James Taranto, in his column at the Wall Street Journal, has seen the future in the discussions of reviewing Seth Rogen’s latest movie among the editorial staff of a “queer publication”, as it is described by its editor, and it is ponderous, humorless, hypersensitive, and radicalized. Here’s a snippet:
Where does one begin with this? We suppose with the sentence about “consent,†which left even some of the site’s commenters incredulous. “Santina†describes it as “not something I would ever have thought I would have to read in my life, ever.†Yet we’d argue it’s not the craziest bit. The animated characters are, after all, anthropomorphic; one can imagine a stylized scene in which sex is portrayed as either consensual or forcible.
Stranger to our mind is the speculation that “she was bisexual.†For goodness’ sake, “she†is a fictitious animated taco shell. Either the film portrayed her as bisexual or not; she has no inner life.
It is also completely Orwellian. Language is eccentric, policed, and rapidly changing.
Under such circumstances practical progress in dealing with the issues at hand grind to a crawl. Now transpose all of those qualities to government or, indeed, any large organization, already nearly fossilized by its sheer size.
Didn’t read Taranto’s piece, but saw the publication’s groveling apology yesterday. It, and the comments that went along with it, were fucking HYSTERICAL! I was dying!
I read stuff like that and … I’m not sure what, actually. I guess it convinces me that whatever bad things are happening to us, they’re not bad enough, and that the people that are employed writing such drivel can’t possible have enough bad things happen to them.
Regardless, it was extremely funny reading, and I recommend it.