Around a month prior, a frenzy was stirred up within the commentary community over a Daily Telegraph piece authored by the humorously named Sophia Money-Coutts. Her article titled “Gen Z are an employer’s nightmare – my twenties put them to shame” incited quite a reaction. The essence of it all was this: Zoomers, according to anecdotes from Money-Coutts’ social circle, are not interested in working long hours and are fully aware their employers cannot force them to.
Could you even fathom such an outlook? Certainly, you can. Older individuals – just beyond their youth in many cases – have long been bemoaning the perceived decay of societal norms since we ceased our adulation of turnips. Like how the invention of the wheel might have been met with remarks such as, “Don’t start me on the wheel,” Ug the Odoriferous possibly said. “We used to drag a sabre-toothed tiger all day fuelled by just one flagon of heated soil. Now, they’re sauntering about with their ‘carts’. Is that what they call them?”
You can hear echoes of this sentiment in grievances about university students protesting their institution’s stance on Israel. Or in the numerous criticisms of modern music. Too many music purists fuss over the number of songwriters credited on Beyoncé’s albums. (You could use the same yardstick for Elvis and Frank Sinatra.) The most recent edition of The Good Old Days Were Better – the 15,675th episode in my tally – courtesy of Jerry Seinfeld.
Seinfeld started off with a rather mild critique of the current film industry, stating, “Movies no longer hold the top spot in the societal, cultural hierarchy as they did most of our lives,” not an outrageous claim by any means. He then moved on to comedy. Those who faithfully follow Woke Watch must’ve seen this coming. “People used to return home at day’s end…and find assurance in, ‘Oh, Cheers is on. Mash is on,’” he said, invoking images of tranquil lawnmowers and domestic chirping birds. “‘Oh, Mary Tyler Moore is on. All in the Family is on.’ What happened to that? This is the outcome of extreme-left thinking, PC rubbish, and worry over causing offence to others.”
Without a doubt, there’s a current trend of modern moralists – a group which assumes that ‘sex scenes are redundant’ – who are making an effort to desensitise popular media and remove any sense of discomfort or awkwardness. Conversely, the indications are that their influence is limited.
It also seems a touch harsh to underline the flimsy nature of the main argument. Just a short while ago, there was the notable appearance of Seinfeld in the final episode of ‘Curb your Enthusiasm’, as previously detailed in this piece. The show, a satirical caricature of Larry David’s self-deprecation, is hardly emblematic of political correctness. More than a handful of pundits highlighted other resolute shows like “South Park” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” The latter’s Rob McElhenney contested Seinfeld’s claim that he couldn’t air the episode of his own namesake show in which Kramer enlisted homeless people as rickshaw drivers, by drawing parallels with ‘Always Sunny’s’ unflinching portrayal of crack addict Rickety Cricket.
Seinfeld’s recollections are also questionable. What exactly in Mary Tyler Moore or Mash would prompt outrage from the so-called PC police? Perhaps some of Archie Bunker’s racially insensitive remarks in ‘All in the Family’ would cause a stir (though he was indeed significantly more moderate than Alf Garnett, his predecessor on the BBC’s ‘Till Death Do Us Part’). It’s true that despite some hangers-on like the innocuous Abbott Elementary, classic sitcoms no longer have the same dominance they once did. The same can be said for traditional police shows with standalone episodes. This can be attributed more to shifts in preferences rather than the influence of any ‘Woke enforcement.’
In Seinfeld’s defense, he did concede that stand-up comedians “have the liberty to push boundaries because no one else catches the flak if it doesn’t go over well.” It’s tough to overlook the Netflix specials where comedians like Jimmy Carr, Ricky Gervais, and Dave Chappelle brazenly defy all the rules set by the digital decree of the ‘extreme left’ as Seinfeld sees them. As pointed out earlier, whilst there is a new age of moralists who believe ‘sex scenes are superfluous’ trying to sanitise popular media, evidence implies that their efforts are largely ineffective.
Nothing is constant, yet everything remains as it is. It can’t be that every person spoken about prior are oblivious to the fact that their forebears also believed the world was taking a plunge, courtesy of Mick Jagger (or maybe Little Richard, Clara Bow, or Oscar Wilde). It’s intriguing that each ensuing group tends to believe that they are the ones who have mastered a culture capable of overpowering the succeeding one. Naturally, The Beatles, the Sex Pistols and hip hop have always been at the crux of conversation. Yet, now there’s a different ring to it. Now, Auto-Tuned songs are considered rubbish, humour is littered with political correctness, and (checking the notes) TikToks are seen as brain-consuming malware. This time it will fade away like a scent in the wind and we’ll all revert to watching Leonard Cohen in some field.