What Are You Reading

[DesertDan]

"The Man Eaters of the Tsavo" John H. Patterson
Various "Conan" stories most recently I re-read my most favorite "Red Nails".
I am also reading, for the first time, the "Tarzan" stories by Burroughs.

 

[Fading Fast]

Just finished "A Man Called Ove" by Fredrik Backman. This Swedish novel starts out introducing us to a curmudgeon - a man in his late 50s, taciturn, recently widowed, the self-appointed enforcer of every single one of the neighborhood association's rules - who is bitter and suicidally depressed - sounds fun, right?

Turns out to be a funny, and at time hilarious, story that shifts back in time to explore how he got to this point while moving forward day by day as his new neighbor - a very pregnant Iranian woman with a houseful of kids and a gentle, incompetent Swedish husband - sees something in Ove and draws him out both for her needs (he's competence on steroids, her husband is incompetence on steroids) and his (he's withdrawing from everything). The push and pull of these two drive the novel along as their personalities sharp elbow their way into a better place for Ove and, well, everyone.

A quick, enjoyable read.

Also, been reading through "The Superman Chronicles" a reprint of the first 14 or so Superman comics from 1938/39. As Lizzie has pointed out, this early Superman takes social injustice into his own hands: In the most recent one I read, he basically traps a mine owner in his own mine to demonstrate the deplorable working conditions and degraded safety devices of the mine.

For fans of 1930s movies, you'll notice how the rich are portrayed very similarly in "Superman -" lavish mansions, usually industrial or natural resource wealth, a gruff - not always polished - patriarch who made the money and a second generation of ne'er do well kids. The scenes of the rich in these original "Superman" comics could have been drawn from half the movies of the '30s.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And they always look like Edward Arnold.

Siegel and Shuster, like most kids of the generation, were obsessive movie fans -- and being working-class kids from Cleveland, that portrait was the only image of wealth they knew. Of course, when they moved to New York and had to deal face to face with Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz, they started showing more in the way of slick, racketeer-oriented moguls...

I came across a fascinating piece on a comics-history blog which, among other things, explains exactly why Superman lost his attitude around 1941. Donenfeld, perhaps concerned about anti-comics crusaders delving too deeply into his own shady background, hired a consultant from the Child Study Association of America to help put together a Code of Ethics to which all his publications would be required to adhere. This code, which took effect in April 1941, among other things mandated that respect for established authority must be taught and upheld at all times -- which put a definitive end to Superman's flamboyant one-man-social-conscience crusades.

 

[Fading Fast]

And they always look like Edward Arnold.

Siegel and Shuster, like most kids of the generation, were obsessive movie fans -- and being working-class kids from Cleveland, that portrait was the only image of wealth they knew. Of course, when they moved to New York and had to deal face to face with Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz, they started showing more in the way of slick, racketeer-oriented moguls...

I came across a fascinating piece on a comics-history blog which, among other things, explains exactly why Superman lost his attitude around 1941. Donenfeld, perhaps concerned about anti-comics crusaders delving too deeply into his own shady background, hired a consultant from the Child Study Association of America to help put together a Code of Ethics to which all his publications would be required to adhere. This code, which took effect in April 1941, among other things mandated that respect for established authority must be taught and upheld at all times -- which put a definitive end to Superman's flamboyant one-man-social-conscience crusades.

His own self impose Hays code.

There are two sides to most stories with each side having some validity (not always, but mostly); however, what we tend to get is one view or the other in the extreme. Not every boss in the 1930s was horrible, not every worker a honest, sincere, hardworking family man - nor was every boss a benevolent paternalist and every worker a shiftless rebel looking to overthrow the system, but we tend to, historically, get one or the other view presented to us.

Initially, the artists present their very left view and, then, the establishment gains control and the very right view takes precedent. The pattern is repeated quite often.

One of the things I look for in books and movies - and all art - are those that show the pluses and minuses of both views, those that show the grey areas, those that show the complexity of the issues. I thought Nolan's Batman Trilogy, especially in the second one, did this very well.

I just re-read the above and think it is fair to say that I'm discussing how art presents political views and am not espousing a political view, but if not, please feel free to delete.

