Life Gets a Warning Label

Rather than report news, many journalists today demand censorship. People can’t be trusted to make up their own minds, so tech companies and media tell us what to think. Antifa will use more forceful methods. This is how things should work in Our Democracy.

Leftists have media power and are not afraid to use it. This means campaigns against things that were innocent just a few years ago. Gone with the Wind is ranked as one of the greatest movies ever made. Today, if you can find a DVD, it comes with a warning label like the one on cigarettes. It sends you to “IMPORTANT HISTORICAL CONTEXT” at GWTWinfo.wb.com:

GONE WITH THE WIND is a product of its time and depicts racial and ethnic prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society. These racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong now.

To create a more just, equitable, and inclusive future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history. This picture is presented as it was originally created. We hope watching it opens up discussions about the roots of institutionalized racism that are still prevalent today. To actively dismantle these systems, we encourage using all tools available including close examination of racist themes depicted in the film.

What “discussion” is possible if we are already committed to “actively dismantle[ing]” racist systems? We know how the “discussion” ends. Putting warning labels on films is the moderate position. John Ridley, screenwriter for 12 Years A Slave, wanted Gone with the Wind removed from HBO Max. He got his wish, but it will return with a “discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions [of blacks and slavery].”

Variety wants warning labels on Dirty Harry, The Searchers, The Silence of the Lambs, and even Forrest Gump. Gump is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest. That’s meant as an insult to the Confederate general, but even hearing his name might be too much for Americans.

The movie and the general.

Children’s movies and rides are not exempt. Peter Pan, The Aristocrats, and Dumbo are as dangerous as cigarettes. Disney+ blocked children under age seven from watching these and other films. Disney “updated” the “Jungle Cruise” ride at Disney resorts. The ThinkWell group, which designs theme parks, said its depictions of native people were “horrifyingly” racist.

One of Disney’s best-known theme park attractions was “The Pirates of the Caribbean” ride, which was the basis for a series of films. Recently, the ride had to be changed. It depicted pirates looting a town — but that wasn’t the problem. They were auctioning off captured women, with the pirates chanting, “We wants the redhead!”

Their song (“Yo-Ho! A Pirate’s Life For Me“) revels in “kidnapping” and “ravaging,” so this was in character, but the ride lacked what the Los Angeles Times called a “strong female character.” In 2018, “the redhead” became a female pirate leading the plundering. I guess if children see violence, they’ll know it’s a joke, but a little “sexism” will traumatize them.

“Splash Mountain,” originally built around The Song of the South and Uncle Remus’s tales of Br’er Rabbit, is another ride also too dangerous for modern Americans. One of Disney’s most famous songs came from this movie; “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” won an Academy Award. However, the film stars the kindly “Uncle Remus” character. Song of the South has become very hard to find because Uncle Remus — scandalously — speaks in an Old South accent and is nice to white children. “Splash Mountain’s” backdrop is now the world of The Princess and the Frog, a mildly successful film about Disney’s sole “black princess.”

The Sinking City, a game built around H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, includes this warning:

In a game review, Vice dismissed Lovecraft as driven by “personal, irrational fears.” He was “a straight white man cataloging the fears of cloistered straight white men who . . . were just beginning to lose some of their power.” If that’s true, his fears weren’t irrational. Any prophet from the 1920s who described the world of today would have been called an alarmist. Lovecraft is too prominent to be ignored, so he is subverted. The program Lovecraft Country, based on his stories, substitutes whites for evil gods.

Jordan Peele movies, such as Get Out and Black KKKLansmen, are revenge fantasy. Django Unchained and Machete are, too. Non-whites happily kill whites, a story that might please critics, but bores viewers who notice we’re seeing the same story over and over.

The Left can subvert H.P. Lovecraft and warn against Gone With The Wind. Some entire eras are suspicious. Progressives are divided on whether to use Medieval Studies to fight today’s culture wars or simply scrap them as part of “decolonizing” the curriculum. People can’t be left to read, watch — or think — without supervision.

If every book, movie, or video game must advance one point of view and one interpretation, we don’t have a culture. We have propaganda. I don’t need to see Queen and Slim, The Purge, Detroit or countless other movies. I know what they are trying to say. It’s not enough to turn off the TV or boycott Netflix. We have to decide what we will do about seeing our people ritualistically humiliated in media. No other group would put up with it.

In old books, films, shows and a few remaining monuments, there are reminders that whites once thought differently. They had a high culture, and a mass culture superior to today’s elite tastes. They had pride, confidence, and an identity. Even the slightest glimpse into this vanished past might cause whites to start dreaming of a better future. I suspect that’s what our rulers fear. That’s why they can’t let up on censorship.

I expect more repression. More innocent things will be banned. Mass culture will continue its descent into agitprop. If there is real culture being created, it will be underground. Our rulers will try to ban that too, but they will fail. But give them credit for one thing. They’ve managed to make even Dumbo seem dangerous.