The Telegraph is reporting that the BBC has removed Irish singer Róisín Murphy from a prepared feature radio broadcast. The reason is a comment opposing puberty-blocking drugs. While I understand why such criticism is deeply hurtful to some, it is also political speech. Artists should be able to hold opposing views. I would feel the same way if BBC blocked an artist for supporting puberty-blocking drugs. However, these controversies evidence an orthodoxy that seems to only run against those on one side in this and other issues.
Murphy’s comment on social media was reportedly leaked by a friend last month. In the posting, she wrote “Puberty blockers are f—ing, absolutely desolate, big pharma laughing all the way to the bank. Little mixed-up kids are vulnerable and need to be protected, that’s just true.”
She added: “Please don’t call me a TERF, please don’t keep using that word against women.”
We have seen cancel campaigns launched against figures like J.K. Rowling as TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) for criticizing transgender policies.
The same inexorable pattern emerged for Murphy. They have targeted her new album for boycotts simply because they disagree on the issue. The Guardian declared that the album was now “compromised” and “for many fans, particularly queer fans, this album is DOA [dead on arrival].”
BBC insists that the cancellation was due to other factors, but many have their doubts. What is clear is that a full boycott campaign is now being launched despite Murphy offering a full-throated apology for uttering opposing views:
“I have been thrown into a very public discourse in an arena I’m uncomfortable in and deeply unsuitable for. I cannot apologise enough for being the reason for this eruption of damaging and potentially dangerous social-media fire and brimstone. To witness the ramifications of my actions and the divisions it has caused is heartbreaking.
I will now completely bow out of this conversation within the public domain. I’m not in the slightest bit interested in turning it into ANY kind of ‘campaign’, because campaigning is not what I do… My true calling is music and music will never exclude any of us.”
What is alarming is that artists must now repeat approved positions on political and social issues or, as here, pledge to remain silent in order to be artists.
The irony is crushing. The left was once the target of censorship and blacklisting during the Red Scare. Today, they have literally adopted the arguments used to target liberals and socialists.
So Murphy is the latest wretch to be hoisted by the left. The message is clear: support approved viewpoints or you will be blacklisted as an artist. Few on the left are voicing concerns over intolerance for opposing views and the denial of venues or publications for those artists who do not yield to the demands of the majority.
Despite her pleading apology, the cancel campaign has continued unabated. It appears that Murphy’s top song, Overpowered, aptly describes her artistic situation: “When I think that I’m over you, I’m overpowered.”
The PC censorship machine is the cultural marxist invention of Neomarxist intellectual Herbert Marcuse, as outlined in his 1965 essay ‘Repressive Tolerance’, advocating the radical censorship of viewpoints not in step with cultural marxist ideology. It is a benighted example of the dictatorship of ideology, aka the ‘totalizing metanarrative’, the bane of postmodern thinkers. It is a most unfortunate development in the western intellectual tradition, whose inevitable sweeping off into the dustbin of history cannot come soon enough.
I predict once more that if Dennis shows up here, he will promptly go off topic with another cut and past from his favorite rag…Teen Vogue.
Maybe he would prefer to discuss this:
Confederates…democrats
Slavery…democrats
Jim crow…democrats
Woodrow wilson…racist democrat
FDR…racist democrat
Lyndon johnson…racist democrat
Robert byrd….racist democrat
Joe biden…segregationist and racist democrat
Filibuster 1957 and 1964 civil rights acts…democrats
Interned japanese americans…democrats
Superpredators crime bill…democrats
Margaret Sanger…apartheid genocidal democrat
Created the unconstitutional 4th branch of govt…democrats
Redistribution of wealth…democrats
One party rule pack the SC…democrats
One party rule abolish the filibuster…democrats
One party rule add 2 more states…democrats
One party rule abolish electoral ccllege…democrats
Intimidate SC justices…democrats
Call for intimidating officials…democrats
But here is a perfect example of how the American Marxists of today have used their new versions of racism and segregation to alter the narrative…
Joe Biden signed an anti-lynching law in 2020, and the Democrats took a victory lap and patted themselves on the back. For what? Being 100 years late? Democrats in the Senate blocked it for 27 years. When the Senate finally passed the anti-lynching bill in 1935, FDR refused to sign it.
Ask a black voter today who signed the bill making MLK a holiday.
Ask a black voter today who signed the superpredator crime bill.
Ask a black voter today who said we have predators on our streets…beyond the pale.
Ask a black voter today who coined the term super-predator.
Ask a black voter who signed the legislation undoing the damage done by the Clinton/Biden crime bill. Dont tell them it was 6 years ago.
Go look at CNN’s fact check of Trump accusing biden of calling people superpredators. They say he didnt support the theory. Their support for that claim was biden saying that “most youth in the juvenile system are not super-predators”. In what moron’s mind is that not an acknowledgement that super predators exist???
Róisín Murphy
You lost a chance to appear on BBC. Don’t worry about it or the very small minority of the sexually confused. Some how I don’t think you were soliciting them with your work. They, with all of their screaming, could not save Budweiser from the wrath the vast majority of us that are not confused. This minority might frighten BBC, but the rest of us are not intimidated and We not them are your audience.