Regarding PC for HF

An old rich heterosexual white non-disabled guy lamenting the tragedy of "political correctness"? What a delightful burst of original and compelling thought.

There's a huge difference between "we shouldn't Disney-fy our gruesome history" and "a half-assed effort to not offend people has caused the downfall of society".

Ah me!

one hopes the moderator was actually meaning the writer of the article and not you, Donroc.

Otherwise it was definitely not moderator behaviour.

The pendulum has definitely swung far too far as far as PC goes. Common sense has been swamped with a lot of silliness.

I love a good rant by a cranky old guy, especially one with the wit and verve of GMF.

There's an earlier piece on GMF & PC, though by Andrew Klavan of the Boston Review. It's mostly about Flashy, though it's interesting to see Klavan taking some shots at the late Edward Said. I think a lot of Said's critique of Orientalist came down to "Bernard Lewis is full of sh@@."

Anyway, here's a link to Flashman and the Tragic Sensibility.

My favorite quote, "Policies don't matter a spent piss -- it's the men in fear and rage and uncertainty watching the woods and skyline, d'you see, you purblind bookworm, you!"

For a double here is GMF himself on History According to Hollywood. Apparently he didn't think H-wood did all that bad a job.

Kitty Pryde said:

An old rich heterosexual white non-disabled guy lamenting the tragedy of "political correctness"? What a delightful burst of original and compelling thought.

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Daily Mail. They'd handcuff women to the dishwasher given half a chance. Love the way they stuck in the Britishness angle there. *gag*

Unfortunately the journalist [and I use that term loosely] has used historical fiction as a thinly veiled way to attack Britain's multi-cultural society.


On the subject of PC in historical fiction, I'm ambivalent to it. All I'm interested in is historical accuracy. That's my one and only soapbox.

What gothicangel said.

One of tabloid media's recurring themes, the jolly unrepentant non-PC type who brings all the bigots crawling out from under their rocks.

pdr said:

The pendulum has definitely swung far too far as far as PC goes. Common sense has been swamped with a lot of silliness.

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Oh, bullshit. People pretend like they're upset over some silly euphemisms (which no one actually uses outside of college or a few overly-earnest magazines), but what they're really pissed off about is what the delightful Mr. Fraser says here:

The continual attempt to soften and sanitise the harsh realities of life in the name of liberalism, in an effort to suppress truths unwelcome to the PC mind; the social engineering which plays down Christianity, demanding equal status for alien religions

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Yes, it's just so awful that people who practice "alien religions" are demanding to be treated as equals.


His complaint is that people started feeling a need to point out that Flashman is awful and racist and sexist in reviews. Well, yes, because let's be honest, a lot of Flashman fans liked him because he was awful and racist and sexist in ways that cranky old white dudes are no longer allowed to be (in public). It's like Archie Bunker, who was supposed to be an unlovable caricature, but became enormously popular in part because he said shit that a lot of the audience wished they could say.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with enjoying the Flashman books (I like a lot of awful, un-PC books, from James Bond to Gone With the Wind), but it's not being PC to observe that they're full of racism and one should enjoy them despite that, not because of it.

donroc said:

Marya, obviously you do not mean me. Regarding the UK, that part did not interest me as much as my concern over "critics" expecting modern attitudes and behavior from from HF characters.

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But that isn't what the DM article is about.

I wouldn't credit Paul Dacre's publication, with such intelligence. DM is more widely known as "The Daily Fail."

OH NO POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAAAAD it will give us cancer so if you like it so much go live there!!!!

I read about five paragraphs and had to give up because I was laughing too much. People have created random complaint letter generators and random headline generators for The Daily Mail, and this piece honestly reads like one of those in long form with better spelling, grammar and a bit of literary veneer.

donroc said:

Marya, obviously you do not mean me. Regarding the UK, that part did not interest me as much as my concern over "critics" expecting modern attitudes and behavior from from HF characters.

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I've never seen anyone I'd consider a legitimate critic do that.