Edit add: and Lizzie, a cat has a prominent role in "A Man Called Ove," I just didn't include it in my short review. You seem to read either serious stuff or historical information form the GE, but if you do like a fun, light, escapist read now and then, I think you'd enjoy this one.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Probably the main image of a "selfless benevolent billionaire" in the popular culture of the Era was Uncle Bim, in the comic strip "The Gumps." Bim was an Australian who made his fortune in the outback and occasionally came to America to stay with his grasping, scheming, amoral petty-bourgeois nephew Andy and his family. Bim was generous with his money to the genuinely needy, but not to Andy and his family, who were constantly being warned by him about the corrupting nature of unearned wealth. Bim's main shortcoming was that he was an utter chump when it came to women, who were usually portrayed as sly manipulators out for his bankroll. But he was never portrayed as malicious or wicked -- just very very very naive.

Bim was a very popular character in the twenties, but became a difficult sell during the Depression, so he was married off to a wide-eyed blonde with a terrifying ogre of a mother, and his globe-trotting adventures were brought pretty much to heel for the rest of his days on the comic page....

(He was also proof that the Fitzgeraldian stereotype of the handsome, elegant millionaire was by no means universal in the Twenties.)

 

[Fading Fast]

The millionaire's house in the Superman comic I referenced looks just like the one in "Sabrina" (which was only 15 years later - the stereotype had staying power).

 

[LizzieMaine]

And the scene where the millionaire proposes taking the party down into the mine has very strong echoes of William Powell's speech to the scavenger-hunt party guests in "My Man Godfrey."

 

[Fading Fast]

And the scene where the millionaire proposes taking the party down into the mine has very strong echoes of William Powell's speech to the scavenger-hunt party guests in "My Man Godfrey."

Yes, exactly, great catch, it feels lifted right out of the movies. The stereotype, meme, what have you, was clearly established and carried through the different mediums.

Something that seems to have been big in the '20s and '30s - wealthy people "entertaining" themselves by having their parties "slumming" in a controlled / contrived way (and, horribly, sometimes using destitute people as pawns or props) - thankfully hasn't made a comeback this go round. Also, the rich seem to party in a more walled-off way versus the '20s flappers or the UK's Bright Young Things.

Maybe the uber-rich are a touch more sensitive or maybe they feel the cauldron burning. That said, it wasn't like the cauldron wasn't white-hot back in the '30s.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Slumming might have reached its peak in the twenties, when it was all the rage for rich white people to go to Harlem to party in segregated nightclubs set up specifically for their benefit, but it was still very much a thing in the thirties -- it's a recurring theme thruout popular culture of the time. One response to it was one of the most popular songs of 1937, Irving Berlin's "Slumming On Park Avenue," introduced by Alice Faye in a movie musical that summer, and written from the point of view of a poor city-dweller who's had just about enough of being gawked at by the Four Hundred, and decides that it's time to turn the tables:


Put on your slumming clothes and get your car
Let's go sightseeing where the high-toned people are
Come on, there's lots of fun in store for you
See how the other half lives on Park Avenue

Let's go slumming, take me slumming
Let's go slumming on Park Avenue

Let us hide behind a pair of fancy glasses
And make faces when a member of the classes passes

Let's go smelling where they're dwelling
Sniffing ev'rything the way they do

Let us go to it, they do it
Why can't we do it too?
Let's go slumming, nose thumbing, on Park Avenue

Let's go slumming, take me slumming
Let's go slumming on Park Avenue

Where the social hearts for Broadway lights are throbbing
And they spend their nights in smart cafes hobknobbing, snobbing

Come let's eye them, pass right by them
Looking down our noses as they do

Let us go to it, they do it
Why can't we do it too?
Let's go slumming, crumb bumming, on Park Avenue!

This wasn't Berlin's first comment on the topic -- his original lyrics for "Puttin' On The Ritz," written in 1930, were from the point of view of an upper-class slummer gawking at Harlemites, so it seems the Depression may have adjusted his perspective on such matters.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And on the subject of militant comic book characters, Superman looks like a Liberty Leaguer next to one of his contemporaries, a fellow called "The Whip," who appeared as a backup feature in "Flash Comics" starting in 1940. He was a "millionaire playboy" and polo champion named Rod Gaynor who nonetheless posessed a rather sharp social conscience. When vacationing in a small Southwestern border town he became outraged by the abuse of Hispanic laborers by an association of white ranchers -- and decided to take action by assuming the identity of "El Castigo," a legendary nineteenth century avenger who fought the grandees of Old Mexico. Dressed in a Zorro-like suit, wearing brown makeup, riding his polo horse, and wielding a twenty-foot bullwhip, "The Whip" proceeded to terrorize the ranchers while taunting them in a hilarious Speedy Gonzalez accent.

