History Main / PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad

Along the same lines, a governmental authority (often a local council or MediaWatchdog) is accused of being over-zealous to the point of parody in trying to avoid offense to minority groups - not unlike the CulturePolice but in the other direction. [[{{Kotobagari}} Certain words or phrases are said to have been "banned"]], as if, say, Chipping Sodbury Borough Council has any effective power over the English language or, indeed, ''anything''. Often, the body in question is not only being overly cautious, they're actually oppressing the group that is the target of their actions, and are shocked should their targets explain that [[ForYourOwnGood a patronizing, paternalistic attitude]] can be [[UnwantedAssistance just as offensive as the perceived slight]]. On the other hand, since this is often a {{satire}} we're dealing with, it's just as likely that the mere hint of the word "offense" will indeed result in the offending work being [[BannedInChina Banned In Chipping Sodbury]].

** In the short story ''HarrisonBergeron'' parodies the (perceived) attitudes of equality activists. It takes place in a future dystopia where everyone has been made equal by handicapping devices which curtail excess intelligence, strength, creativity, beauty, or any other natural advantage (and if you had an unnatural advantage, such as skill due to training, you were only allowed to use it to make yourself average). There's even a government official (The "Handicapper General") whose job is to oversee this. [[spoiler:She's fond of using shotguns as a tool of equality.]] The TV movie had a similar take. The government remakes the world to look like the 1950s (because that's when Americans are thought to have been happiest); the death penalty is enforced--on live television--for crimes like [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking jaywalking]]; in schools, you fail if you score too low... but also if you score too high; you're supposed to be embarrassed if you beat someone in chess too easily... And people are in favor of all this. One government official (in order to rule, of course, they must be free of the devices that inhibit them) explains to Harrison in a borderline non-sequitur that while this has resulted in a marked decline in, for example, the arts, if it had meant an end to atrocities like what happened in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, he would put the gun to Beethoven's temple (they were listening to Beethoven while watching footage of World War II) himself.

** The real evolution of "soldier's heart" (TheAmericanCivilWar) to "shell shock" to "battle shock" to "combat stress" to PTSD is more complex and less about political correctness than about trying to accurately describe an experience. It started out in the 17th century as "nostalgia"!

* In the book version of ''LayerCake'', one chapter shows the protagonist at a barbershop with his con artist friend, who is pretending to be plummy aristocrat "Lord Hugo". In this persona, he expresses some very "Mailesque" views (reinstating national service, complaining about giving Hong Kong back to the "slope heads", etc.) and hearty endorsement from both the other patrons and the staff. At the same time, the protagonist is pretending to be a South American footballer who doesn't speak English and is addressed to his face as a dago and similar ethnic slurs.

%%** It was also a Music/TomLehrer [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0L_rD7CCe4&NR=1 one-liner]].

* The [[YanksWithTanks USAF]] fighter pilot band Music/DosGringos has a song called ''You Gotta Be In The Guard'', which decries the increasing restrictions on fighter pilot behavior. The Air National Guard, according to them, is ''more'' lenient on conduct than the Air Force.

** One story line has Grumbel's dealing with fallout after listing Christmas trees as 'holiday trees' in their ad. The worst part was it was an accident: someone made a proofreading error.
** A recurring plot in December comics is that the employees just can't win with holiday greetings. If they say 'Merry Christmas' someone gets offended. If they say 'Happy Holidays', someone gets offended. If they say nothing ''at all'', someone gets offended. It's PlayedForLaughs in one strip: Stuart greets a customer with 'Merry Christmas', and when she looks horrified, he changes it to 'Happy Holidays'. In his head he grumbles about this trope, while she's horrified by his Christmas greeting because it's the second day of ''October''.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Sealab 2021}}'' episode "Article 4", nearly everyone on Sealab abuses the affirmative action policy to get promoted to Captain... except for Quinn, who's [[OnlySaneMan too proud and too sensible,]] and Stormy, who's [[TheDitz too stupid]], and Allen and the other Asians (whom Article 4 actually discriminated against).

* Inverted with UsefulNotes/NewZealand journalist Steve Kilgallon, when he wrote of [[http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/columnists/4449295/First-against-the-wall-Political-correctness-gone-mad-parrots urban legends being used as examples of PC gone mad]]: "They're all rubbish, but Literature/NineteenEightyFour has finally come to pass: we're all [[GullibleLemmings stupid enough to believe them]]." See also the {{Moviebob}} example in the Web Original section below.

* This is inverted by {{Moviebob}} in his Big Picture video [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/2783-Correctitude "Correctitude"]], where he claims that it's political ''in''correctness that's gone mad. More specifically, he feels that "PC" has been turned into a [[TheWarOnStraw strawman]] by people trying to defend their sexism and bigotry.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Sealab 2021}}'' episode "Article 4", nearly everyone on Sealab abuses the affirmative action policy to get promoted to Captain... except for Quinn, who's [[OnlySaneMan too proud and too sensible,]] and Stormy, who's [[TheDitz too stupid]].
** "Don't go out there, that black chick is crazy!"

* One episode of Series/CriminalMinds deals with this trope. The protagonist realize the serial killer who's been killing black women in the city is black himself and was using his race to avoid suspicion with his victims and the police. However, the Mayor refuses to allow the FBI to revealed this to the media as he's been accused of being a racist by the public for allowing black women to be killed while the killer(who the public thinks is white) has yet to be caught and this new information would only make things worse.

* A representative for the Giant Disembodied Zombie Heads (one of the basement-dwelling races in ''SkinHorse'') takes offense at being called "undead", preferring the term "undead-''american''".

