“The problem I have with all of the “conservative” Christian angst against the cancel culture is that it has been conservative Christians who — especially beginning in the 1970s — were constantly leading the charge to “boycot” [sic] this or that product because said product was a sponsor of tv shows like Soap, or All in the Family, or anything else that the conservative Christians objected to. In other words, y’all are the prototype cancelers. It’s just more than a little disengenous [sic] that now that you’re feeling the heat from your own fire, you’re crying about it.”
— "MARTIN LUTHER" WRITING TO GOTTESBLOG
The above quote was in response to my post called “Cancel Culture and the Cross.”
It amuses me for several reasons, and has given me fodder for writing more. So thank you, “Boomer Luther.”
I love how boomers are still living in the glory days of the 1960s and 70s, albeit Depends have replaced once ubiquitous bell bottoms, and Viagra has largely supplanted LSD. It is as though life reached its zenith at Woodstock, and boomers are still having flashbacks from the brown acid, even as their glory days of ruling the youth culture were to march on a few more years into the 1970s before sputtering and amounting to nothing. So much for the “Age of Aquarius”. Look at what Martin Boomer considers a cultural triumph: the subversive TV shows of five decades ago: “Soap” and “All in the Family.”
And this is why we say, “OK, boomer.”
“Soap”? I do remember the program, but barely. I was a child. It was back when the Left became enamored with deviant sexuality and having the sound of a toilet flushing on TV. So stunning. So brave. And really, “Martin Luther”? “Soap”? Does anybody under the age of 75 have any of these shows in his VHS collection? I guess that’s what they like to call “ground breaking.” Sigh.
OK, boomer.
And let’s talk about “All in the Family,” shall we? I actually watched this one as a kid. It was a celebration of degeneracy, anti-Christianism, and Marxism. It was the brainchild of Norman Lear, a political leftist and social revolutionary. The message of the show is personified by the Atheist and leftist character known by his nickname "Meathead”, played by fellow leftist revolutionary Rob Reiner. The villain of the series was Archie Bunker, who represents traditional American values (and of course is a conservative white Protestant). On the show, Bunker is a slack-jawed, mouth-breathing buffoon, and an irrational and stupid bigot, while, of course, the counter-cultural characters are all intelligent, suave, sophisticated and educated. They always come out ahead while Bunker looks like a fool. Yawn. And of course, Christianity is mocked while Marxism, sexual promiscuity and deviancy, and cultural degeneracy are celebrated. The free enterprise system is panned as well.Watching reruns of the program from our perspective today shows the ham-handed agitprop cleverly using a laugh-track to cue and program the home audience as to whom they are supposed to identify with, and to get them mindlessly seal-clapping along at just the right time, like unto Pavlov’s slobbering dogs.
Interestingly, Lear and Reiner were old-school leftists in many ways, champions of the Declaration of Independence (which today has a so-called trigger warning for calling American Indians “savages” and not acknowledging black slaves). Lear and Meathead are advocates of free speech - at least when it suits them. I have yet to hear Norman Lear (who is still alive) or Rob “OK Boomer” Reiner utter a peep today about cancel culture and the assaults on free speech from their political allies. I guess that they’re fine with cancel culture as long as it goes from left to right.
Moreover, another fact that went down the Boomer Memory Hole is that “All in the Family” and its spinoff “The Jeffersons” included the use of the uncensored N-word. And yet, surprise of surprises, nobody is calling for Norman Lear and Meathead to apologize, to grovel, to b