Now, by modern standards this might be dismissed as being racist as all hell, but once you get past the brownface and the dialect, "The Whip" stands as the most militant, left-wing comic character not published in the Daily Worker. He was absolutely relentless, quoting FDR in his condemnation of "malefactors of great wealth," and threatening not just to punish, but to flat-out kill ranchers who oppressed the workers. If John Steinbeck had ever written for comic books, he would have written "The Whip."

This went on for about a year until DC adopted its editorial code, the same code that gelded Superman -- and abruptly "The Whip" shifted its locale from the Southwest to New York, and Rod Gaynor began fighting common racketeers and gangsters. The character made no sense at all in this setting, but the strip continued in this style for another four years before fading out. The writer for the entire run was a fellow named John B. Wentworth, about whom I know absolutely nothing other than the fact that he lived in Maine, and that his other major strip, the humor/parody feature "Johnny Thunder," seemed to have no sense of social awareness whatsoever. Seems like there's a story waiting to be uncovered.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ If only we knew someone with research and writing skills and a strong background in the GE - and media and comic character history - who also lives in Maine.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Oh, I've tried, believe me. Lots of blind alleys and dead ends -- Wentworth is a very common name here -- but I'm still digging.

Here's The Whip in action. "One fonny move from anyone..."

(This modern reprint recolors The Whip's face to plain caucasian. In the original comics, he was a deep reddish-brown.)

 

[Fading Fast]

...(This modern reprint recolors The Whip's face to plain caucasian. In the original comics, he was a deep reddish-brown.)

We've chatted about what PC means, and - I think - PC is the reason a cartoon form the '30s would have its colors altered to align with modern political sensitivities. Otherwise, why not let the cartoon stay as it was originally colored if not to make people feel better today / not be offended?

I'm thinking this through as I type, but it would seem that the right thing is to let the cartoon stay as is and then discuss it as you did in your posts. Changing the historical record - which is what this does - seems wrong and motivated by something and that something is political correctness - a ideology that puts feelings and sensitivities above facts and historical records.

That is a first blush brain dump. Maybe I'm wrong - still thinking it through. But I remember awhile back a discussion about what is PC, what does it mean - this might be a good example of it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think this kind of thing is less about not offending people than it is about "avoiding even the slightest possibility of controversy that will hurt sales." People in the comics business will tell you that it's the marketing people who make these decisions, not people trying to promote a point of view -- the only point of view in the front office is "Will this sell?" There have been and are reprints of 1940s-era comics that feature a fine-print disclaimer somewhere on the copyright page that read something like "The material in this collection may reflect social realities of a past era, and does not reflect the current views or attitudes of DC Comics or Time-Warner Inc." The only ideology at work is that of the dollar.

When "The Whip" was briefly revived for guest appearances in the '80s -- in a comic actually set in the '40s -- they sidestepped the whole racial issue by making him actually of Hispanic descent, and a direct descendent of the original "El Castigo." They also had him give up his exaggerated accent:

(In the cut off part of the panel he goes on to explain his ancestry. The moustache is also a bit of revisionism -- he never wore one in the original comics.)

Now, you could argue that this kind of re-envisioning of the character is "PC," but it doesn't actually compromise the character in any way -- if anything, it clarifies his motivations in doing what he does and arguably makes him a better-rounded, more interesting figure. I have no problem with this kind of thing -- it's simply a matter of making a character created decades ago more relatable to the current audience.

 

[Fading Fast]

I agree that updated version of characters, stories, framework have to evolve and adapt to changing social and cultural norms - it would be bizarre and insulting if they didn't - this is new material after all. And, as you said, the updates for The Whip reflect an intelligent evolution that is well explained.

