What this country needs is not a good five-cent cigar (where, after all, could you smoke it in comfort?) but a new TV network. That might seem counterintuitive as Oprah’s OWN network hurtles to oblivion, but actually it is the Oprah failure which shows that a crying need—an unfulfilled market—actually exists.
What we need is the Politically InCorrect Network—the PIC Network. No, I’m not talking about revival of Bill Maher’s dreary show by that name; I’m talking about a network which shows, in rotation, nothing but material which currently does not appear on other networks for fear that it “might offend.” I’m talking about all those old films with black and Jewish and Irish and Italian and homosexual stereotypes—and all of the cartoons which also unapologetically contained such things.
I’m talking about films with Stepin Fetchit and Mantan Moreland. Warner Oland playing Charlie Chan. Mickey Rooney caricaturing a Japanese in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. John Barrymore trying to pretend to be a Jew in Counsellor at Law. Films—and TV shows—with ethnic jokes and sex jokes. I’m talking not only about the old Amos ‘n’ Andy TV show, but about practically any TV show that was done prior to about 1972, since these shows would have women who are unapologetically housewives and men who are breadwinners and who are not idiots or buffoons.
Let this stuff be available all around the clock, seven days a week, to anyone who wants to see it. Let people see how not-vicious most of it is; how silly it was, for the most part, intended to be; and how funny a lot of it remains. Let’s re-learn, as Americans, how to laugh again, and how to get over ourselves a little.
And, just by the way—the PIC Network would make a fortune. Yeah, there’s a lot of “old stuff” on TV now already—as “nostalgia.” Bah—who cares about nostalgia? Un-PC humor is more forbidden than pornography, by several orders of magnitude. Taboo TV would clean up.
It would get more viewers if you simply call it what it will be to most liberal viewers: ON – the Offensive Network.
Sports and military guys will love that name, too.
ON is on.
Lots of movies – Song of the South, if Disney hasn’t burned it.
Jolson and others in blackface – Mother’s Day could be dedicated to our Mammys.
But I think the Robert E. Lee will arrive before this network.
Have a history hour.
On it, one might tell the story of the great Confederate commerce raiders, Alabama and Florida.
Tell how the officers and men of the Alabama sailed out of Cherbourg harbor into an unequal fight with the USS Kearsarge — but that they still went, as men of honor and courage. Tell it as a Kipling or a Churchill would, with all the appropriate adjectives and a distant roll of drums echoing.
(Gawd, that’d p*ss off the PC Crowd.)
– in Disney’s Dumbo.
The lead crow in “Dumbo”—the singer of “I Be Done Seen ‘Bout Everything, When I See a Elephant Fly”—was Cliff Edwards (aka “Ukelele Ike”), a white performer who was also the voice of Jiminy Cricket in “Pinocchio.” It was not uncommon in films of that era to mix black and white performers, or to have one substitute for another.
The much more stereotypical scene in “Dumbo” is the roustabout song, where the roustabouts are putting up the tents in the early-morning darkness. It is clear that they are supposed to be black.
Definitely bring back all those cartoons, complete and uncut as they were originally shown, then shown later for many decades.
They just aren’t the same with half of the material hacked out because someone got their panties in a bunch over a bit of racist material.
I’ve developed a strange fondness for the old Bat Masterson series. Viewed through today’s lens, it’s a very white show.
Nonetheless, there’s always an interesting range of men AND women who are strong and good, good but tempted, tempted but redeemed, sly and crooked, crooked and proud of it. The latter usually get shot.
Success is a virtue not a sin. The strong (male and female) defend the weak. A nice little series of teaching tales, so very alien and sorely lacking in today’s climate.
I used to think a cable network with programming geared entirely towards the libertarian/conservative audience would be a winner. Just look how well Fox does, even though they have lots of programming designed to appeal to a liberal audience.
A large sector of the US population is conservative, so why not have a network designed to appeal to them? The only reason I can think of as to why this has not been tried is because all of those involved in the business (both network and advertising execs) are unable to think beyond the conventional wisdom. They buy into the popular misconception that conservative views are offensive to most people, even though conservatives outnumber other groups.
OWN has failed because it offers nothing different from dozens of other channels.
The conservative world view is a fairly decent picture of the world as it actually is, in a moral framework. Good should win, and evil should lose. A mommy and a daddy and kids is what a family should be.
Of course, most people in Hollywood despise this, and oppose it. But that is not the whole story. There is active demonic support for the leftist Hollywood view, and active demonic opposition to the truth and to conservatives and the conservative world view. That is the “rest of the story.”
