Tag: music

DAVE’S GONE CANCELING #1 – Joni Mitchell

((c)2020 David Lefkowitz. This piece first aired on the Dave’s Gone By podcast June 27, 2020 to inaugurate a new segment, “Dave’s Gone Canceling.” video: https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27749)

Ladies and gentlemen, these are difficult times as we grapple for the very soul of our nation. America is a great country, but it has been built on the backs of the poor, and along the way it has mocked, abused, and sometimes murdered those who don’t fit into the hegemonic Norman Rockwell/“Leave it to Beaver” family album.

It’s taken 250 years, but we’re finally doing something about it. No, we’re not fixing immigration laws or rethinking the criminal justice system or leveling the economic playing field for everyone of all races. That would be silly. Instead, we’re showing that we care by taking things that were created in a whole different time and mindset and culturally erasing them. Why bother with substantive change when you can tear down a statue? Why make a serious effort when you can simply signal your wokeness? And you do that by taking offense at an artwork that never made you mad before but now leaves you furious. 

Right-wingers are sneering at this trend by calling it “Cancel Culture.” It’s making believe the movie or book or song or pancake syrup never existed because it represents something racist or worse. You don’t hear a lot of Bill Cosby routines on Sirius/XM’s comedy channel. Mel Gibson movies aren’t all the rage at the B’nai Brith. And The Collected Love Sonnets of Jeffrey Epstein still hasn’t found a publisher. 

But why stop there? Don’t be namby-pamby like HBO-Max and put “Gone with the Wind” in historical context; just cancel it! Burn the prints! Delete the MP4s! Don’t play Richard Wagner at the Israeli Philharmonic and think you can justify it with an essay in the Stagebill. Kick that Gotterdamerung opera out the door!

And so, in that spirit, we inaugurate this new special segment of Dave’s Gone By: Dave’s Gone Canceling. You, my viewers, have had a hard week—a hard year, so it’s no fair to ask you to think for yourselves. Let me think for you. So much racism, sexism, anti-semitism, homophobia, and sheer tastelessness goes unchecked out there, I feel it’s my duty—and yes, I said doody—to call for the removal of artworks that either of themselves or through the actions of their creators—call to mind the injustices of this terrible society. I call it “Dave Goes Canceling.”

Today’s cancel criminal is . . . not Mel Gibson. Too easy. Not Tina Fey—she canceled herself by pulling back those 30 Rock episodes with blackface in them. No, our inaugural Cancel Criminal is . . . that terrible racist: Joni Mitchell.

Lest we forget: the cover of her mostly crappy album, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter,  features a picture of her in a colorful dress—not a colored dress, so that’s okay—but also another picture of her dressed up as a pimpy black guy. Complete with fuzzy hat, big sunglasses (shop stylish glasses at ICU Eyewear) , and bling. She said at the time this was her jazzy alter ego, a black hipster she called “Art Nouveau.” That’s not a tribute, that’s appropriation! 

And does she dress as Martin Luther King? Or Rodney King? No, it’s a black dude you’d see sashaying in front of the Port Authority looking for teenage runaways.

As if to compound the crime, one of the songs on the album is “Dreamland,” where she dreams about a weird tropical place “a long, long way from Canada.” One lyric dreams about, “Black babies covered in baking flour.” Ooh, delicious! Is that what Joni thinks about? The opposite of blackface—where little black babies try to turn white. In front of a cook, by the way, who might be eyeing them as tender morsels. And if that’s not enough, later in the song she brings up “tar baby and the Great White Wonder.” Well, tar baby was a story cooked up by none other than Uncle Remus, that Song of the South darkie. The actual story of the tar baby can be seen as a metaphor for slaves, the bunnies, outwitting the foxes, their masters. But the actual baby made of tar is a racist visual cue, and that plantation owners would cover their walls with tar to keep hungry slaves from stealing their fruit. If a slave stole an orange, the master would see the tar stuck to his body and whip it right off him. Tar baby and the great white wonder, indeed.

And if you’re thinking, well, that album was from the seventies; it was a different time, don’t forget that Mitchell’s last original album, from 2007, was titled “Shine.” Sunshine, you say? Inner beauty shine, you say? I say: slur for a black shoeshine boy.

Joni Mitchell, you hereby stand accused and convicted of racism. We hereby cancel you! Instead of Both Sides Now, you are No Sides Now. We will not turn you on even if you are a radio. And you may be the color blue, but that doesn’t excuse what you’ve done to black!

Long live political correctness . . . until we’re canceled. 

—> https://wp.me/pzvIo-26D