Woke: here’s the catalogue. A brief round-up of current political madness.

Will it end? Will it not? Will the grip of ‘woke’ culture and cancel culture loosen, simply because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggests that perhaps it is time to put an end to it, and because in Italy Conte is taking the opportunity to pick on Schlein in the name of leading the broad coalition? Will this tragicomedy—this thick cloud of censorship, herd-like conformism, sanctimoniousness, obscurantist prudery and aversion to differing ideas—that has poisoned the language of universities, the cinema and publishing houses begin to lift? Some claim it was a prank, yet in the wake of this prank in the United States and the United Kingdom, many have lost their jobs, been bullied, marginalised within universities, and lynched on fanatical social media. In Italy too, the pestilential wind of censorship has made itself felt, particularly in Livorno and Bologna. Will it end? Will it not end? In the meantime, madamina, this is the catalogue.

Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus banned from the academic hallowed halls of Cambridge: too many rapes; female students might take offence. Euripides’ The Bacchae cancelled: gender discrimination. Aeschylus’ The Suppliants blocked by students at the Sorbonne: racist. The toppled statue of Christopher Columbus: colonialist. A defaced inscription dedicated to President Lincoln, the man who defeated slavery: racist (? yes). A defaced statue of Churchill, the man who defeated Hitler: racist and colonialist. Disarming the American police, “systemic racism”: “systemic” is very serious – it is not about individual responsibility, but precisely the “system”. Disney’s stance against the ‘ableism’ of which the fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is said to be systemically tainted; incidentally, in the live-action remake, artificial intelligence was used to avoid offending actors of notably tall stature; a protest by the Hollywood union of dwarf actors who complain: ‘we can’t even work anymore’. Men who identify as women in shelters for women who are victims of sexual harassment and violence, thereby terrorising them a second time. Parent 1, Parent 2 – and the like – instead of father and mother (as cited by Giorgia).

Ovid’s *Metamorphoses* removed from Columbia University because it causes “psychological harm to students with severe identity issues”. The schwa, however it is pronounced. The asterisk*. The censorship of Little Red Riding Hood, deemed ‘speciesist’ because it denigrates wolves. The attack on Dumbo, deemed ‘speciesist’ because it commits ‘cultural appropriation’ of elephants, and guilty of body shaming because it might offend children with protruding ears (as I once was). The ban on exhibiting Egon Schiele’s works in London for “disseminating images offensive to women”: a century earlier in Vienna, the charge of censorship was “obscenity”. A call to ban an exhibition by Fernando Botero: body-shaming of obese people. In New York, a group of distinguished intellectuals circulated an indignant petition calling for the removal of a painting by Balthus, Thérèse Revant, from the Metropolitan Museum’s collection, on the grounds that it incites paedophilia by “glorifying the voyeurism of child abuse”. The novel The Salt of the Earth by writer Jeanine Cummins was accused of “cultural appropriation” because it told the story of Mexican migrants, while she is white. The film about the Jewish musician Leonard Bernstein was accused of “cultural appropriation” because it starred a non-Jewish actor. The Algerian writer Kamel Daoud was dismissed by Le Monde for writing about the “sexual misery of the Muslim world”, following the assaults on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2015. The word “woman” was removed and replaced with “person who menstruates”. A universal right to menstruation, even for those born male. The cover of L’Espresso featuring a drawing of a pregnant man and the caption: “Diversity is wealth”. The possibility for those with high testosterone levels and the XY chromosome – which defines biological male sex – to compete in women’s boxing matches.

The word "negro" is being removed from Mark Twain’s books, several decades belatedly. Among the requirements for nomination for the Oscar for "Best Picture", at least two out of four criteria must be met, which stipulate: that "at least one lead actor must belong to an under-represented ethnic or racial group"; or that “at least 30 per cent of the cast in supporting roles must come from under-represented groups” (women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities); or that “the film’s main plot or theme must centre on these groups”: The Godfather would not be able to win an Oscar. Many Westerns are attacked as manifestations of “white supremacy”. Professor Kathleen Stock, a feminist and lesbian, was sacked by the University of Sussex for criticising the dogmas of gender theory. The social media lynching of J.K. Rowling, Parent 1 or the like of Harry Potter, accused of “transphobia” and of being a sinister TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) for defending the reality of women’s biological identity. The New York Times, once an authoritative newspaper, decided to stop mentioning J.K. Rowling by name in retaliation. Deborah Solomon, writing in the New York Times, attacks the sexist Picasso and writes, “I am not suggesting that Picasso’s works be removed from museums, but…”. But? The abolition of the patriarchal terms ‘male jack’ and ‘female jack’ in favour of ‘gender-neutral language in the audio industry’ when connecting an amplifier to a loudspeaker. The finale of Bizet’s Carmen was drastically altered during a production at the Maggio Fiorentino (with the consent of the then mayor of Florence, Nardella) because the original was claimed to be nothing more than an incitement to “femicide”: “a cultural, social and ethical message denouncing violence against women, which is on the rise in Italy. Even men who feel they are women are women.”