But the crux of the article isn't about that, nor is it about historical fiction, nor is it really even about politically correct language.

It's about bigotry. It's about wanting it to be OK to be an ethnocentric bigot.

Hmmm..... I always enjoyed the Flashman books because I thought GMF was taking the piss. I didn't realise he actually is a racist bigot.

Oh bugger. Another set of books I can't read without chucking at the wall now.

donroc said:

Oh, "insensitive me?" -- guess I missed that because I focused on the idiocy of contemporary values criticism of researched HF writing instead of the rest that seems to upset some here.

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Did you actually read the article you linked to? Behind his ranting about history is a much larger rant about contemporary life in Britain and the UK, and the U.S.

Fraser said:

We could say what we liked; they can't. We were not subject to the aggressive pressure of special interest minority groups; they are. We had no worries about race or sexual orientation; they have. We could, and did, differ from fashionable opinion with impunity, and would have laughed PC to scorn, had our society been weak and stupid enough to let it exist.

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In his nostalgic recreation of a recent past, Fraser conveniently forgets that if you weren't white, male, heterosexual, and Protestant, life kinda sucked.

Because he was a white, male, heterosexual, it was a fine and dandy time for him.

And again, PC doesn't mean what he thinks it means. PC means referring to units of deadly radiation as "sunshine units." PC means calling someone who is blind "visually challenged." Objecting to someone casually using fag to refer to an employee on a set isn't being PC. It's being courteous.

Fraser's reference to his book in 2002 is about his The Light's on at Signpost, the piece itself is cobbled together from that. It's a memoir of Fraser's time in Hollywood, interspersed with semi-incoherent ramblings and rants.

The things he doesn't like are that women work as writers and producers in Hollywood, that people can be sued for casting-couch hiring attempts, that queers are allowed to work and even run studios, and that "aliens" are everywhere in Southern California. (Apparently Austrian aliens are ok; it's the non-white ones that are objectionable.)

He was a decent historical novelist. But he was also entitled, sexist, and a bigot who thought separate but equal worked perfectly well.

He errs in thinking that PC is a leftward swing of the pendulum. That particular swinging indicator is not restricted to one political bias. Not in the good ol' USA, at least. It swings like a plum bob on a 100-foot string.

I still think George Orwell was right on target: Politics and the English Language.

Went and picked up Flashman on the March at the used bookstore today. Don't care what GMF's politics were, it'll be good times.

The continual attempt to soften and sanitise the harsh realities of life in the name of liberalism, in an effort to suppress truths unwelcome to the PC mind; the social engineering which plays down Christianity, demanding equal status for alien religions.

Maybe I'm rabblerousing in a thread that should not be rabbleroused in, but I had a really hard time finishing this essay. Of course, I'm a sociologist by training and an academic, so I'm inclined toward all that crunchy granola PC liberal bullshit that people should be treated with respect and whatnot.

But I love historical fiction. It's not about softening and sanitizing the harsh realities of life. I think if you are very good, you can point out that life sucked if you were straight white male and rich, without having to sanitize anything. I'm thinking of Octavia Butler's Kindred, for example.

Anyway, I'm not trying to poke a bear with a stick here, but I do love thinking and debating about these types of questions.

I think it's absolutely fine to portray the past as gruesomely as it (sometimes) was. In fact, I get offended when it's glossed over and Disney-fied. What I don't agree with, however, is when someone actively promotes certain values, and I don't think putting a frock coat and breeches on it makes it any better.

I dislike being preached to, and I especially dislike it when I disagree with the sermon.

Medievalist said:

But the crux of the article isn't about that, nor is it about historical fiction, nor is it really even about politically correct language.

It's about bigotry. It's about wanting it to be OK to be an ethnocentric bigot.

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Brilliantly put.

ViolettaVane said:

OH NO POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAAAAD it will give us cancer so if you like it so much go live there!!!!

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I had forgotten how much I love AW. Lovelovelove!