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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32073 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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Any fans of the Great British Bake Off here? I think this season has been a case study in the mechanisms by which wokeness latches on and does its best to ruin things. I'm so sick of people talking about how offensive Mexican week was. If you ask me, I really have no idea what was so offensive about it. Acknowledging that Mexican culture and food exists is not the same as being racist towards Mexicans. Also, since when are Mexicans even considered to be oppressed, and worthy of people getting outraged over? Have Mexicans historically been oppressed, especially by the British?

Following Mexican week, now, I guess the outlets all saw that claiming offense at GBBO was a great way to get more views, because every week I see at least one article about how viewers were "shocked and outaged" at the latest episode of Bake Off. Often, these are related to the fact that several contestants this season aren't native to Great Britain and are not being handled sensitively enough with regards to the recipes they do and their ability to follow the instructions in the technical challenges.

My mother and sister are religious fans. We’re also Texans. I’ll have to ask.

Costuming and cringeworthy jokes are sort of par for the course, as far as I can tell. The hosts’ ability to maintain a straight face is the only way it’s tolerable. I find it unlikely that this is somehow worse, so I’m inclined to call it manufactured outrage.

since when are Mexicans oppressed

Uh...there is definitely a long-standing perception that Mexicans are an underclass. From the American side it’s more about exploitation than historical oppression. This is one of the ways that criticisms of a “progressive hierarchy” miss the mark, by giving too much credence to the historical justification. But I’d need more time to flesh that out.

I think major confounding factor there would be that Texans, for obvious historical reasons, have far more familiarity with Mexican cuisine than British people. A Texan seeing mole poblano or horchata flavored flan or concha bread on Mexican week has at least heard of those things and thinks of them as stereotypically Mexican, even if they don’t know that much about them. A British person would see an episode about baking concha bread and go ‘I thought this was supposed to be mexican?’, a Texan would go ‘oh, must be Mexican week.’

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