Or how Billy Crystal came under fire for expressing an opinion and saying gay love scenes on TV were not to his liking

Jan 21, 2015 16:43 GMT  ·  By
Political correctness is chipping away at freedom of expression, and we shouldn't let it
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   Political correctness is chipping away at freedom of expression, and we shouldn't let it

I know this has been said before many times, perhaps in a more convincing or elaborate manner, but political correctness will be the death of us, boxing in whatever illusion we still have of the freedom of expression, locking it there and then throwing away the key.

An old saying has it that everyone is entitled to their opinion (and there’s also the funnier version of how opinions are like butt holes and that everyone has one, so we should just deal with it), but woe the celebrity who dares to speak their mind in public.

Just look at beloved actor / comedian Billy Crystal, who landed himself in very hot waters with the LGBT community and its supporters this week, when he honestly answered a question about the sheer number of gay love scenes on TV these days.

The Billy Crystal controversy over gay comment

Back in the ‘70s, Crystal played the first-ever openly gay regular character on TV, in “Soap,” so it’s not like he’s homophobic or anything. However, where he sees nothing against having gay characters in scripted programming, or perhaps even more explicit love scenes with them, he wouldn’t want this to be turned into a gimmick, because it just so happens that this is not the kind of TV he likes to watch.

His initial comment went like this: “Sometimes, it’s just pushing it a little too far for my taste and I’m not going to reveal to you which ones they are. I hope people don’t abuse it and shove it in our face… to the point where it feels like an every day kind of thing.”

The backlash was instant: TV and film are finally making progress on the realistic portrayal of gay characters, so why is someone as high profile as Crystal speaking out against that? Why was he apparently so set against progress by saying that he wouldn’t want gay TV scenes to become the “new normal”?

“First of all, I don’t understand why there would be anything offensive that I said,” Crystal said in his defense. “When it gets too far either visually… now, that world exists because it does for the hetero world, it exists, and I don’t want to see that either. But when I feel it’s a cause, when I feel it’s ‘You’re going to like my lifestyle,’ no matter what it is, I’m going to have a problem and there were a couple of shows I went ‘I couldn’t watch that with somebody else.’ That’s fine. If whoever writes it or produces it… totally get it. It’s all about personal taste.”

He later explained that he actually took issue with all kinds of gratuitous love scenes, whether they involved gay or straight characters. He wasn’t a prude either; he only tried to say that certain TV shows tend to go for the shock factor by posing as progressive, through the inclusion of unnecessary and irrelevant nudity and graphic content.

Freedom of expression vs. political correctness

And here’s where it gets tricky: in saying that he didn’t like to watch gay scenes on TV, Crystal was not being politically correct because, as a public figure, he is expected to show his support for the LGBT community, or at the very least not speak against it.

Every celebrity is expected to strive for equality, and when they don’t support it publicly, speaking out against it is considered in very, very bad taste, and the backlash against them in the press and on social media can turn quite vicious.

Ironically, Crystal was asked to voice an opinion on the state of television and how much progress regarding gay characters has been made. So because he’s a free man, he should be free to voice his opinion just like everyone else: it may be contested or debated, but it should be out there and he shouldn’t have to be called names for putting it there.

When the reporter asked him a question and he answered, he did it as an individual, not as a role model or a public figure. Billy Crystal, like many other celebrities who fell into this trap, is an actor. He play-pretends for a living so if he doesn’t choose to align himself to a cause, he should not be attacked. It is his right to do so or not.

“Political correctness is tyranny with manners.” Charlton Heston

As a society, we have become so set on being politically correct at all times that we have forgotten how to have a real conversation – you know that thing people used to do, when one dude said one thing and the other replied, either in agreement or dissent.

Theoretically, we’re all entitled to opinions and are free to express them, but in reality, we can’t do the latter because it will offend people whom we have never met, and probably never will. This happens even in situations like the one mentioned above, when the opinion is expressed in a civilized manner, without hurling insults and calling people names.

Suddenly, all “conversation” has become unidirectional. Wasn’t Heston right?

A clever trap set up by the media

As noted above, this is actually a very clever trap set up by the media when fishing for stories. Reality stars are known to fake conflict just so they can get a new storyline to show on camera, and the media isn’t without its means either.

You can see this happening with every female celebrity being asked if she’s a feminist (because whatever response she gives is bound to get her headlines and plenty of criticism), or when stars are asked to put in their 2 cents on world or local politics, or scandals their peers happened to be dragged into.

The recipe is simple: ask a celebrity something only vaguely related to their work and lure them into answering it (freedom of expression FTW) and then sit back and enjoy the controversy (political correctness at its best).

Just ask Billy Crystal, he knows. He probably also knows better than to answer questions like this one in the future.

Speaking of, this is our future:

Fun times ahead, thanks to our obsession with correctness
Fun times ahead, thanks to our obsession with correctness

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Political correctness is chipping away at freedom of expression, and we shouldn't let it
Fun times ahead, thanks to our obsession with correctness
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