One of the current terms being bandied by the socially aware is 'woke'. It means being cognisant of social issues, and social injustices. Being aware of an imbalance of what is fair in society is very important, and working to address any prejudicial inequalities is even more important. But the problem with some of these woke types is that they're picking the wrong hill upon which to die, with their pretentious, pompous, and peremptory piffle.
If they don't like the manner in which a view or explanation is given, it is derisively referred to with a portmanteau of the gender/ethnicity of the person giving opinion + '-splaining', such as 'mansplaining'. The silly suffix makes me think of Desi Arnaz chiding, 'Hey, Lucy! You got some 'splaining to do!' This would of course offend the woke types because it is buying into the racist stereotype of a Cuban-born man living in America.
The other night I turned into Q&A on the ABC, and heard a beauty of a question from the woke crowd. The theme for the evening was Shakespeare, and other issues affecting the arts. The person who asked this must have 'woke-n' that morning, feeling ready to take on the world on behalf of the downtrodden, and put on her pretentious but forgot to pack her brain. The question posed to the panel went thus: "What kind of influence can a 454-year-old dead white guy's plays have on Australia's varied cultural landscape, without whitesplaining things?"
Um, what? Shakespeare was 52 when he died! Oh wait, did you mean to say, 'What kind of influence can the plays of a white man who died 454 years ago have on Australia's varied cultural landscape, without whitesplaining things?'? That would certain make more sense insofar as the grammatical aspect goes, but that's about it. What is this 'whitesplaining' twaddle? Shakespeare cannot be held accountable for his ethnicity, and it shouldn't be an issue. And another thing: Shakespeare was an English writer trying to eke out an existence during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, so it is very unlikely he was thinking about some future antipodean cultural landscape.
Shakespeare had an amazing understanding of human nature, quirks, flaws, and foibles, which is apparent in his works, the themes of which still resonate. He created magic with words, poetically enjambed on the page. How many phrases are used in common everyday language that have had their genesis from the quill of the Bard? Clue: a fucken shitload.
I also have left-leaning politics, but the utter stupidity of some people really embarrasses me. Like I said, find another hill to die on. And do it quietly.
The other lot of dumb permeating my newsfeed today comes courtesy of the Perpetually Offended who took umbrage at the costume worn by Shaun White for Hallowe'en. If you don't know who Shaun White is, and I didn't until today, he's a skater and snowboarder. His costume was Simple Jack from the movie Tropic Thunder. Did anyone see that movie? How funny was it? You'll recall Simple Jack was a fictional character played by a fictional actor in Tropic Thunder (the actor being played by Ben Stiller). Part of the running gag was Stiller's character didn't win the Oscar for this character because he 'went the full retard'. Part of the nuanced satire of Tropic Thunder was the commonality of actors winning Oscars when playing a character with some level of disability, be it physical or intellectual. Think Eddie Redmayne as Professor Stephen Hawking. How about Daniel Day Lewis as Christie Brown (but it was well deserved - a consummate performance)? Then there's Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump (a travesty because it should have gone to John Travolta in Pulp Fiction).
And you guessed it - someone got the shits over White's choice of costume in the belief White was being disrespectful to those with intellectual disability. To these numbskulls - and I will type this slowly - Simple Jack is a fictional character in a movie that was a satire of Hollywood norms. The movie dealt with Hollywood attitudes, not the disabled.
Shaun White did issue an apology, but I don't think he should have. Most people could see he was not trying to be disrespectful.
I think these woke AF perpetually sooky types owe everyone with a degree of common sense an apology for all the offence they're causing to US!
Every time I read about this shit, I find myself wailing, 'Can't people learn to CON-TEXT-STEW-WULL-IIIIIZE!' I've typed the last word in a phonetic representation of my frustrated caterwaul, mainly to give you an image, but the word to which I refer is 'contextualise'. Nobody seems to do that these days, and everyone's jumping up and down losing their shit over things that do not need to be jumped up and down and have shit lost over.
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