In the early 1950s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer director Tex Avery made a series of cartoons with a humorous look at the future, featuring the homes, farms and television sets “of Tomorrow”. This 1951 short looks at the world of cars and I posted it on Cars In Depth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k2tLTKFho0g
It’s a little bit silly but it does reflect the time and the trends, for example, the “new step down models”, a reference to the “step down” Hudsons. Unfortunately, there seems to be a cohort of people that can’t look at cultural artifacts of the past without feeling obligated to condemn the prejudices of earlier ages. As a result, some versions you will find of this cartoon have been censored.
A native American driving a convertible with a tipi for a roof and a Chinese driver pulling his car like a rickshaw is today, by some, considered offensive, not funny. What’s silly about the censorship is that the cartoon is, well, silly in the first place, hardly serious. There’s also some “sexism” in the cartoon, a pink car featuring curtains and flower planters as well as a bust and a derriere, and a few backseat and women driver jokes. It’s interesting, though, that none of those who complain about the “racism” and “sexism” of Avery’s cartoon have a problem with the pedal powered “super thrifty Scotsman model”. Funny how associating Natives with tipis and Chinese with rickshaws is considered worthy of censorship, but perpetuating the stereotype of Scots being cheap is acceptable. Like Orwell wrote, some animals are more equal than others.
Let’s not forget those politically-incorrect, racial-stereotype Bugs Bunny cartoons, particularly the ones from WWII.
Works for me.
There’s a great deal of first-rate entertainment from the past that nowadays is hastily dismissed as non-PC.
Just watched Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in “Bringing Up Baby”, a hilarious romp of a movie. No nudity, splatter, or cussing. Brilliant!
I can highly recommend “The African Queen.” Kathyrn Hepburn shows how a good helpmeet can help a man to reach his potential. Humprhrey Bogart’s character couldn’t have done what he did without her help and encouagement. Liberals would absolutely hate it!
Maybe it would show the classic Zionist films, Exodus and Cast a Giant Shadow, both of which tell a true story with a depiction of the founders of Israel and their enemies that is true in spirit and true in detail, without any inhibition! There are probably some others, too.
Has any network you know broadcast them, recently?
You suggest that pre-1970′s television was largely politically incorrect, but in fact, a great deal of the fare created then was more progressive than the mindless drivel we’re subjected to today.
Bill Cosby’s first two series, the drama “I Spy” and his first starring vehicle, “The Bill Cosby Show,” portrayed a black man with intelligence, wit, and dignity–and both of his characters were trusted professionals. In “Julia,” the Diahann Carroll series from the 60′s, America saw a black woman playing a nurse and mother who’d lost her husband in the Vietnam War; amusingly, the show was criticized for not focusing enough on her race. The original “Star Trek” featured characters representing a range of races and ethnicities, as well as women playing scientists, world leaders, and physicians. “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” depicted the family life of author and playwright Jean Kerr, while “Get Smart” had 99, the savvy secret agent. “N.Y.P.D.” featured a black detective, and the crack Impossible Missions Force team included a black man and a couple of women. Sally on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” was a successful comedy writer. In the late 50′s, Nat King Cole was the first leading black performer to host a TV variety series. “Our Miss Brooks”(1952-1956) starred Eve Arden in one of the first shows to focus on a single “working girl;” since the Emmy-winning series was a hit, apparently pre-feminist America had no objection.
That period in broadcast television most certainly was not distinguished for limiting its characterizations or premises to ones that promulgated insipid, randomly defined concepts of proper social roles. Really, does that kind of thinking serve anybody? “Flower Drum Song” came out the same year as “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”–they couldn’t have cast one of those guys? Jack Soo would’ve been so much funnier than Rooney.
It’s too late, T.V. was just entertainment, and now it’s not. Pick a reason, there’s too many too list. Face it, they really don’t like working people very much. Don’t really like the Military. Have no values worth learning anymore. No one to look up too. When they turned down Mister Jello himself Bill Cosby trying to make a family fun cable channel, it was over. Try to find info on it, I finally found something from the UK. That’s T.V. in America in a nutshell.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/cosby-tries-again-to-buy-nbc-network-not-for-sale-says-ge-but-bid-is-prepared-1491807.html
This T.V. argument is basically over, it will never come back. The Golden Age of T.V. is what it is, Over. And with respect you, really sound like 2 generations above me, I just thought I’d throw that in there because there’s so much more to write about what’s replacing it than even trying to bring it back. And those articles really sound a lot more fun too read about and more current. Like what about family playing games online together, what games would they play at what age, would you recommend any, play together or play against each other. LoL, see brain dead and not talking to each other doesn’t really fit anymore and it’s not fun. Shut up I’m watching this sounds like a total douche nowadays.
Laterz all, from the younger generation, now you may all tell me to get off your lawn you young whippersnapper.