The National Gallery in London is being accused of exhibiting works by Paul Gauguin, who has been ostracised because his exotic portraits of (underage) Polynesian girls have revealed him to be a ‘perverse paedophile’ – and, moreover, a colonialist – and furthermore, ‘we must no longer promote sexual maniacs’. Roald Dahl’s books, which are being republished by the publisher with the consent of his heirs, but filtered by an agency called ‘Inclusive Minds’, which specialises in purgative language censorship that removes words such as ‘ugly’ and ‘fat’. The Special Music School in New York, which has removed Claude Debussy’s Le petit nègre from its curriculum due to its “racist connotations”. The display at the Biennale of a statue depicting a penis, with the explanatory caption “Woman” beneath it, and the subsequent ousting of Simone Lenzi, the PD Councillor for Culture in Livorno, who had inappropriately mocked it. American and British companies are encouraged to set up DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) programmes to “promote the fair treatment of groups that are under-represented or subject to discrimination on the basis of their identity or disability”, and in one such course it is stated that their laudable aim is to “raise awareness of the privileges that come with being white, male and heterosexual”. In Milan, the proposal to exhibit the bronze sculpture by the artist Vera Omodeo, entitled *Dal latte materno veniamo* (We come from our mother’s milk), in a city square was rejected by the Commission on the grounds that it presents “values that are certainly respectable but not universally shared by all citizens” (note the absence of the correct asterisk – ouch). At the end of 2022, Scotland passed the Gender Recognition Act, which allows for a change of gender from the age of 16, “without medical or legal assessments”, before subsequently putting the brakes on the process.

In the world of music, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute is decried for its ‘racism’ (??). A harsh posthumous condemnation has been issued by the Washington Post, whose lofty opinion holds that even Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is ‘a symbol of white supremacy’: Beethoven a ‘supremacist’, despite being deaf. The publishing house Random House, which is publishing a collection of essays by Norman Mailer to mark the centenary of the writer’s birth, has removed, amid protests from his son, the essay "The White Negro". American publishers have refused to publish Woody Allen’s "About Nothing", even though he has been cleared of all charges of sexual misconduct (published in Italy by Nave di Teseo). The American publishing house Vintage, part of Penguin, alarmingly warns its readers (in wokese: “trigger warning”) that Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep contains “outdated cultural representations and language”—poor Humphrey Bogart. The same trigger warning is displayed, using similar wording, to ensure that their republication does not come across as “endorsement of the cultural representations” found in the works of Hemingway, Ian Fleming and even Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (??). An American publishing house has scrapped the biography of Philip Roth (already criticised as a "white, heterosexual misogynist") written by Blake Bailey, who has been accused of sexual harassment but has not yet been convicted (the book was subsequently published in Italy by Einaudi). In Sussex, a production of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie has been banned because there are too many “dialogues about suicide” that could have “potential psychological effects” on the most vulnerable audience members. Cardiff University has banned William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch due to its “shocking and controversial language”, which could unsettle female students. At Princeton, Cicero has been removed from the university curriculum, branded with infamy as a “white supremacist”. In Berlin, Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker ballet has been suspended because there are too many Chinese characters in the work; however, as there were no Chinese dancers in the corps de ballet, it had been decided to dress up German dancers to look Chinese: ‘cultural appropriation’ which, moreover, contained a ‘racist message’, a copy of the ever-so-reviled ‘blackface’. A new adaptation of The Great Gatsby is staged, set in an African-American community in New York, to tell a “more inclusive” story, particularly “through the modern lenses of gender and race”. In Canada, five thousand children’s books are burnt, including Asterix and Tintin, because they are “offensive to the indigenous population”.

Sleeping Beauty is under fire because the prince kisses the protagonist whilst she is asleep – as the title itself suggests – without the explicit consent of the woman who is kissed and harassed. Disney has apologised because, according to the University of Aberdeen, Peter Pan uses offensive language (?) and, above all, contains unacceptable ‘gender stereotypes’. Art Spiegelman’s famous graphic novel on the Holocaust, Maus, is being withdrawn from a school library in Tennessee because the content is ‘too harsh for pupils’, who could be traumatised by it. The Dutch publishing house Blossom Books has published a version of Dante’s work omitting Canto XXVIII of Inferno, which contains a passage that is not exactly benevolent towards Muhammad: Dante is labelled an “Islamophobe”. The director of the Jane Austen House Museum has declared her intention to rename the building and its precious contents because the writer’s family is suspected of “active complicity with colonialism”, given that Austen’s father was the manager of a sugar plantation in Antigua. In the United States, a protest march took place near Netflix’s headquarters demanding the cancellation of comedian Dave Chapelle because his repertoire includes a (too) risqué joke about trans people, but Caitlyn Jenner, a transgender icon, defended the comedian, stating: “He’s 100 per cent right.” In Bologna, the launch of a book by philosophers Adriana Cavarero and Olivia Guaraldo, Donne si nasce (e qualche volta lo si diventa), was cancelled due to the vociferous “overly passionate protests we received from the ‘Non una di meno’ collective”, as the organiser of the miserably cancelled event reported with some embarrassment. Finally, for the time being, the president of the Los Angeles Opera, Christopher Koelsch, has had to apologise “for being white”. Will it end? Will it not end? In the meantime, Donald Trump offers his heartfelt thanks.