Steve Martin received backlash for a tribute he paid to Carrie Fisher on Twitter, and now there is a backlash from the anti-PC crowd on how ridiculous “the left” is for criticizing Steve Martin’s tweet.
On Tuesday on the day of Fisher’s death, Martin wrote in a now-deleted tweet, “When I was a young man, Carrie Fisher was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She turned out to be witty and bright as well.”
The anti-PC backlash mainly is reaction to NYMag’s The Cut article by Claire Landsbaum, who wrote a piece titled, “Carrie Fisher Struggled Against Being a Nerd-Boy Sex Object Her Whole Life*.” The title is a bit of an exaggeration. Most of Carrie Fisher’s talk about being a sex symbol approaches humility and self-deprecation, not all-out feminism as Landsbaum would have readers believe.
But Claire Landsbaum describes Steve Martin’s characterization of Princess Leia (“the most beautiful creature I had ever seen) as “a wet dream for prepubescent men” … which by the way is scientifically incorrect by definition because the landmark for puberty is ejaculation or the first wet dream (i.e., boys are no longer prepubescent when they’re ejaculating). And the landmark occurs on average at age 13, and definitely by the end of the teen years, which by definition should classify males as boys, not men. So “wet dream for prepubescent men” is a crass description and a trilogy of misnomers. Besides, being classified as somebody’s “wet dream” is a big stretch from being called “beautiful creature.” But we’re beginning to understand how Claire Landsbaum exaggerates to validate her projections.
Furthermore, Steve Martin’s qualifier that Fisher “turned out to be witty and bright as well” — which Martin probably crafted carefully in the short space of a tweet to avoid being called sexist — is ignored by Landsbaum. Without Martin’s qualifier, Landsbaum might have had a point, but she misleads readers anyway, and to support her point refers to Carrie Fisher as an outspoken feminist and links to The Cut’s15 of Carrie Fisher’s Best, Most Honest Feminist Quotes. Only #10 and #14 are profoundly feminist statements. The other comments are tongue and cheek about feminism or are Fisher’s quotes about mental illness and aging.
Sadly, it was about a year ago that people were publicly debating and criticizing Carrie Fisher’s appearance in The Force Awakens (released December 18, 2015 nationwide). Fisher responded saying, “Please stop debating about whether or not I aged well. Unfortunately it hurts all three of my feelings. My body hasn’t aged as well as I have. Blow us” and “Youth and beauty are not accomplishments.”
Perhaps Steve Martin was recalling that cringe worthy debate involving the shallow and envious people discussing the appearance of the 60-year-old actress. Maybe he was just speaking from his heart without influence. Unfortunately, today’s selfish class, for their own agenda, over-project their own ideologies, fears and prejudices to the extent of misinterpreting or misrepresenting what other people are expressing.
One commenter to Landsbaum’s article explains politically correct dogma as the enemy of diversity that intimidates people into forming speech that is disingenuous and meaningless. In other words, the First Amendment is threatened because people are afraid to speak.
“Remember Carrie anyway you chose (sic) to (remember her) people…no one owns your mind or memories. Claire you really can’t believe what you spout, such one dimensional, narrow mindedness…. true diversity is intellectual in origin and political correct dogma is actually the enemy of diversity. It has almost turned our society into a giant cult. Hopefully things will change and real vigorous debate, not PC bullying will take place. When people are intimidated into not speaking what they honestly feel and see, then interactions become disingenuous and meaningless. Steve Martin probably withdrew his beautiful, heartfelt, honest and winsome tweet to avoid giving idiots like you more reason to make a lovely memory of a wonderful lady into political fodder for a non-cause. You have no substance….”
— Commenter labelsare4clothes
Would Claire Landsbaum prefer that Steve Martin hide his true feelings and spew out some meaningless politically correct groupspeak? Steve Martin’s early success as a comedian was about pushing the envelope with phrases of honesty and chaos in a so-called ordered world.
As Steve Martin once explained about comedy … “Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.” Apparently with Claire Landsbaum, puking comes too easy.
+ + + + +
* It looks like NYMag The Cut changed the title of the article from the original: “Steve Martin: This Isn’t How You Pay Tribute to Carrie Fisher.” See the link text http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/12/steve-martin-this-isnt-how-you-pay-tribute-to-carrie-fisher.html which captures the initial title.
Get updates from The Cardinal ALL NEWS FEEDS on Facebook. Just ‘LIKE’ the ‘Arlington Cardinal Page (become a fan of our page). The updates cover all posts and sub-category posts from The Cardinal — Arlingtoncardinal.com. You can also limit feeds to specific categories. See all of The Cardinal Facebook fan pages at Arlingtoncardinal.com/about/facebook …
Help fund The Cardinal Arlingtoncardinal.com/sponsor
Facebook picture of Claire Landsbaum for personal page claimed to belong to Claire Landsbaum, Staff Writer at The Cut and former Night Editor at New York Magazine …