I don’t know or care about the Oscars, but there’s just something amusing about Robin Williams’ plan to lampoon James Dobson last night, and the decision to clamp down on the ridicule.
ABC executives have forced Robin Williams to drop a comic song from the Oscars show that might well have proved one of the most political and racy numbers of the broadcast, despite the fact that the network and the show’s host, Chris Rock, have been promoting the night as anything but tame.
Mr. Williams, the presenter of the Academy Award for best animated feature, decided last week that his one minute on stage would be a prime time to lampoon the conservative critic James C. Dobson, whose group Focus on the Family last month criticized the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants for appearing in a video about tolerance that the group called “pro-homosexual.”
Williams had hoped to do a bit in which he’d deliver a sermon-like speech, “inveighing against other newly-discovered sinners in the nation’s midst,” and singling out Dobson for his foolishness.
The producer of the Oscars telecast, Gil Cates, insisted that Williams’ song be “less political,” prompting composers to remove all references to Dobson’s protests. After a series of revisions and exchanges with producers, the whole routine was ultimately scrapped.
So let’s get this straight: An evangelical blowhard, who denounces “indoctrination by ‘politically correct’ ideas that are promoted by America’s decadent entertainment industry,” says something stupid about a cartoon character and his condemnation is broadcast far and wide. Then, Hollywood producers stifle an entertainer who wants to poke fun at the blowhard, so no one can hear the mockery. The irony is deep.
What an odd twist in the current fight over sensitive language: it’s now politically incorrect to make fun of those who rail against political correctness.