Will We Wake from Woke?

I measured my chest and waist earlier. This got me thinking of an old Friends episode, where Chandler is fondled by Joey's tailor. Joey is oblivious to the fact that the tailor cupping his balls is not standard procedure and is, in fact, a bespoke method said tailor uses to feel up guys. In the moment of revelation, Chandler informs Ross that Joey's tailor: "took advantage of me," with an indignant and unnerved inflection. The annoyed tremor and the implication of how a phrase usually uttered by a woman sounded when voiced by a man, raised a laugh from the studio audience. It was a different time.

Nevertheless, thinking of this little sketch from a quarter of a century ago left me wondering if such a line could pass censure today. Because such a joke is an evident rape culture microaggression; an indication of how the Patriarchy belittles victims of sexual assault. None of this is more evident than how the Patriarchy reacts with humorous disdain towards male survivors.

This leads me to an episode of The Simpsons I watched the day before. It is the episode where Lisa joins MENSA, resulting in the high intelligence society running Springfield. There is a scene where MENSA rents a gazebo in the park for their Renaissance day out and the gazebo is commandeered by Lenny, Karl, Barney and then, Chief Wiggum. Dr Hibbert checks the other gazebos: one has a large spider in it, while the other is full of transvestites. Before Chief Wiggum joins Lenny and co. he asks Principal Skinner (mistaking his Renaissance outfit for a cross-dressing get up): "how many gazebos do you transvestites need?" Both references to transvestites in this episode were cut from yesterday's airing.

Such is the culture of self-regulation nowadays that I notice all the time how things passed under the radar a generation ago, are now arable land for reaping offence. It is so common that even in the minds of those detractors of the Wokeratti, spotting microaggressions is easy. Even in a Post Woke World, we'll encounter edgy content and think: "remember the days when people would flip out over something like this?" 

It is a major issue with historical and cultural epochs. German guilt extends through the generations and resulted in a masochistic mass immigration policy. Votes for the Labour Party in the north of England endure, because of long festering resentment towards the Tories under Margaret Thatcher and her policies surrounding the closure of coal mines - this changed in the 2019 General Election that ushered in Boris Johnson's 80 seat majority. 

Long shadows have the ability to cast themselves across numerous eras (Blair's open door immigration, coupled with the destabilisation of Iraq has caused much unrest in Europe) the Woke insomnia has simmered for decades, through law, politics, academia and media, nurtured by Marxism. The chill of that shadow will take a long time to warm up.