But as to altering the past comics because it would hurt sales, maybe, I have no doubt the dollar drives almost all of these decisions, but there is, then, an indirect PC at work as we as a society are too sensitive to accept a past as it was / a past that had these prejudices. That's a meta-PC (been dying to use meta since you taught it to me ) or second derivative PC as it is the PC general mindset of our culture and its hypersensitivity to past prejudices that drives business decisions to alter historical literature to help sales.

I cringe on my most open-minded day and get outright angry on others when I see, as an example, blacks in movies in the '30s or '40s portrayed as simpleton service people with exaggeratedly servile voices, but as angry as I get, I would be more disgusted if technology allowed them to alter those movies to make us, today, feel better. I don't know if it's the school administrations, the "elites" who write commentary and editorials or the gov't bureaucrats and their endless programs and regulations - but whomever drives our cultural - our acceptable norms - are, IMHO, doing a disservice to us.

We need to recognize the past exactly as it was and then analyze away and criticize and denounce, but not alter historical accuracy for modern sensitivities. Wasn't there a dustup several years ago when it was discovered that cigarettes were (probably still are) being airbrushed out of some '40s and '50s movie stars' pictures (I think James Dean was one). What a weak country we've become if we can't even recognize that there was a time when smoking was the norm, was acceptable, was even "cool."

I can't stand smoking - truly find it vile, but James Dean smoked for God's sake, nothing harmful happens to me today if I see him holding a cigarette. And if we can't raise children to understand that norms evolve and that we learn over time that some things we did in the past were wrong, then we are raising very weak children. My Dad and his buddies used to "reminisce" about their "stupid" days of drinking and driving but knew, even in the '60s, that it was beyond stupid that they had done that and I was taught how wrong and dangerous it was - but without the past having to be whitewashed.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think there's a difference between cultural artifacts viewed and contextualized *as* cultural artifacts -- and cultural artifacts which continue to be marketed as commercial entertainment. In the former case, by all means the item should be preserved and examined exactly as it was originally created. I don't think anyone argues otherwise. But when you're taking a book, a play, a movie, a song, a radio or TV program, a comic book, or some other bit of culture out of its original historical context and marketing it as *current* entertainment, it's often necessary to make allowances for the fact that the culture has not stayed stagnant. The world of 2016 is not the world of 1940, and the average person in 2016 is not going to interpret or accept a piece of culture from 1940 in the same sense as a person who was part of the original culture that created that item.

When you see James Dean, to use your example, and he's smoking a cigarette, is your reaction "There's James Dean" or "OMG JAMES DEAN IS SMOKING A CIGARETTE GROSS!" Increasingly, as society moves on, the latter is going to be the case. If you're trying to sell the movie as simple, uncontextualized entertainment, and not as a Valuable Historic Document, the cigarette is going to eventually become such a distraction that it's going to compromise the story, and maybe, from an entertainment point of view, it might be seen as better to eliminate it, the same way it was seen as better from an entertainment point of view in the 1920s to redub Caruso's acoustically-recorded records with an electrically-recorded orchestra, or to rechannel them for fake stereo in the 1950s. That's just flat reality, and those who own the rights to this material and republish and reissue that material for modern audiences have to take that into account.

This is not a new thing by any means. When "Nick Carter" stories from the early 1900s were reprinted in the 1940s, edits were made to bring them "up to date." Irving Berlin completely rewrote his 1930 lyrics to "Puttin' On The Ritz" in 1946 because the original lyrics, even then, were seen as racially insensitive. When "Gone With The Wind" was adapted for the screen in 1938-39, the screenplay pointedly eliminated the original novel's subplot in which both Rhett and Ashley were shown as active members and supporters of the Ku Klux Klan. When "pre-code" movies were rereleased after 1934, they were ruthlessly edited to bring them into line with Joseph Ignatius Breen's worldview. Many reprinted comic-book stories were being altered in the 1960s to eliminate racial stereotypes or other questionable elements in order to comply with the industry-wide Comics Code -- in some cases, weapons were blotted out of heroes' hands even though they were very obvious in the original. For many years DC refused to reprint any of the early Superman tales because of his militant "anti-social" attitude and taste for rowdy violence. Warner Bros. pulled its infamous "censored 11" cartoon shorts from distribution, and King World Productions deleted most of the shuck-and-jive bits from the "Little Rascals" shorts not in the PC '80s or '90s, but in 1968. In all cases, these things weren't done with any particular ideological motive, or any desire to rewrite history, but simply to make a commercial product more salable in a changing market.

