A story based on the Three Little Pigs has been turned down from a government agency’s annual awards because the subject matter could offend Muslims.
It was also noted that it might offend builders.
Now, there are no reports I’ve seen of any Muslim organisation asking for the children’s bookshelves to be purged thus, so I can only imagine that yet again it is a case of oversensitive dolts making – by unwelcome proxy – the non-Muslim section of the general public fed up with their Muslim neighbours.
It’s a version of the idiocy the BBC themselves were involved in over christmas over The Pogues song. Many people felt “oh, there go the gays whingiing again over nothing” when in reality the BBC acted off their own bat.
But, be that as it may. What is really beginning to get my goat (sorry Satanists if you’re offended by this wanton appropriation of a beloved barnyard beastie) is that just about everything we do now is frought with danger if it isn’t evoking profound feelings of guilt – or both.
There is nothing we can actually eat that isn’t farmed in a way that is unfair to the farmer, to the animal, to the union of food packers… or isn’t sourced locally, and if it is perhaps its over-packaged, or too fatty, or receives subsidies that do someone else out of something. If it’s organic, it’s elitist, if it’s too cheap, its exploitative or contains too much of this and not enough of that.
If we visit other countries, we have to feel guilty about our carbon footprint. If we don’t, then we’re hicks who don’t experience other cultures. Just think of those jokes about Americans who don’t know where France is, etc… Even just going to the shops is politically charged.
The media can’t decide whether morbid obesity or size-zero is the bigger problem… Smoke, and you die young and drain the NHS. Don’t smoke and you over-tax the pension funds and drain the NHS…
I suppose I could go on and on, but to sigue into a shortcut, can anyone think of anything we’re allowed to do that is guilt-free? That isn’t exploitative, harmful, offensive…?
