Charlie Nash

It’s no secret that political correctness has stunted pop culture. Comedians walk on eggshells for fear of offending the wrong person. A day hardly goes by without a public apology for old comments. Hollywood is perhaps furthest down this road to insipidity. It means creative types who enjoy pushing boundaries, offending viewers, making even the most hardy of us as uncomfortable as humanly possible, can’t thrive. One such person is the director Tom Six. In 2009, Six made popculture history with his shock-horror flick The Human Centipede — a movie about a Nazi-like German doctor who kidnaps and stitches his victims together, anus to mouth — as a sadistic experiment.

The Twitter pitchforks are out once more – this time for Cynthia Erivo, an actor and singer born in London to Nigerian parents. The 32-year-old is set to play the titular role in Harriet, a movie based on the life of abolitionist Harriet Tubman who helped countless African American slaves escape through the Underground Railroad. The film, set for a November release this year, boasts a cast including Janelle Monae and Hamilton star Leslie Odom Jr. Erivo is a Tony-winning performer who received great reviews for her turn as a soul singer in Bad Times at the El Royale. Yet she finds herself in the middle of a war for Tubman's legacy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

On Thursday, May 30, Morrissey was ‘canceled’. According to the Guardian, a British newspaper fond of such decrees, fans now feel ‘betrayed’ by the singer’s recent controversial and provocative statements, which have included support for Anne Marie Waters’s nationalist For Britain party. ‘Morissey [sic], what happened?’ the Guardian agonized on Twitter. But maybe they already know the answer. In just a decade, political correctness has obtained a stranglehold on Western culture. The provocateurs and counter-cultural icons of the late 20th century have been replaced by commercially compromised ‘influencers’, and artists who are carefully selected by social censors.

Has the British artist Steven Patrick Morrissey, often known simply by his last name Morrissey, embraced the alt-right? Or is he just living proof that not every celebrity Brit is a moral coward? This week, the former frontman for The Smiths has attracted media attention after he condemned Halal meat as "evil," called out attempts to sabotage Britain's exit from the European Union, and denounced British Prime Minister Theresa May, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbot. This isn’t the first time Morrissey has ignored his public relations team.  In 2017, following the Manchester terrorist attack, Morrissey criticised politicians for refusing to acknowledge the attacker's extreme Islamic ideology.