The double standards for what constitutes a fireable offense in the entertainment industry are shocking and completely politically driven.
Samantha Bee has not been fired for calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless c–t.” She uttered some of the most vile comments about a daughter of a sitting president ever to be recorded (and family members of politicians used to be considered off limits by polite society). Her network, TBS, issued an apology, but took no substantive punitive action toward the comedian. She is costing the network money as two sponsors have dropped the show so far, but TBS sticks with her.
Roseanne Barr, by contrast, faced severe consequences for calling Valerie Jarrett the “baby” of the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes. She lost her show, and the other actors, producers, writers, and all of the employees of her show lost their jobs because of a single bad tweet. ABC acted within minutes, as if they had been waiting for an excuse to fire her, although the reboot of “Roseanne” had been making the network millions.
In theory, we should be able to respect each others’ political or private opinions, and go to work and treat each other with respect and dignity, but the unfortunate reality of our current culture is one political party has had lockstep control of media, news, entertainment, tech and academic circles for decades unopposed. They’ve created a system where social rules only apply to their political opponents. When one of their own commits similar wrongs, the problems are swept under the rug.
The double standard has to end. It starts by conservatives getting more vocal in holding leftists accountable to their own rules.
Hollywood Stars Can Do No Wrong If They’re Democrats
Take film maker Joss Whedon, for example. Whedon came under fire last year for what he admitted was predatory behavior on the sets of his shows and movies with young actresses, fans, co-workers, and friends, all while keeping his sexual activities a secret from his wife. While he engaged in this behavior, he was one of the the most bombastic preachers of male feminism in his public life.
The hypocrisy of his abuse of power in the workplace by treating women as sexual objects is astounding. According to an article by his ex-wife in The Wrap, Whedon told her, “As a guilty man I knew the only way to hide was to act as though I were righteous. And as a husband, I wanted to be with you like we had been. I lived two lives.”
Even with the history of womanizing in inappropriate situations, Joss Whedon was allowed to remain in Hollywood largely unscathed, working on DC Comics film projects like Batgirl until he left the project citing “story problems.” He still has a high-budget World War II horror film in production as of this article’s writing. But Whedon also echoed Samantha Bee’s sentiments, saying she was “too kind” in her comments lambasting Ivanka. Whedon condones this vile rhetoric by Bee and would go further by his own admission, and yet there’s no outcry from Hollywood to fire him. Even with his track record.
There are countless examples of Hollywood wrongdoings, where corrupt individuals are allowed to continue working. What do they all have in common? Their peddling of extreme leftist narratives. As soon as anyone on the right makes the slightest mistake, however, they are eviscerated.
Pedophiles In Science Fiction Are Okay By SFWA
In science fiction publishing, we have seen much the same double standard as in Hollywood. The primary writers’ guild, the Science Fiction Writers Of America are quick to remove anyone who doesn’t toe the political line. Castalia House publisher Vox Day was, much like Roseanne, once purged from the non-profit professional guild for a single tweet, one in which he called another author a “half-savage.” However, the very same club awarded a lifetime achievement Grand Master title to a man who wrote a pornographic novel about gay sex from the perspective of an 11-year old who willingly agrees to act as a sex toy to adults.
The SFWA-awarded author in question, Samuel Delaney, has gone so far as to express approval of real life adult/child sexual relationships, telling a queer forum, “I read the NAMBLA [Bulletin] fairly regularly and I think it is one of the most intelligent discussions of sexuality I’ve ever found. I think before you start judging what NAMBLA is about, expose yourself to it and see what it is really about.” NAMBLA stands for the “North American Man/Boy Love Association” an advocacy group for underage homosexual relations.
The fact that he was awarded while a family man like Day was removed from the club speaks volumes as to the state of the publishing world. Delaney elaborated on his own thoughts of personal experiences in an interview with author Will Shetterly, stating, “I had my first sexual experience with an adult when I was six, with a local Harlem building superintendent. And nothing hurtful happened at all. It would have been cruel and unusual punishment to incarcerate him for it.”
Award winning author and musician Moira Greyland lived through industry cover ups of intense sexual abuse as a child, committed by two popular science fiction writer parents, Walter Breen, who was convicted of child abuse, and Marion Zimmer Bradley, who is still hailed as one of the great feminist writers of the 20th Century. Greyland’s autobiography, “The Last Closet,” details how celebrity authors, publishers, and others turned a blind eye to her parents’ sins because of the politics of the situation.
“Any kind of alternative sexuality is embraced in science fiction fandom, Conservative politics are anathema,” Greyland told the Federalist. “One wonders why these priorities exist, especially since so many in science fiction fandom have been victims of sexual abuse. It is possible that many men have not connected their molestation with subsequent gay identification, even if they joke about it, as Milo and George Takei did. For whatever reason, promiscuous sexuality is seen as freedom, where Conservative politics are profoundly threatening.”
It’s Time To Fight Fire With Fire
Conservatism is in a difficult position in culture, as we do hold freedom as a value — something we should strive for. But we have to face the reality that freedom isn’t allowed in the entertainment industry for conservatives. If we are held to standards in which our lives can be destroyed for one misstep, the left has to be also. These are the rules, and if we refuse to play by them, we get a continuation of the destructive culture we’ve had for the last 50 years, where our society is pushed further into promotion of sex, drugs, and horrific violence, with anyone who speaks up against it being demonized and destroyed.
Every time the left takes a scalp of someone like Roseanne, we have to fight back by ensuring they don’t protect the likes of a Samantha Bee. We have to find their sponsors, flood the network with emails, become activists ourselves. Bee will always be out there pushing cultural agendas that destroy our values, and letting her do so without opposition only makes our position harder to maintain. We must make large entertainment companies disavow and disassociate with extreme leftists who say and do horrific things if we’re going to begin to bring sanity to culture again.
The problems have escalated in these industries to the point where, unless you can afford not to care about the consequences (like a Peter Thiel or Kanye West), a conservative tech engineer or artist can’t come out of the closet with their real views. It will end a career, cost jobs, and harm families, and most middle class earners can’t afford to do that — and therefore do not have real freedom of speech at all. As conservatives, we are discriminated against and treated like pariahs. It wasn’t long ago that James Damore was fired simply for questioning how Google views diversity in the workplace.
We can also no longer afford to accept limp apologies with no repercussions. Roseanne apologized almost immediately, even before the threats were made to her career. She understood she went over the line with the comment, and took ownership. Bee took longer to apologize, but she still has her job, Roseanne does not. If we have to face punishment when apologizing, so do they. These are the rules of the cultural game. We’re at war, fellow conservatives.
