying the banner of political correctness?

3. Children at state-run schools are not allowed to excel, especially in sports. Excellence is frowned upon, so there are no winners or losers and the scores are not kept, lest it should dent the egos of the less successful children, and their parents. It is no coincidence that our most successful sporting schools are private schools (or as they strangely call them in Britain, "Public Schools")

I know we are not from the same country, but in the US I hear this exact same thing all the time and it is just not true, so I am going to be dubious.

4. Children at school no longer fail. We cannot say that a child has failed, we must protect them from this psychological trauma by calling it "deferred success".

Again, I am dubious about how widespread this actually is.

5. The systematic, and misguided attempt to gender neutralise everyday terminology. We no longer have a gingerbread man, a chairman or a spokesman, we have a "gingerbread person", a "chairperson" and a "spokesperson".

But that one is just more accurate and simple.

Political Correctness is an insidious, creeping disease that has infected human society over the thirty to forty years, starting with the ramblings of self appointed social engineers like Virginia Satir, and continuing with her many disciples and ardent followers in the psycho-quackery trade. Her diatribe "I am me" contains, IMO, some of the most socially damaging ideas of the 20th century, extolling the virtues of "self-esteem" at the expense of personal responsibility.

But you're lumping the self-esteem movement with gender-neturality with anti-stereotyping humour, etc.

At a school where I used to teach, our heads of subject departments were known as "Managers". MDE was Manager; Department of English, MDS, Manager; Department of Sciences, MDH, Manager; Department of History etc. Then we had a new, woman Headmaster arrive (who insisted on being called "Headperson"). At a staff-meeting, she told us all that she wanted to change the titles of the department heads. This was because she considered the term "manager" to be gender-biased (having the prefix "man"). I laughed, and so did a couple of other teachers, and when she asked me what I though was funny, asked her if she understood the etymology of the word; that the "man" in "manage" wasn't a prefix at all; that in fact the whole word "manage" was actually derived from the Italian word "maneggiare" which means "to handle" or "to control". This brought more snickering and chuckling in the room, and her face went crimson!

I respectfully suggested that she leave the names of titles as they are, but that should a woman be appointed to any of the positions, they could replace the word "manager", with "damager". Needless to say, this got me offside with the Headmaster (or should I say Headperson). Well, what did I expect, embarrassing her in front of her staff. Well, I did say earlier that I used to teach there.

I can see why. That anecdote makes her come off as uninformed and you come off... not in a good light.

6. Discouraging people being allowed to speak their mind. Instead, they have to tip-toe around the sensitivities of the overly precious.

We tip-toe around people all the time... Well, I suppose in light of your example I should say that most people do. It is often called politeness, common courtesy, artful communication, etc. Those who cannot do this are in the DSM-IV.

 

[angrysoba]

Oh, it still allows bigotry in public, it just limits some targets while allowing open slather on others.

e.g. white man calls a black man the "n" word and the clappers of hell will descend upon him from a great height; he'll be labelled racist and a bigot (and rightly so) but black man calls a white man a "honky" or "whitey" or "white trash" and guess what? Nothing happens to him! The silence will be deafening.

Maybe this depends on where you're talking about. I haven't heard the words "honky" or "whitey" used with a straight face since...well...ever. It may have been once, but most of the uses I know of have come from '70s movies which themselves used it either as a tongue-in-cheek term or else it was of dubious authenticity (i.e Live and Let Die). As for White Trash, it seems to be a term used more by white comedians such as Bill Maher than by black people. Although I am sure you have some examples you can share.

This is a double standard of the worst kind. Perhaps someone can justify why this should be so. I can't think of why!

Additionally, there are many examples of language ignorance that lead to false accusations of bigotry. Take the case of the aide to the mayor of Washington D.C. who used the word "niggardly" (which means "miserly") to describe a budget, and was forced to resign because the Mayor (who incidentally, was black) took it as an insulting racial slur.

The etymology of the "n" word and of "niggardly" are not related in any way.

Well, a false accusation of bigotry is surely something different to what most people intend when they call for some kind of "political correctness". For example, if the aide had called the Mayor the n-word, would that be grounds for sacking?

 

[angrysoba]

I know we are not from the same country, but in the US I hear this exact same thing all the time and it is just not true, so I am going to be dubious.

Yeah, I think the idea that state-school students are forbidden from excelling is false.

 

[Ziggurat]

- Not least, removal of ANY mention of Death (Bonus points: the first dub of Dragonball Z, where death was referred to as "the next dimension")

I never watched Dragonball Z. But I remember, rather vividly, an episode of Robotech where an important and likeable character got killed. It was a "holy ****!" moment for me as a kid.