* In [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfDoIyI20z0 this video]] made by the Website/YouTube atheist, WebVideo/{{Thunderf00t}}, he argues that this trope is the core issue of the March 2013 "[[ScandalGate Donglegate]]" affair, as well as [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVKyesBzDAs his comment]] on the short-lived "Ban Bossy" campaign.

Along the same lines, a governmental authority (often a local council or MediaWatchdog) is accused of being over-zealous to the point of parody in trying to avoid offense to minority groups - not unlike the CulturePolice but in the other direction. [[{{Kotobagari}} Certain words or phrases are said to have been "banned"]], as if, say, Chipping Sodbury Borough Council has any effective power over the English language or, indeed, ''anything''. Often, the body in question are not only being overly cautious, they're actually oppressing the group that is the target of their actions, and are shocked should their targets explain that [[ForYourOwnGood a patronizing, paternalistic attitude]] can be [[UnwantedAssistance just as offensive as the perceived slight]]. On the other hand, since this is often a {{satire}} we're dealing with, it's just as likely that the mere hint of the word "offense" will indeed result in the offending work being [[BannedInChina Banned In Chipping Sodbury]].

* {{Tumblr}} blog [[http://plebcomics.tumblr.com Plebcomics]] focuses a lot of its content on this. And on starting [[FlameWar flame wars]].

%%** It was also a TomLehrer [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0L_rD7CCe4&NR=1 one-liner]].

** They changed Zakuro's/Renee's weapon from a cross to a stick in their badly mangled TokyoMewMew dub (as "Mew Mew Power"). They also went out of their way to airbrush her cross necklace in every shot, as well as to cut shots of her praying at a cathedral and censoring the giant cross in said cathedral, which was the setting of one battle. Surprisingly, they aren't always consistent about what they censor: an early episode of {{Pokemon}} had Misty holding up a real cross and specifically referring to it as such.

* ''Incompetence'' by RobGrant is set in a future United States of Europe where (based on actual laws proposed in France) it is illegal to discriminate against candidates for employment not only on the grounds of gender, age, race or creed, but on ''actual ability to do the job'', with predictable results.
** ''Magazine/{{MAD}},'' appropriately enough, had an article like this wherein at the close of the article one person got to join the NBA despite being ''dead'', and the horrible circus accident where a six-foot-tall "midget" clown suffocated inside a clown car along with his three-foot-tall co-workers because of being hired via affirmative action.
** It was also a TomLehrer [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0L_rD7CCe4&NR=1 one-liner]].

* StanFreberg did this back in 1957, when he sang (purportedly at the insistence of a MoralGuardian) "''Elderly'' Man River"[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLlTlYfqQV4]], with political correctness and proper grammar and pronunciation -- i.e., ridiculously {{Bowdleriz|ation}}ed.

* {{Seanbaby}} enlisted Frosty the Snowman to combat the War on Christmas in [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/frosty-snowman-declares-war-war-christmas/ this comic]] from Cracked. What Frosty learns in his quest is '''A:''' the people whining about how offensive and exclusionary the word "Christmas" is are doing so on behalf of people who don't exist, and '''B:''' just let them whine, because Christmas is the most unkillable cultural achievement since pornography and it's not going anywhere.

This title, taken from an [[MemeticMutation infamous]] CatchPhrase of the ''[[BritishNewspapers Daily Mail]]'', a British tabloid newspaper, can refer to one of two things.

* ''[[BritishNewspapers The Guardian]]'':

* In the atheist-ruled world of ''Soon'' by [[LeftBehind Jerry Jenkins]], Christmas has been replaced by 'Wintermas'. Apparently Jenkins felt that having 'Christ' in the world would have offended the StrawAtheist world government but the word 'mas(s)' is left untouched.

* One of the ''[[TheUltimates Ultimate Avengers]]'' mini-series has a scene where the second Comicbook/BlackWidow refers her teammate Tyrone as an "African-American", despite the fact that he comes from England. Comicbook/WarMachine points this out and says that there's nothing offensive about calling him black, but Widow states that it still makes her uncomfortable and asks if "African-English" would be more appropriate.

* Manholes being renamed "Personnel Access Units" [[FreudWasRight to avoid offending women.]]

* There's an episode of ''SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' about prejudice. Near the end of the episode, Nozomu is about to have sex with a gay man because he thought that turning down his advances would be offensive. He did not enjoy it.

* In the ''{{Sealab 2021}}'' episode "Article 4", nearly everyone on Sealab abuses the affirmative action policy to get promoted to Captain... except for Quinn, who's [[OnlySaneMan too proud and too sensible,]] and Stormy, who's [[TheDitz too stupid]].

* In an episode of ''[[CliffordTheBigRedDog Clifford's Puppy Days]]'' the family was on a trip for "Fall Feast" instead of "Thanksgiving".
* In an episode of "WordGirl", Becky's family hosts a 'Holiday' party, where everyone brings their 'Holiday' cheese (which of course, Dr. Two-Brains steals). The thing is... Well, there's Christmas trees and all that, not really any sign of any OTHER holiday; and they even sing "Oh, Holiday Cheese," which has the exact tune as "O, Christmas Tree." The episode is named, "Oh, Holiday Cheese." Mr. Botsford also makes a reference to "The Christmas Song": "I'm gonna roast some nuts. And I'm gonna do it over an open fire!" There is a slight chance that all this was intentional...

** Speaking of which, SpeedyGonzales was a victim of this, as his cartoons were taken off the air for many years due to the idea that Mexicans would find the stereotyping offensive. The irony of it all is that [[MexicansLoveSpeedyGonzales a whole lot of Mexicans actually LOVE Speedy]], and a few years and several petitions later, he's back on the air.