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| Ruth Buzzi and Arte Johnson as Gladys and Tyrone on Laugh-In |
Trump's people want the straight white men on top again. They're probably thinking, "What's wrong with complimenting a pretty girl? So what if the man happens to be her boss and he stands real close to her when he says it?" In Alabama, diehard Roy Moore supporters are defending his heinous behavior by either calling the news media liars or citing the teenage status of the Virgin Mary as an acceptable precedent for molesting adolescents. These people actually would rather vote for a pedophile than a Democrat.
Last Tuesday's off-year election offered rays of hope with Democrats winning the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey and a host of minority candidates emerging victorious including a transgender woman trouncing a homophobic incumbent in Virginia. Also, Mueller's investigation is getting closer to Trumpy. But make no mistake, even if Mueller has proof positive Trump colluded with Russia to skew the election, the Dotard will not be impeached by a Republican congress. A friend of mine told me she doesn't see how Trump can possibly be re-elected in 2020. Of course it's possible and probable unless the Democrats appeal to moderate voters. Trump can still divide the country, and say "Look, the stock market is doing OK. I'll protect you from North Korea. What do you care if I insult people and tweet too much. It's fun and entertaining. You want some boring politician who's gonna raise your taxes or me? You can ruffle my hair if you want." If enough idiots in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin buy his spiel, we'll have Trump until 2024.
When Obama was elected in 2008 a lot of people had this rosy idealistic dream that he would bring us all together and there would be no more racism and we'd all sing Kumbaya (a song I always found annoying). I knew it wasn't gonna happen and I was right. Now starry-eyed Dems think Trump will be impeached and everyone will hate Pence and we'll retake the White House and Congress. Again I don't think so. Unless we fight like hell against racism, sexism, and find a way to get back the vacillating Trump voters who voted for Obama.
Attractive female guests on What's My Line got wolf whistles as they signed in and Bennett Cerf would automatically flirt with any of them under a certain age. To be fair, Arlene Francis would compliment a good-looking male once in a while.
ReplyDeleteTrue enough, but there were a couple of incidents where Bennett took things to a place that Arlene wouldn't dare. The first incident that springs to mind: Bennett manages to turn a compliment to one woman into something so unbelievably condescending and sexist that I had to slap myself back into the 21st century so I wouldn't formulate a plan to defile his grave. The challenger was wearing what we would call a “body-conscious” dress, and Bennett, not satisfied with just complimenting the woman, took the opportunity to berate women for wearing clothes that were equally as form-fitting, calling such garments “an insult to every man in America.”
I watched that episode five days ago, and I still can't see anything but red. The idea that women's whole purpose in existing is to be pretty things for men to look at, and heaven help the women who aren't.
Another incident involved either Lena Horne or Eartha Kitt. The “intersectionality” of the situation has my brain trying to blot out the specific memory.
But again, that was then, not now.
What I can say is that the existence of people who want to roll back the clock sixty years, back to the “good old days” that never existed outside of the Cleaver household, is deeply disturbing.
Some modern What's My Line yearn for a return to civility and social courtesy, even in the face of reminders of the cost such things came at (particularly the necessity of code-switching for Black celebrities, doubly so for black male athletes).
I'm a sucker for Emily Post and all things formal, but something in me would rather stay barbaric than yield to wholesale cultural regression.
(Yeah, I know; I was a little bit wide of the topic. If it makes any difference, my Google search was [Bennett Cerf "sexist"] which I had pared down from ["Bennet Cerf" "insult to every man in America"] which I was using to try and relocate that particular episode; my YouTube history is unreliable due to the number of What's My Line? episodes I watch during a week. So, as fate would have it, Google led me here.)
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