It’s really incredible just how quickly the needle has moved on racial and sexual acceptance. If you go back and look at edgy comedy that has a racial component from the early 90s you can see just how far things have come.
The classic example, Blazing Saddles of course has the plot of the new sheriff in the old wild west town being black, and while a lot of the jokes and exact verbaige wouldn’t fly today, you can tell that it didnt come from a place of prejudice but simply racial acceptance has improved so much these days. But the part that absolutely aged the worst was at the end there’s a fourth wall breaking gag where all of the cowboys accidentally leave the Western film set at the studio and find themselves on the set of a musical, and there’s a series of very off-color gags about queer folk in theatre including (straight) male actors overplaying “gay” and feminine traits as part of the joke. This scene quite clearly did not come from a place of tolerance and hits very differently now because of it. Gay men are 100% the butt of the joke in that scene, and not the audience.
You can also tell how recent sexual acceptance is with how certain milestones are so recent.
Legend of Korra which aired in 2014 ends with the main character entering into a relationship with another woman, something that was absolutely groundbreaking in childrens television, and that was less than 10 years ago!
A lot of LGBTQ+ people despair unnecessarily at the state of discourse around LGBTQ+ rights. Looking at the arc of history, we’ve gained rights at an astounding rate. The Stonewall Riots are usually counted as start of the modern LGBTQ+ movement, so just a touch over fifty years. Many other minority groups have spent centuries under the thumb of oppressors with only painstaking movement. Instead, every few years delivers something new. Yes, there are setbacks, but overall things are showing strong improvement.
It’s really incredible just how quickly the needle has moved on racial and sexual acceptance. If you go back and look at edgy comedy that has a racial component from the early 90s you can see just how far things have come.
The classic example, Blazing Saddles of course has the plot of the new sheriff in the old wild west town being black, and while a lot of the jokes and exact verbaige wouldn’t fly today, you can tell that it didnt come from a place of prejudice but simply racial acceptance has improved so much these days. But the part that absolutely aged the worst was at the end there’s a fourth wall breaking gag where all of the cowboys accidentally leave the Western film set at the studio and find themselves on the set of a musical, and there’s a series of very off-color gags about queer folk in theatre including (straight) male actors overplaying “gay” and feminine traits as part of the joke. This scene quite clearly did not come from a place of tolerance and hits very differently now because of it. Gay men are 100% the butt of the joke in that scene, and not the audience.
You can also tell how recent sexual acceptance is with how certain milestones are so recent. Legend of Korra which aired in 2014 ends with the main character entering into a relationship with another woman, something that was absolutely groundbreaking in childrens television, and that was less than 10 years ago!
A lot of LGBTQ+ people despair unnecessarily at the state of discourse around LGBTQ+ rights. Looking at the arc of history, we’ve gained rights at an astounding rate. The Stonewall Riots are usually counted as start of the modern LGBTQ+ movement, so just a touch over fifty years. Many other minority groups have spent centuries under the thumb of oppressors with only painstaking movement. Instead, every few years delivers something new. Yes, there are setbacks, but overall things are showing strong improvement.