In the Wake of Political Correctness

Tropic Thunder was a small victory last year in the war on PC.

When I was a child, the world was yet still free from the tyranny of Political Correctness. PC existed, to be sure (as Disney's ignominious squashing of Song of the South is testament to), but the strength of the Reagan Presidency was able to hold back the inevitable tide of destruction. Thanks mainly in part to a climate in the media bolstered by Conservative optimism, I was able to be raised on cartoons like G.I. Joe where combat with guns was not taboo. Though Disney would never deign (sometime after the 70's) to depict killing, or even blood in a cartoon, it was not uncommon for popular animation to visit the subject frequently. I was therefore fortunate to enjoy classics that would never get made today; those being the 1982 Don Bluth classic The secret of NIMH and the 1975 adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Rikki Tikki Tavi.

Both animated features kept me alternating between fascination and horror. There are parts in both films which, to this day, still send chills down my spin. Both are stories of great courage and sacrifice featuring clear cut villains who ultimately meet a just, and violent end at the hands of the heroes. However, especially in the case of Rikki Tikki Tavi, they are products of a bygone era.

Rudyard Kipling used to be a household name. His Just So stories would be on every child's bookshelf next to The Jungle Book (of which Rikki Tikki Tavi is a part) . His poetry used to be studied extensively in middle and high schools, and at one point filmic adaptations of his work were revered (Gunga Din and The Man Who Would Be King were both nominated for Oscars.)
However, in today's "modern" age Kipling is ignored or despised, dismissed or disdained as an "imperialist", "racists", or simply a "rustic" and therefore inconsequential. Even when his work is given attention today it is either to be used as a benchmark for the "progression" of literature (i.e. "look at how racists this guy was! His stories are so silly. We've come a long way.") or to be openly destroy and rebuilt as PC polemics themselves as is evidenced by Disney's 1994 live action version of The Jungle Book wherein the white British soldiers are the villains.

I do my part to shatter PC illusions, and bring to the world the joy I had as a child. So too do many humble others (whether wittingly or no) like the kind fellow who broke the animated Rikki Tikki Tavi into three parts and put it up on Youtube. This cartoon scared me as a kid, with the evil snakes Nag and Nagina and Orson Welles frighteningly cold narration, but I have always loved it. Watch it as your first reevaluation of Kipling (should you require such) and then move forward into his other work, such as his meticulously metred poetry. The Free-Lancer bids you join in the fight against PC....Enjoy:

PART ONE


PART TWO


PART THREE