Political correctness - censorship or treating people with respect?

Today for something more serious, I present my opinion of political correctness (I know: ouch!).

People tend to use term ”political correctness” so often, it starts to lose its inital meaning and becomes an oncoming, alarming danger to known order and our freedom of expression. Is it our real enemy or are we just afraid of changes?

Maybe it would be useful to explain what political correctness actually means: it i san attitude when we use such language that will not offend the person we talk to. So we have changed a bit the way we speak about people of colour and with various disabilities, and some have impression there is pressure on them to produce sentences that won’t offend absolutely anyone and that there freedom of speech has been violeted, because it is very hard – in many situations nearly impossible – to please everybody with our choice of words, mostly because everybody’s preferences are different. Neil Gaiman proposed that we changed the term ”political correctness” to ”treating people with respect”, which substantially should be the very purpose of existing and promoting the idea of political correctness. This interpretation is much easier for me to apply as a way of thinking. Everybody deserves respect, but that does not mean that their opinions or actions cannot be criticized.

There are three very common motives , compulsorily present in all movie blockbusters, so I am sure you noticed tchem as well:

1. strong woman – pretty and in love with the leading white male character
2. homosexual/trasexual best friend (often blended with funny black guy)
3. that funny black guy/sarcastic bitch

These patterns are so popular, they became stereotypical and watching how many film producers use tchem is frankly frightening.

In this industry appears an universal fear of rage of the most noticeable activist groups. It is understandable nobody wants to be proclaimed as a chauvinist, but it doesn’t justify taking the easy way out and mass producing schematical characters instead of taking the effort of actually writing them as interesting and differentiated human beings.

I came across two main attitudes towards political correctness, but the negative reception seems to significantly dominate. The term makes people imagine that certain manner of filmming is enforeced and therefore creators’ freedom is limited. In fact, many may be afraid to touch controversial topics, but it is – and always has been – matter of the courage of filmmakers and their ability to capably present a sensitive subject. It is worth remembering that somebody always will feel offended – it’s unavoidable, but shouldn’t affect efforts to bring out the picture possibly closest to reality or to bold some meanigful aspects, though it may not be compatible with point of view of many.

The good thing that comes from the phenomen of political correctness is that it develops the feeling in both, creators and audiences, that deversity should be present in productions. That it is important everybody would feel represented in a fictional universum and that choosing a multicultural location as a background for a stroy commit to involve characters of many origins, not only white.

An example of a character, who may be considered as the added to the plot just to fulfill current expectations put on by political correctness is Tauriel form The hobbit trilogy. It is simply impersmissable that the year’s biggest feature does not involve any female (Galadriel appearence was barely episodical, so it’s hard to call her a protagonist of The Hobbit) and in the same time, her character doesn’t bring anything new to representation of women in the cinematography (nor LOTR universum as a matter of fact). But queries like if a black Bond or female Doctor is acceptable have nothing to do with political correctness, just the readiness of fans to walk out on what they are used to, as the characters are completely fictional (and in addition, one is an alien). Different case is Exodus: Gods and Kings telling story of Moses set in ancient Egypt (let’s say it very clearly: pure, ancient Egypt , located in Africa), however all actors playing leading roles and most of the cast are white, which is unthinkable considering that America does not lack actors of the suitable origin and proper casting wouldn’t be a problem. I cannot imagine that somebody thought of Moses and saw Christiane Bale. How??

So, political correctness may be vexing to many, but it shows an important message: racism is not cool and we must fight. Maybe soon we realise that less than censorship it may be more a treatment to show a world closer to the reality and put an end to the exclusion of few in the cinema, and that nothing is black or white, which make life so confusing and movies so needed.

PS In the case of James Bond it's not the matter of black guy playing the famous agent, it is about Idris Elba playing the role for which he perfectly suits - he is a born 007: his manners, looks, class, charm and self confidence. So just finish tallking and let his destiny be fulfilled.