With the exception of some pre-code films where the reissue cuts were made in original negatives, none of the originals were destroyed in any of these cases. If you really need an uncensored print of "A Tough Winter" or "Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs," they're still out there. If you really want to see Billy Batson's liver-lipped ball-headed valet "Steamboat," or the Spirit's little burnt-cork sidekick "Ebony," those comics still exist and can easily be found online. They just aren't being sold and marketed today as current entertainment, that's all.

Now, for a cultural historian, it's important to know that Steamboat existed, and it's important to know why he existed -- C. C. Beck, Captain Marvel's co-creator, insisted he used the character "to appeal to black readers," until a delegation of those readers came to his office in 1945 and told him how much they disliked and were offended by the character. Was he being PC to eliminate him? Or was he simply responding to the changing culture? There are interesting discussions to be had in considering those questions, and nothing is accomplished by pretending Steamboat never existed. But is the opposite extreme necessary? Must any reprinting of Captain Marvel's adventures include stories using Steamboat for the sake of historical accuracy? Or is it more prudent for a comic aimed at a young audience to simply leave those stories in the past?

This is the difficulty many of us face today. We think of all these things as historical artifacts, But to those who made them originally, and those who continue to exploit them for profit, they are first and foremost commodities -- commercial merchandise to be marketed and manipulated however necessary. As long as we live in a world where art is considered first and foremost a *product,* this is how it's going to be. And these kinds of edits and adjustments will continue to be made and all the criticism of PC in the world isn't going to change that.

 

[Fading Fast]

The question isn't if the owners of art or art "product" will bend to prevailing cultural norms - they will; the question is why do the cultural norms have such an agenda-driven ideology behind them that, many times, drag the public along for the ride.

When Miss Saigon came to the stage in NYC in the late '80s, there was a big brouhaha over an Englishman playing a mixed French-Vietnamese character as it was argued it was "cultural insensitive" and an affront to Asians. The issue was noisy, but here's the thing, it was acknowledged that the "average theater goer" didn't care one way or another - and the show was a huge success in London with the English actor in the role - but in America a loud group of (and I tried to reference this in my prior post as I'm never sure of who they are) elites - NYC cultural leaders, Op/Ed writers and other (and this is just a fact) liberal leaders - just drove the protest.

This was no man-in-the-street protest, this was not a the-average-American-won't-accept-this protest, it was an elitist, top-down-and-ideologically driven "protest" to advance a cultural / social / political agenda that was not important to the stevedore, shop clerk, stock broker, vacationing family in from Iowa or school teacher that make up the audiences for these types of shows.

The ultimate compromise was that the English actor could play the role without makeup that would give him Asian features - a completely stupid result as everyone else looked culturally / racially consistent with their character except for this one Englishman. That was no the-public-demanded-it result or protest. That was - as so many of our "protests' are - driven by a few "intellectuals" who know what's best for the unwashed masses who just want to see a play.

Art is mainly owned by capitalist who will maximize their profit by bending it anyway to keep the protests and noise down, but recognize that, many times, those protest and that noise are not driven by an organic or bottom-up cultural evolution (that would make sense to me, i.e., if the public demanded it, they'd get martians playing teenage boys), but by an elitist group with a political agenda - that's why it is seen as being PC.

The public doesn't want to see blackface (thank God), that's a cultural shift; forcing a Englishman, whom the public wanted to see in the role of an Asian-Vietnamese man (the public loves to see theater with the original cast that made it successful), to not wear make-up is not a reflection of a changing culture (or culture not being stagnant), but the result of a politically motivated elite forcing its self-aggrandizing agenda on the rest of us. That's why, to this day, that particular change hasn't stuck - it was never where the culture was at, but only where the PC elite wanted it to be. The money-grubbing capitalists caved not to popular opinion, not to a cultural shift, but to avoid the controversy a small but vocal few created.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't know as I'd agree that it's not the sign of a changing culture at all. "Yellowface" had been under fire in the US for over a decade by the time of the Miss Saigon affair -- the Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto movies, to use two prominent examples, were becoming an increasingly difficult sell in local syndication by the '70s, and were hardly seen at all by the middle of the '80s. It may well be that op-ed types were publicizing that particular issue, but they were doing so as the product of a wave that had been coming along for quite a while before it got to them. That's how cultural change happens -- and there's always a majority of people who disagree with it at first and say "huh, I grew up with Charlie Chan and I'm no racist," but eventually the culture moves to the point where Charlie Chan ceases to be something acceptable for mass entertainment and survives only as a historical artifact. I submit that the Miss Saigon affair was simply another step in that process.

