At the end of a terribly mundane Democratic debate, CNN drew bipartisan criticism for ending the proceedings with a question you might ask a group of elementary school students.
After White House hopefuls had answered questions on healthcare and impeachment on Tuesday night, Anderson Cooper asked them to respond to a very pressing concern:
The last thing the ridiculous Ellen and Bush news cycle needed was the input of a bunch of presidential candidates. Why do we care what our politicians think of pop culture?
This week, journalist Peter Hamby took a cue from Cooper’s playbook, goading one of the candidates, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, to respond to criticism of the Joker film and comedians such as Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle.
Part 2 of my interview w Pete Buttigieg: His response to Twitter people who think he’s not gay enough, call-out culture, The Joker, Todd Phillips and how Dave Chappelle’s jokes about transgender people are “hurting people”
Watch Good Luck America here: https://t.co/shZZmb9DlY pic.twitter.com/RWm7htGCXF
— Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) October 15, 2019
For the record, Buttigieg was right about Joker — “I think it’s a cop-out to blame pop culture for violence” — and wrong about Dave Chappelle — ”As much as there has been a lot of political correctness, there’s also this weird way in which it’s become fashionable to attack political correctness that I think has become its own weird correctness out there.”
But wait, none of this matters! Why? Because Buttigieg isn’t angling for a job at Netflix (at least not openly) or as the director of the next controversial super villain movie. He’s running for president of the United States, and honestly, that has nothing to do with his taste regarding violent films or anti-woke comedians.
This isn’t to say politicians don’t habitually weigh in on culture issues. Universal pulled its film The Hunt from release after President Trump capped national outrage with a tweet apparently claiming the film was made “in order to inflame and cause chaos.” It goes without saying, though, that budding politicians should take no notes from Trump.
When Martin Scorsese wants to weigh in on superhero movies, he has interesting things to say because he works in the film industry. These conversations touch on something in his own field, an issue he could potentially address in his own work. When politicians talk pop culture, they inevitably end up positioning themselves as moral superiors, who would quash the creativity of others with their disapproval and even threaten to become censors.
If you’re tired of Hollywood types suddenly becoming experts on politics, you should also be sick of politicians pretending that their critiques of film or other media have any relevance.
Given the way revisionist history and political correctness have already invaded arts from the private sector, it wouldn’t take much prodding for the government to jump in too. One public high school in San Francisco already wants to take down an anti-racism mural created through the Works Progress Administration because some on the board of education have deemed it offensive.
Fortunately, Buttigieg refused to say that Netflix should pull Chappelle’s latest controversial stand-up special, but he made sure to emphasize that he doesn’t approve, even though he hasn’t seen the thing. So when Pete Buttigieg says of Chappelle, “There comes a point where you’re just straight up hurting people,” he doesn’t sound like he just wants to turn off his own TV.
Politicians would love the power to regulate what people in the entertainment industry can and cannot say. So for the love of God, don’t ask candidates to talk about movies they have not seen and comedians of whom they disapprove.
Policy is the only thing they ought to influence, and if candidates believe their thoughts on culture have any weight, they don’t know much about their purpose as politicians.