 

[wishface]

It's political correctness gone mad: you can't call a paki a queer no more!

 

[BStrong]

All you need to know about PC in todays world is this:

The movie Blazing Saddles could not be produced today with the same content as it was in 1974.

 

[smartcooky]

Er, many Poles and Irish are white, middle-class adult males...

And many Poles are Jews, and some are black, and some Irish are black too.

None of this is the point.

I have always been of the school that if you don't like what is being said, no-one is making you listen.

- if you are Irish and are at a live comedy show when the comedian starts telling Irish jokes, just walk out if you are offended by it.

- if there is a movie on at the local theatre with a censors VLS content warning, and you think this will offend you, then don't buy tickets.

- if its a TV programme with the VLS content warning, then change channels or use the off button, and if you don't want your children exposed to it, use parental control.

To be honest the only time I've heard jokes that promoted stereotypes against men and Whites is from comedians who also told stereotypes against non-Whites and women.

Exactly, and are they censured when they use the word "redneck"?

Would they be censured if they used the N word?

And this leads to the question of who you are attacking when attacking "political correctness"?

I am against anything that trivializes any part of the human condition at the expense of simply telling human truth.

I am actually deaf in my right ear (I have tinnitus) and I hate it when doctors and other danny-do-gooders tell me that I am "hearing impaired" or "aurally challenged".

Well, I'm not I'm "hearing impaired" or "aurally challenged", I am *********** deaf!

I know we are not from the same country, but in the US I hear this exact same thing all the time and it is just not true, so I am going to be dubious.

Again, I am dubious about how widespread this actually is.

Having been a teacher in a state run school, I can assure you that it is true. I have seen the introduction of the participation at the expense of competition philosophy in the last school I was at, and I have seen it in action with kids being rotated to "give everyone a go" in representative school teams, rather than selecting players on ability and merit. I have been instructed not to use the word "fail" or any of its derivatives, and to use "deferred success" or "provisional passmark" instead.

But you're lumping the self-esteem movement with gender-neturality with anti-stereotyping humour, etc.

Yes, because they are all part of Political Correctness.

I can see why. That anecdote makes her come off as uninformed and you come off... not in a good light.

At the very least, I would expect a teacher, especially an English language teacher (which she was) to either;

a. already know that "manage" was not a gender biased term, or

b. have taken the time to find out before making a fool of herself in from of the staff of a new school.

We tip-toe around people all the time... Well, I suppose in light of your example I should say that most people do. It is often called politeness, common courtesy, artful communication, etc. Those who cannot do this are in the DSM-IV.

I think you are getting the wrong end of the stick here.

It is possible to be polite and show common courtesy without have to worry about for example, offending a non-Christian person because you happen to ask them where they are going for the Christmas holidays. I cannot imagine any Christian or Atheist being offended if a Muslim asked them what they were going to eat during Ramadan.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Dubbed Anime was regularly made "politically correct" (and it's something the anime industry has suffered from until recently), by which I mean

- Names were changed
- Egregious edits were made (In ANY 4Kids dub, firearms are edited out, and in their dub of One Piece, cigarettes were replaced with Lollipops, I **** you not.)
- Whole arcs are cut out (Granted, they may have been filler arcs, but it wrecks the pacing and the tempo of the Anime).
- Other examples of this sort of political correctness: ANY 4Kids dub, most 80s English dubbed Anime (Gatchaman, Golion/Voltron - whichever one it is)
- Not least, removal of ANY mention of Death (Bonus points: the first dub of Dragonball Z, where death was referred to as "the next dimension")

ETA: as for Heavy Metal, I was referring to mass burnings of their CDs and Records due to being "politically incorrect". Rap also seems to be getting a LOT of the flak lately, although it is the Glam Rap (not the socially conscious like NWA or Public Enemy).

I double-checked and this is not, in fact, a bumped thread from 1998 with echose of stuck in 1992. What are your feeling on Andrew Dice Clay? He's been getting some bad press lately.

"Politically incorrect" is mostly used derisively, to suggest an almost Stalinist "correct" way of thinking you might otherwise call "sensitive," "trying too hard to be sensitive," etc. Why it often comes across awkward and heavy handed is anyone's guess.

 

[smartcooky]

All you need to know about PC in todays world is this:

The movie Blazing Saddles could not be produced today with the same content as it was in 1974.

You could apply that to Flying High (a.k.a. Airplane) as well.

Also, Monty Pythons Flying Circus, Open All Hours, The Two Ronnies, The Benny Hill Show and The Kenny Everett Video Show. None them would stand a snowball's chance in hell of being made today. Instead we get the banal crap that network executives try to pass off on us as "comedy" , such as Friends, Ned & Stacy, Big Bang Theory and Glee.