May 7, 2008, - 6:20 pm
Hilarious: “Harold & Kumar” Do PC Absurdity
By Debbie Schlussel
Every major city in America has what I call the “hometown pimp and ho rag.” It’s the free newspaper that’s insufferably far left and which makes its money with hooker, er . . . “escort” classified ads and the like in the back.
Detroit’s version is “The Metro Times.” My friend, Corey Hall, is one of the bright (and very liberal) movie reviewers for the MT. Corey is very insightful, and I enjoy sitting next to him at movie screenings to hear his comments and asides about the movies we’re reviewing, even if I disagree with his politics.
But Corey’s politics are not this ridiculous. Check out the absurd political correctness–quite clearly not his and very likely his editors’ (though I haven’t asked him)–that changed his movie review and garnered a letter to the editor by an Indian in response. Again, for the record, I did not ask Corey about this and he hasn’t mentioned it, but I happened to notice, and knowing him, I think this is what happened.
Corey Hall reviewed the horrid “Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay.” It stars Kal Penn as an American whose family comes from India. In his review, Corey apparently wrote, in the April 30th issue:
The best political argument here is that we’ve reached the point where a Korean and an Indian can star in movies just as stupid as any white guy . . . but in a perfect world they wouldn’t have to.
But it appears that when PC copy editors got ahold of it, they changed the un-PC word “Indian.” Here’s how it ran:
The best political argument here is that we’ve reached the point where a Korean and a Native American can star in movies just as stupid as any white guy . . . but in a perfect world they wouldn’t have to.
That drew this letter to the editor, from an American who family’s heritage is from India–a letter truly best meant for the Metro Times’ uber-PC editors:
Re: Cory Hall’s review of the film Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (Metro Times, April 30) and his observation, “The best political argument here is that we’ve reached the point where a Korean and a Native American can star in movies just as stupid as any white guy . . . but in a perfect world they wouldn’t have to.”
I’m not sure if this quote from the Harold and Kumar review was meant to be humor or not. Granted, the movie was dumb. But if you really want to present yourself as an “artsy” educated person or news source with discerning taste, you might try and learn the difference between Indian and Native American.
Indians are from a country in Asia called India; Native Americans are indigenous peoples from North or South American [sic]. My friends and I got quite a laugh out of your mitake. Maybe it comes from your Michigan public school education. I don’t know.
What I do know is you might need to step up your game. I live in Boston and from time to time I visit your Web site; I mean I think it’s good, but this is not making people from Michigan look any more educated than people outside Michigan already think you are.
Good luck. – Michael Jain, Boston, Mass
Like I said, Corey’s a smart guy. He knows the difference between Indians from India and Indians referred to with the PC-term, “Native American.” This is likely an editor’s uber-PC-stylebook taking the place of good sense.
But the letter led the Metro Times to realize their hyper-PC screw-up. This week, in the May 7th issue, the review was re-run, using the hyphenated term, “Indian-American.”
Oh, the hopelessness of the political correctness crowd.
Regardless of the stupidity of the editor, the original authors point is well-made. From Peter Sellers in The Party, to Kal Penn in H&K, we’ve come a long way baby.
Madmoney on May 7, 2008 at 8:13 pm