I’m aging myself again, but I remember the tumult over the “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” stickers slapped on cassette tapes and records in the 1980s in an attempt to protect the sensitive ears of children from hearing bad words and suggestive lyrics. The actions of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), partly led by Second Lady Tipper Gore, prompted Congressional testimony by John Denver, Frank Zoppa and Dee Snider.
The PMRC’s efforts backfired. Those bright yellow stickers were a purchasing prerequisite for many of us, making it much easier to pick music we knew our parents would hate.
Today’s “cancel culture” arguments are less about free speech and more about the freedom of corporations to change their product branding.
The latest debacle is over the publication of a handful of politically-minded books by Dr. Seuss. His family owns the rights to those books and they do not wish to continue publication because they no longer agree with the sentiments presented. That’s not censorship, that’s their freedom as owner of the rights of publication. As an author, I’ve written books containing sentiments I no longer agree with, and I’ve since removed those books from publication because I’ve grown, learned and changed. That’s not censorship, either. That’s my prerogative as an author.
And seriously, we’re getting all discombobulated about syrup bottles and a plastic potato with interchangeable facial parts and a cartoon skunk?
Should we not be at least slightly more incensed by things like poverty and war and greed and racism and corruption and human trafficking, to name a few?
There are plenty of things that really should be canceled in our culture. When will we start showing the same level of outrage over the real ills that plague us?
By NIKI TURNER – editor@editorht1885.com
