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Daniel Gehrin
Caruso
University Writing 1103
September 30, 2015
What does it mean to be politically correct?
Society is currently in a strange era where it seem that free speech is being tested to its
limits and creativity is being stifled because people feel that it is necessary to be politically
correct all the time. Many writers have a hard time writing anything without people getting
offended about their works, no matter the topic. Film and game makers have to be careful of how
they write their characters to make sure no groups of people are offended. Even the President of
the United States has to be careful of what he says or it might lead to everything he stands for
being turned upside down. Why do we live in a world like this and why are people so sensitive to
every topic under the sun? From that, we must look at how society evolved over the years and at
what point political correctness reached an all-time high.
To start things off, it is important to know what political correctness is. Webster
dictionary defines it as agreeing with the idea that people should be careful to not use language
or behave in a way that could offend a particular group of people. The term itself has also been
around for a long time. It first emerged in the mid 1900s as a term to describe a democratic
person who thought that all politics was mastering the terminology of politics and knowing how
to use it. Over time, the term became vaguer to encompass all thoughts that were deemed as
offensive. That is how we got the term that we know today.

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First, we need to look at how our politically correct world has affected our daily lives.
Political correctness has had an impact on many areas of entertainment and information such as
comedy, movies, television, books, videogames, and politics. As entertainment goes, creativity is
often silenced by people who dont agree with how the creator should make their project. For
example, a few months ago extreme feminist groups were attacking video games because there
were not enough strong female characters in games. So in order to appease the masses, many
companies like Ubisoft started to make more characters that that cover all grounds from women
to transgender persons. Personally, I do not think it is a bad thing that there is more diversity in
games, but my problem resides on the creative process of this. Developers are being forced to
add characters to their game that they originally had no intention of adding and thus their
creative choices are being limited by the masses.
On the informatics side of the subject, many great places of learning and insight are being
discredited because of things that people deem as offensive. For example, Barrack Obama had a
great interview with Mark Maron (Radio Show Host) on the topic of racism in the United States
in light of the Charleston, SC church shooting. In the interview, Obama talked about how racism
still exists in the United States and despite that he believes that the situation has improved and he
believes that his grandchildren will live in a world without nearly as much hate. Within the
interview, he said Racism. We are not cured of it. And it's not just a matter of it not being polite
to say 'nigger' in public. That's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just a
matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't overnight completely erase everything that
happened 200-300 years prior (Obama). This section of the interview was used to show how
racism was is still a problem and how the word nigger is the least problematic part of racism.
The interview was insightful and it was interesting to hear the presidents thoughts on a touchy

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subject. Despite that, the internet and many news networks focused on how he said nigger and
that became the subject of many articles. Because of this, his insight was discredited and some
sites like Fox news even called him racist. They editor stated But there you have it folks this
is man who was supposed to usher in the post-racial America. This is the man who was supposed
to unite, not divide (Fox). Since we live in a politically correct world, reason and logic are
thrown out the window to let people get offended over non-offensive content.
It is worth mentioning that there have been times in our history when society is doing
wrong and a group of people need to set change for a better world. There have also been groups
of people with a worthwhile cause but their actions make the cause look bad and thus making the
entire movement take one step back. An example of this is the Feminazi movement. Before I
continue, I should mention that I do not hate feminists. I believe that women should be equal in
every sense a man is. To continue, a Feminazi is a derogatory term used describe an extreme
feminist. Feminazis generally believe that all men are worthless and women are superior
versus them being equal. Some of their tactics to help their cause are lying, exaggerating the
truth, and dehumanizing or censoring those who dont share their views.
A more well-known Feminist is Anita Sarkeesian and her show Feminist Frequency.
In her show, she finds popular video games and points out how they objectifying women and all
men are evil. For example, she once talked about a game called Bayonetta. In her video, she
pointed at the obvious and says that the main character Bayonetta is an overly sexualized and
she has no personality and that the character was made to appeal to men everywhere.
Now to verify what if what she was saying was true, I made some time to play through
the game and little to my surprise, almost everything she said in was wrong. The only thing she
got right was that Bayonetta is overly sexualized. Other things she got wrong was her lack of

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personality. She is inherently cocky with her because she has many magic powers that make her
powerful and this makes her rarely lose fights. Also she is caring and there are many times when
she acts disinterested in others but really she could not live with her self if something were to
happen to her friends. I could go on longer about this character but I wish to display why
Bayonetta being attractive actually makes her a stronger character. Since she is strong, caring and
comfortable with her body she should be considered a role model more than the standard of
objectified women. After stating all of that, it becomes clear that Anita only looked at trailers for
that game and based her research on that. This just shows how into todays society, people
become too quick to judge based on first impressions and thus fueling the flames of our
politically correct world.
I could go on much longer about other groups and examples of people being overly
sensitive but I feel that those examples get my point across. To answer the question, Why do we
live in a world like this and why are people so sensitive to every topic under the sun, it seems
that in all the previous cases people manipulate the emotions of others to benefit their own
causes. Whether it is to improve the sale of products by appeasing the masses or making people
think there is a problem with the world when there really isnt to convert others to their own
cause, it seem that political correctness is really a ploy to trick the masses. That lead to another
question, will political correctness go away? It is hard to say but it seems that slowly, political
correctness is going away. In the word of Doug Walker (Movie Critic), how do we know who to
be offended by and who not to be offended by? Well sadly, the answer is not in any book and it is
not online. You just have to use common sense. If people start to ask questions about what they
hear in the media and they stop looking at things from a single mindset, then political correctness
will be a forgotten memory and free speech will be able to be prosperous once again.

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