Mr. Rogers: candidate for cancelation?

November 11, 2024 • 12:15 pm

Someone sent me this old video of Mr. Rogers singing a song about sex, and oy, would he be excoriated if he did this today. In fact, they wouldn’t even let this song on the air. :”Boys are boys from the beginning; only girls can be the mommies,” etc. That just won’t fly in today’s world!

When I sent it to a friend, I got the response, “You know the world is fucked up when Mr. Rogers would be cancelled.”

32 thoughts on “Mr. Rogers: candidate for cancelation?”

    1. Hadn’t seen this before. I had to work hard to listen to the guy in glasses be fragile and uncivil.

    2. Yep, totally agree. Dude with the glasses arguing that they’re not boys, and saying that he’s not going to allow him to use that “slur” (i.e., calling “trans-girls” by their proper sex, boys), I don’t have words for. Do people really really believe that boys transform into girls once they take on the role? Or is it a tribal signaling thing?

  3. Well, some of Dr. Seuss was long ago censored, so not surprising that Mr. Rogers would also qualify. On the potentially positive (overly optimistic?) side, perhaps enough cases like these will reveal the lunacy behind it all?

    1. A lot of the right also attacked Fred back in his days. In truth I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them would attack him today if he were still around.

  4. I never liked the epithet “woke” because it’s applied by right-wing know-nothings to climate science and science-based medicine and also to legitimate concerns over some real concerns.

    But the self-styled “progressive” cranks, yikes! I never could come up with a barked out catchy term for the cringe-worthy “progressive” cluelessness that I (and others who have come here) argue is a rot that weakens a liberal democracy. See also A. Sokal’s comments about post-modern cant.

    So I guess it’ll be: woke woke here, woke woke there, here a woke, there a woke, everywhere a…

    more good news from why evolution is true, and the situation remains…

    1. Maybe postmodern is a better term than woke, although people who have really studied postmodernism tell me it is very different from the dogma.

  5. New lyrics: “Boys are boys from the beginning, sometimes girls are too; and while it is theoretically possible to transplant a uterus into someone who was born a boy as well as create a vaginal canal, its safe to say, even in 2024, that only girls born with a uterus can be the mommies”. I’m not sure I’d want my 6 year old watching …

          1. No – the pro-palestine teachers unions are on the side of the Iranians for a lot but not on topics regarding LGBTQAI+2S (and affiliated letters). They don’t have internal consistency – else they would be hiding in shame.

      2. Thank you for that info. I followed the link to Dora Richter, the physically male patient in that surgery. The person who referred the patient was of course Magnus Hirschfeld, who got in trouble with the Nazis as soon as they came to power. I have no idea whether the vaginoplasty and the penectomy before it made Dora, her official name (the Czechs gave her a “female” passport after she had fled the Nazis), feel better. I would guess the orchectomy, which is a far less problematic operation, was more important. But clearly, this was a case of a person who from birth feels some kind of revulsion at their physical sex that is hard to imagine to someone who doesn’t have it, not just a homosexual or a fetishist or hypersexed experimenter who likes “female” attire. She lived until 74, working in a “female” profession (some type of specialized seamstress).

  6. Has anyone actually tried to cancel him? If so, yes, they are f–ked, and I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m speaking, among other things as someone who spent my first 18 years in Pittsburgh and still love to visit da “Burgh ‘n’at, yinz know? It’s is also important to realize that beloved Fred was attacked powerfully by the right in his day, and I also wouldn’t put that past some of them now.
    While I have you – Jerry, I agree that we need a break from discussing the election. But sometime down the road I’d like to hear your thoughts on liberals who voted for Trump as a way of fighting the woke. I’m an anti-woke progressive, but I think they are somewhere beyond la-la land. Anyhow – someday.

    1. I want to restate what I said about liberals who voted for Trump to fight the “woke” ( I think the Postmodern might be a better term). What I really think is that it is terrible that they were pushed to this point and I empathize with them. But I also think it is really depressing that they did this. Take care all.

  7. Mr. Rogers is addressing something that’s been known about very young children for a long time: they have a bit of a struggle understanding sex. Although studies have shown that infants are very good at distinguishing men from women, till the age of 7 or so they think that people change sex if they’re wearing a skirt as opposed to a suit. This is the normal view of “kids struggling with their gender” and it was considered a stage, not some horrific mismatch between the body and an inborn “brain sex.”

    1. This is a powerful and near perfect summary. I only wish every Democrat could be required to hear (or read) it. Hell, every Republican too.

    1. As usual, some are getting pretty angry.

      I read somewhere that progressives started to push trans after gay marriage became legal. The activists needed a new cause. I don’t know if that’s true or not.

      But the reaction against males in female sports is strong even amongst many liberal women.

  11. Same Mr. Rogers video came back into my orbit recently, too. I had the same reaction. “Oy!”

  12. I have a .gif file someone made years go that purports to show Mr. Rogers making a certain gesture with his middle finger (with both hands actually).

    It would be the absolutely perfect response to anyone calling for his cancellation. I only wish I could post it here. It is priceless.

  13. The simplicity of the message was age appropriate and quite sufficient for its time.

    Science has advanced our understanding of human sexuality and psychology since Mr Roger’s day. We can all be glad for that.

    Chatter about ‘canceling him’ are piffle worthy of Fox.

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