Culture Fights Back Against Cultural Marxism

First it was My Little Pony. Now it's Degrassi. Social justice warriors are certain to not be amused.

The internet reached a fever pitch recently when the season 5 premier episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic -- a cartoon show ostensibly for girls, yet enjoyed by many men -- turned its guns on extreme social justice ideologies. In particular, Cultural Marxism.

In the episode, the main characters travel to a village where the residents have surrendered their "cutie marks" (emblems on their flanks representing their special talents and powers) in the name of friendship. The idea, the main characters are told, is that nobody -- or nopony as the show's lexicon seems to hold -- can maintain a friendship unless they're equal in all things. So in the places of their "cutie marks" they all sport an equal symbol.

The villagers -- who all live in bland identical minimalist houses -- aren't as happy as they try to seem. With each villager stripped of their special talents, pretty much everything in the village is mediocre. For one thing, the muffins are terrible.

Fans of Derpy Hooves will understand the significance. 

There's more afoot than there may seem. By the end of the episode it becomes clear that the episode's villain is really only out for herself. Her crusade against "cutie marks" and insistence that everyone be "equal" seems to be for the sake of gaining power for herself, nothing more.

I don't imagine that this episode will be very popular in daycares where children are forced to build identical LEGO houses so one child can build a better house than any other child.

So there's one blow up the gut of social justice warriors. Now, courtesy of Degrassi, comes another.
Batten down the hatchets, social justice warriors. It's not going to be smooth sailing from here on out.

Long a staple of Canadian television, it's hard to find a cultural property more socially progressive than Degrassi. It was among the first television programs to sympathetically tackle such subjects as HIV, disability, teen pregnancy, mental illness, homosexuality... far too many to name. All of this beginning in the 1980s.

Now the show is going to take a swipe at the concept of "safe spaces," -- the idea that social interactions must be strictly regulated in order to facilitate the comfort of specific groups -- and  not in a way that social justice warriors are going to enjoy. Judging from the above trailer, it doesn't look like the kids are down with this at all.

With a social justice ideologue holding the reins of power at their school as principle, it looks as if the kids are going to react quite poorly to the invasion of stifling, freedom-killing social justice ideology into their school. Some look like they're going to push back. Hard.

My Little Pony is incredibly popular among children. Degrassi's current home is on youth culture juggernaut MTV.

Social justice warriors have apparently managed to earn themselves some very powerful cultural adversaries.

Welcome to Degrassi, social justice warriors. Hope your Cultural Marxist ideologies (don't) survive the experience.

John Doyle is His Own Political Santa Claus

There's something about a television critic whose work seems to be far more about politics than it is about what's actually on TV that provokes a cringe among so many Canadians.

That cringe becomes more cringe-y still when one considers just how invested Doyle is in the soul-crushing status quo of the Canadian media. But when he takes that devotion and applies it to playing Santa Claus... well, the results are not pretty.

That's precisely what Doyle does in his most recent Globe and Mail column, and the results of his political "naughty and nice" list are predictable to anyone who paid any attention whatsoever to Doyle during 2011.

Topping his list is federal Minister of the Environment Peter Kent. Because Doyle doesn't like him. That seems to be pretty much it.

The second is Sun News Network anchor Krista Erickson. Erickson, you see, asked "iconic" interpretive dancer Margie Gillis some forbidden questions back in June, and Doyle has never forgiven her. The consensus media -- the keepers of the aforementioned soul-crushing status quo -- never forgive anyone who asks forbidden questions. Just ask Dan Gardner.

Coming in third is Rex Murphy -- a familiar target of hatred for the far-left. The far-left find Murphy to be a comforting locus for their hatred because he is skeptical of their causes celibre on, of all networks, the CBC. The CBC, they assure us, is theirs, and no viewpoints can be tolerated there other than their own.

Thus Doyle's revulsion at Don Cherry -- another far-left hate magnet -- and Kevin O'Leary. Cherry is, well... Cherry, and O'Leary was seen to be insufficiently deferential to American journalist Chris Hedges.

Closing out the list at #9 was another Sun News Network anchor, Brian Lilley. Doyle seems to resent Lilley for asking tough questions about the CBC, but there's more to it than that. Although Doyle ridiculed Sun News for not being an instant success at a time when it wasn't airing in all of Canada's media markets, Doyle likely hasn't forgiven the network for promptly beginning to break ratings records just two months later.

Also mentioned was Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, although seemingly not formally included on the list. Ford, you see, committed the grievous sin of not being sufficiently jovial when accosted at his home by no-talent "comedienne" Mary Walsh. Remember that Walsh was conducting that particular ambush, and the real reason for Ford's inclusion becomes crystal clear.

Well, if John Doyle is handing out Santa's presents to anyone this year -- be it to TV producers and personalities or to anyone else -- the people who rightly belong on the naughty list can expect generous presents, and the people who rightly belong on the nice list. Not only does this particular Santa suck at his job, he's also ass-backward.