I Guess I’m Not a Liberal Anymore

The weirdest thing is happening. I feel like I’ve woken up to discover I am now on a different planet. It’s like I’m in every episode of The Twilight Zone. I’ve been suddenly thrust into a world of pig faces, and the pig faces think they’re beautiful and I’m the horrific human faced freak.

A lot of people are talking about this article in New York Magazine about political correctness. It addresses a lot of the same things I wrote about regarding rape jokes. I don’t know a single thing about the guy who wrote it, Jonathan Chait, all I know is what he wrote in this article. And I agreed with just about all of it.

But then I went on Gawker and another guy wrote a complete takedown of the article. Actually, it wasn’t even a takedown of the article. It was a takedown of the writer. Apparently, Chait is a white guy, so he’s not allowed to write about political correctness. I was very surprised by this. But way more surprised when I explored the rest of the internet, and twitter, to find that most people agree with the Gawker guy! Not just randoms either, people I like and trust.

It’s not like Chait was even talking about himself. He wasn’t claiming that he was a victim. He was citing and quoting many others. And yet the critics of what he wrote are all making it personal, about him. But here’s a paragraph that stuck out to me:

Michelle Goldberg (a write for The Nation) wrote recently about people “who feel emotionally savaged by their involvement in [online feminism] — not because of sexist trolls, but because of the slashing righteousness of other feminists.” Former Feministing editor Samhita Mukhopadhyay told her, “Everyone is so scared to speak right now.”

I’d just be curious to know what the critics think of what this lady Samhita is saying. She’s not a man and not white. So maybe there is some truth to all of this?

Who am I to say though, I’m a white guy, so I’m just a whiny bitch. Point taken, liberals.

Moving on, I was actually going to write about something else today, but that something else is very much related to this whole political correctness thing. I was going to write about the Jean-Claude Van Damm movie, “Timecop”.

I love me some “Timecop”. It’s an underrated gem, and easily Van Damme’s best. It’s about cops who travel back in time to stop other people from going back in time and fucking shit up. It’s all in the title!

And the bad guy in the film – played to perfection by the late, great Ron Silver – threatens his enemies by saying that he will go back in time and not just kill them, but kill their parents, and even their great grandparents. He’s like a landscaper, he’ll fuck up your whole family tree!

It just so happens that this movie is not a work of fiction. It’s actually happening. Because the PC Police aren’t just patrolling the streets now, in 2015. They are also motherfucking Timecops! They’re going back in time and getting mad at politically incorrect slights from years ago!!

For example:

Y’all know that I love that website “The Dissolve”. And my favorite feature they do is ForgotBusters, where they write about a movie that did well financially but has been forgotten. This week, to my shock and horror, it was “Boomerang”.

Forgotten!!! Boomerang is remembered just about everyday in the Handleman household. I quote that movie constantly. It’s a Rememberedbuster! Once again, I wonder what planet I am on. Boomerang is a God Damn classic.

Oh, but he does say:

Re-watching Boomerang, I noticed a lot of lines that were recycled in hip-hop. Of course no movie is truly forgotten, and hip-hop seems to have remembered Boomerang a lot better than the rest of the population.

No, dude, you have forgotten it way more than the rest of the population.

Anyway, in his analysis, he seeks out political incorrectness like some kind of heat seeking feminist. He’s not just citing examples of “sexism”, he’s actively wanting them to happen. And judging them through the lens of 2015’s “you can’t offend anyone” doctrine.

Through this lens, Martin Lawrence’s character is apparently no longer funny.

Boomerang is coarse and unfunny when it devotes itself to bro-talk, most notably due to Lawrence’s presence. He was red-hot at the time, and he’s mainly here to say things like, “How’s the coochie?” and “Something is wrong with the twizat,” which are the kinds of things Lawrence got paid good money to say onscreen during his commercial heyday, despite the film’s occasionally successful aspirations toward sophistication. 

David Alan Grier comes off much better as the sensitive member of the film’s trio of pals.

That is the whole point of their characters!!! Martin Lawrence is the shallow, irrational, shit talker, Grier is the too sensitive, sensible one. And Eddie Murphy is the guy in between. That is the friendship dynamic the movie is going for.

Of course, the writer of this article LOVES Grier and hates Lawrence. Because talking about the coochie is so coarse. It’s disgusting! But that sensitive, nice guy who treats women with respect? He’s the hilarious one.

Even though he doesn’t show the movie proper respect, he does end up pleasantly surprised that the movie isn’t as sexist as he was seemingly hoping it would be so he could get properly mad about it. Thank God.

I thought this was an aberration, and perhaps I was being too sensitive about ONE OF THE GREATEST MOVIES EVER. But the next day, wouldn’t you know it, someone took aim at something else I love. Friends!

I point you to an absolutely bat shit crazy Salon.com article entitled, “Chandler’s Treatment of His Gay Father is Appalling; And Other Things Critics Realized While Watching Friends in 2015”.

Timecops!

Wait a minute. Hold the fucking phone for a second. You know who was in an episode of Friends? Jean-Claude Van Damme! Maybe that wasn’t a guest starring role, maybe he was going back in time to arrest them for making gay jokes!