Our local community theatre group did a production of "Show Boat" in 1986, despite not having any African-Americans in the company. All the black characters were played in blackface -- not minstrel style, but black makeup on white faces -- and there were a few eyebrows raised. But society has changed so much since then that the company, if it still existed, wouldn't even entertain the thought of doing "Show Boat" today. It's not PC, society has simply moved on.

I've written extensively about "Amos 'n' Andy" over the years -- which by the standards of the early 1930s was remarkably progressive in the way it portrayed its characters -- but I have no interest in hearing it rebroadcast on radio or shown again on television, and would refuse -- and have refused -- to endorse any efforts toward doing so. Frankly, if such things do upset people, I see no good social purpose in forcing the issue for the sake of being "anti PC."

 

[Harp]

When Miss Saigon came to the stage in NYC in the late '80s, there was a big brouhaha over an Englishman playing a mixed French-Vietnamese character as it was argued it was "cultural insensitive" and an affront to Asians. The issue was noisy, but here's the thing, it was acknowledged that the "average theater goer" didn't care one way or another - and the show was a huge success in London with the English actor in the role - but in America a loud group of (and I tried to reference this in my prior post as I'm never sure of who they are) elites - NYC cultural leaders, Op/Ed writers and other (and this is just a fact) liberal leaders - just drove the protest.

In London, Miss Saigon, the play itself was tinged, though not tarred, with an all too evident anti-American sentiment; however, Jonathan Pryce made his character come alive.
Broadway's real Miss Saigon draw card was Pryce himself-all other issues aside-while the protest fell far off the mark.
A telling episode even the deaf intelligentsia would later acknowledge.

 

[Fading Fast]

There are a group of "elites" (Op/Ed writers, school administrators, gov't bureaucrats, and probably others) who try to move culture in a certain direction. Sometimes they are right both morally and about the direction the culture is going, as they have been, IMHO, with both race and gender rights.

Sometimes they might be morally right but they can't get the culture there: IMHO, mass transit / anti-car ownership is an elitist view the public, overall, doesn't embrace.

Sometimes they are wrong morally and culturally: As a proud agnostic, I say the elitists are anti-religion and wrong both morally and culturally (at least so far in the US, they are winning in Europe culturally).

Finally, sometimes they are right morally but wrong culturally: The elitists are pro-globalization, which, IMHO, is an overall good (but respect anyone who disagrees - not trying to argue about globalization here), but they have clearly lost the culture / the people are done going there. The Occupy Wall Street Movement was, in part, the masses saying no to the elites on globalization.

The point of this post is not whether someone agrees with which ones of the above are or aren't morally good, the point is there are elites with opinions trying to steer society / the culture to their preferences. When culture moves in their direction - then we say, as you did Lizzie, oh, that's how it always works: a vanguard of opinion makers leads what is, at first, resisted by the masses. But when they fail, as they have, so far, with secularism and mass transit and, now, globalization, then we have a clash between popular and elitist views and, no longer, are they leading the culture; instead, the people, in these instances, are driving culture.

Here's something interesting. In general, when those on the political right disagree with the elites as they do on religion, for example, the political right's arguments against the elite are seen in a PC context: the elite is being PC - forcing ideas on "us people" that we don't want and trying to shame and silence us into agreement. When the political left doesn't agree with the elite as they don't with globalization (trade deals for example), they call their disagreement popularism - the people rising against "the man."

Hence, after the fact, a cultural shift led by an elite, looks like that is the way it always happens - as with race and gender issues. But that ignores the times - as with globalization (heck, the Clinton's called their movement the "Clinton Global Initiative") - when the elite lose the public and the culture doesn't shift their way. The battles between the elites and the masses have all sorts of names, but IMHO, the right more often than not calls it a war against the PC and the left calls it a war against "the man." But culture doesn't alway change because a small cadre of intellectuals want to change it a certain way.