For the past few months I’ve really limited my national news watching time. I’d read how it was almost all negative and it wasn’t all that healthy. To be honest I think they may be onto something. But, I did see enough to know that there are some people with way too much time on their hands when it comes to Christmas songs, movies and James Bond.
I’ve listened to “Baby It’s Cold Outside” for years and I guess just didn’t realize it was so awful and needed to be banned from the radio. I just enjoyed the tune, and image of a cold night, a pretty girl and really thought nothing more about it.
How could I have been so naïve?
With all the nasty lyrics and movies out there today, which are not subtle with rape, crime, drug use, what was it about this song that jumped out at people? I really don’t know.
Or how about after 54 years, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer has suddenly become a “bigoted” film that “features bullying and sexism” according to a story in the Huffington Post. Some even saw it including “racist and homophobic” components. And Rudolph’s dad Donner — what a sexist for saying he’d go out into the horrible storm and look for Rudolph who was missing, calling it “man’s work.”
I’ve seen that show many times with my kids as they grew up and I thought it was about a reindeer with a red nose that saves Christmas.
I watched it again, but all I saw was a cute movie about a reindeer with a red nose that gets a girlfriend and saves Christmas.
I still think it’s a classic.
Same with some concluding “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” is suddenly bad? A writer suggests because Franklin is seated at a table across from the other characters, on a wobbly chair and the others chairs are sturdier, it’s racist? I’ve watched that classic for years with my kids too and none of them has ever seen anything deeper than Lucy pulling the football from Charlie Brown and Charlie falling for it repeatedly.
But this year it’s racist because of the seating arrangements at a table? And Franklin, the only black character in the movie, has a crappy chair? Sure seems like a stretch to me.
The lyrics of “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” and the content of both these movies will continue to be part of my families Christmas season traditions. And given all the violent, nasty lyrics in some music and movies (video games) today, along with a bunch of political correctness messaging in cartoons, I’ll take these classics any day.
As bad as I think these old classic are suddenly being treated, it was the treatment of James Bond in a recent study that really set me off. James Bond — are you kidding me?
Some ingrates in a New Zealand university concluded the fictional James Bond has a drinking problem. Who wouldn’t after saving the world all the time? Disarming nuclear bombs, air combat and dealing with repeated attempts on your life is risky business and could lead to fictional drinking.
The real study concluded the fictional Bond consumed 109 fictional drinks from 1962 to 2015, and performed many risky fictional acts after doing so.
So a real study concluded a fictional character’s ability to save the world performing all kinds of dangerous fictional maneuvers, after drinking, was an exaggeration? Good grief, if they weren’t who’d watch the movie?
All of these — the song, Christmas movies and of course James Bond — have one thing in common; they are entertainment. People don’t have to watch or listen to any of them if they don’t want to, but demanding a song be banned, or suddenly coming to the conclusion old kids’ shows suddenly contain destructive subtle messages, or a fictional spy’s fictional drinking is a problem, is hard to take seriously.
Especially given all the crap produced by “artists” and Hollywood today.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis, and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@yahoo.com.
