“If you don’t have a sense of humor, it just isn’t funny.”
—Wavy Gravy
When it comes to political correctness, I’m not convinced we should go back to the “good old days.” I mean, do we really want to go back to calling someone born to an unwed mother a bastard? Heck, people don’t even use the phrase “unwed mother” or “out of wedlock” anymore, do they? Come to think of it, what do we call them? I guess we don’t call them anything, and isn’t that the whole point?
The Blunt Instrument of Satire
I was considering these rather unpleasant questions, at least in part, because I’m working on a novel of a highly delicate nature.
Nah, I’m kidding. In fact, I’m working on a novel of a highly indelicate nature: Hot Scenes, the fictional equivalent of a blunt instrument. The main character, sleazy Hollywood director J. Edgar Schnatz, decides to make a “mainstream” porn movie with as many famous actors as he can find. Chaos ensues.
It’s not exactly what you’d call politically correct.
A Tongue-in-Cheek Trigger Warning
As far as I’m concerned, there’s no way to write a satirical novel of this nature without being politically incorrect. So I will be prefacing it with an all-inclusive, tongue-in-cheek “trigger warning.” It begins with “If you’ve ever done porn; been molested…,” and goes on to list everything I could think of in terms of possible triggers, concluding with “a work of fiction that makes fun of everyone and everything may not be for you.”
I’m generally not in favor of political correctness, despite my far-left liberal stance on most positions. While it’s a little old school, I believe there’s a vast gulf between speaking or writing a word and calling someone that word.
I write this in a time where we have become an increasingly infantilized nation, what with the “N-word,” the “C-word,” the “F-word,” and who knows how long before we use up the other 23 letters in the alphabet in this manner. When you consider the number of actual bombs our country drops on people, we really shouldn’t be traumatized by an individual using an “F-bomb”…should we?
What do you think? Shall we tiptoe more and more around what might offend our friends’ and neighbors delicate sensibilities? Or should we put on our big-boy and big-girl pants and grow the hell up? You know where I stand. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
