Posted on 06/19/2020 8:46:55 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
MADISON, WI Goodbye Gunsmoke and The Great Gildersleeve. So long to The Shadow and Jack Benny.
The Cancel Culture has claimed another victim: The Golden Age of Radio.
Wisconsin Public Radio recently announced its canceling Old Time Radio Drama, a long-time weekend programming staple that brought back many of the radio classics from the Greatest Generation the shows many Baby Boomers grew up on.
Why?
Some of the shows, originally broadcast 60, 70, 80 years ago, are deemed racist and sexist by the progressive folks at the taxpayer-funded Wisconsin Public Radio.
Despite significant effort over the years, it has been nearly impossible to find historic programs without offensive and outdated content, said Mike Crane, WPRs director, said in a press release.
Thats the problem for much of media amid the disastrous culture wars. Everythings offensive to the perpetually aggrieved. So everything must go.
Once upon a time the left fought against burning books, movies, TV shows, radio programs. Now theyre outright banning them.
Such is the case with the ridiculously woke HBO. Recently HBO Max said it would temporarily remove classic Civil War drama Gone With the Wind from its lineup until it can add cultural context to the movie.
Good grief.
Frankly, my dear, we dont give a damn about HBO, but we are offended by all of the offended.
Classic radio shows when radio was king are a significant and vital part of U.S. history. They entertained and connected a country in depression, at war and on the rise. They were magical, transportive, inspirational pastimes enjoyed by many, many millions of listeners, of all races, in their time. And yes, some were patently racist, by todays standards, and even yesterdays standards.
But they are part of the warts, scars, birthmarks, dimples and cleft chins of the body Americana.
The cultural elites, the deciders of what is good and bad, what we can write and think and feel, not only want to provide cultural context to our shared past, they want to burn it down.
Last weekend, Wisconsin Public Radio held a funeral for Old Time Radio Drama. Its gone with the wind, so to speak. The long-running programs time slot will be filled by something called PRX Remix, featuring some of the best stories, podcasts and documentaries from independent creators
Goodbye Golden Age of Radio.
I can think of several Karens that would love to be the party approved neighborhood entertainment content controller.
Bet the American Lie-Berry Ass. doesnt say a damned thing against this rising wave Leftist tide of calls for censorship and banning when Banned Book Week comes around this September
No kidding. I remember just how much of what was happening during the Obama regime was as if the news of the day were straight out of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”
Now, the left has taken not just 1984, but Animal Farm as “how to” manuals. And the way the dem in politics are allowing the mob to become the footsoldiers of the dem party, we could also be looking at something similar to Lord of the Flies, or any good history of the aftermath of the French Revolution.
And with the way the left is actively pushing the notion that anyone who disagrees with their far-left agenda is not just wrong, but evil, I think that they’ve been taking the writings of Mein Kampf to heart as well.
Mark
NPR sides with book banners
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/06/870910728/your-bookshelf-may-be-part-of-the-problem
Your Bookshelf May Be Part Of The Problem
June 6, 20207:00 AM ET
...You may have seen the phrase “decolonize your bookshelf” floating around. In essence, it is about actively resisting and casting aside the colonialist ideas of narrative, storytelling, and literature that have pervaded the American psyche for so long.
If you are white, take a moment to examine your bookshelf. What do you see? What books and authors have you allowed to influence your worldview, and how you process the issues of racism and prejudice toward the disenfranchised? Have you considered that, if you identify as white and read only the work of white authors, you are in some ways listening to an extension of your own voice on repeat? While the details and depth of experience may differ, white voices have dominated what has been considered canon for eons. That means non-white readers have had to process stories and historical events through a white author’s lens. The problem goes deeper than that, anyway, considering that even now 76% of publishing professionals the people you might call the gatekeepers are white...
The canon of Western Literature has been given the boot for over 30 years (the works of dead white males, they called it).
Last week, I received an ebay order of a social studies book from 1960 that I remembered from when I was in elementary school in in the mid 60s. I read a lot of nonfiction, so I try to stay away from revisionist crap.
I’ve got numerous vinyl 33 & 78 rpms —several are multi-record box sets—with titles like Golden Age of Radio, God Bless America, Vanguard’s Folk Songs & Minstrelsy, Smithsonian’s Americana. A lot of delta blues, bluegrass & gospel, when examined thru the PC lens, simply won’t pass muster to the ignorant mobs. Plus I have many decidedly not-PC
live reciedings of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, et al.
All picked up at yard sales for a couple of dollars.
Bob Dylan was doing an “old tyme radio hour” for awhile, not too long ago, and Ive got several CDs of those shows. A lot of the songs Dylan played weren’t PC either.
I’m so glad to have these & will continue to collect them.
Maybe I can start a gypsy radio station.
Maybe Mike needs to get the fist out of his ass.
The original Shadow character was a narrator that stood in the shadows...
Welles was the first personification of The Shadow as Lamont Cranston. I think he only did a year before skedaddling off to Hollywood on the Mercury Theater's War of the Worlds phenomenon. Welles would do the Sunday matinee at the Mercury Theater, then race by cab to the radio studio to do The Shadow.
Bill Johnstone was the second Lamont Cranston, as well as Inspector Cramer in Sidney Greenstreet's (versus Francis X. Bushman's) Nero Wolfe radio series.
gosh aren’t they just so literate!
Exactly.
I do have Song of the South DVD which Disney
never put out on DVD but it was put
out in Europe.It was from something like OfficialSongOfTheSouth dot net or something and also included one of Warner
Bros (?!?) “Censored 11” shorts, Coal
Black and de Sebben Dwarfs.
SiriusXM Radio Classics is still going strong.
Be sure to add Rusty Warren’s “Knockers Up!” record.
It’s sure to rile up today’s feminists!
NPR....Communist & race baiting propaganda spoken softly for easier consumption.
“1984” deserved a prequel, maybe dealing with Winston’s formative years and Big Brother’s rise to power, and the creation of the enforcement technology.
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