# What currently innocuous things will be socially unacceptable in the future? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 20, 2011, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134 "2011-04-20T20:58:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/41 "2011-04-21T20:52:48Z")
Dressing baby girls in pink and baby boys in blue ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/42 "2011-04-22T16:21:04Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > I’d bet (a small out of) money that in the future “The Simpsons” will increasingly be considered awkward and eventually will be more or less taken out of circulation. Why? Because of Apu. It will be seen as socially unacceptable that he is voiced by a non-Indian, and that he has the trappings of an Indian-American stereotype. I started to be all “what? :dubious: oh, please” and then I thought, “when was the last time I saw a Speedy Gonzalez cartoon?” ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/43 "2011-04-22T16:32:25Z")
> [@carlotta](#): > > Cars? Or the kind of ridiculously unsafe, ridiculously unclean cars we have nowadays. [Has Anyone ever Built an Aircar?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=584691) ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/44 "2011-04-22T16:33:59Z")
But I think Apu is ultimately a sympathetic, well thought out character. He’s not just a walking stereotype–he’s pretty fleshed out. I don’t see him going the way of the minstrel shows. Besides, does it matter that a non Indian voices him? A non black guy voices Dr. Hibbert and Carl. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/45 "2011-04-22T16:42:26Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > I am hoping that littering does (and that includes cigarette butts). Speaking of cigarette butts, smoking. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/46 "2011-04-22T18:04:26Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Or at least adult men won’t be allowed to look at, speak to, acknowledge the existance of, or be withing 500ft of any child they aren’t biologicaly related to. At least not without video monitoring and a female chaperone. As men play an increasingly active role in parenting, there’s going to be a divide here, I expect. Men who are out and about with their kids won’t get any flak for interacting with unrelated kids. But men who aren’t with their kids, or who don’t have kids, will increasingly get hostile reactions if they interact unnecessarily with young children. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/47 "2011-04-22T18:13:54Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > As men play an increasingly active role in parenting, there’s going to be a divide here, I expect. Men who are out and about with their kids won’t get any flak for interacting with unrelated kids. But men who aren’t with their kids, or who don’t have kids, will increasingly get hostile reactions if they interact unnecessarily with young children. And if the stated goal of such behaviour is to protect children from abusers, it will be unsuccessful. Because all abusers have to do is to have kids, or marry someone already with kids, and then they’re in the club… Besides, what happens to the man with kids when he is out and about without them? ---
**Author:** ![jasonh300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/46a35a/32.png) [@jasonh300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasonh300)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/48 "2011-04-22T18:38:08Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I can’t read the kanji, but you’re saying that the bulb-y shaped attachment is a vibrator? I already have a doodad with most of these attachments, but it doesn’t have one like that. > > It really doesn’t look like the kind of vibrator that would be of interest to most men. Color me doubtful. Ummm…the post started with “women shave their faces in Japan”. It’s a woman’s shaver, as well as a woman’s vibrator. What kind of vibrator would interest most men? ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/49 "2011-04-23T14:56:23Z")
> [@KinkiNipponTourist](#): > > Here in Japan, women shave their faces. > > You know, I went looking for a nice picture of razors women use here to shave their faces, but I came across something far more interesting. > > Gents! How about a [face-shaver/beard-shaver/nosehair trimmer/vibrator all-in-one?](http://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/wil-mart/ms006.html) :eek: I have one of those… but not that last attachment. Sad. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/50 "2011-04-23T16:59:13Z")
> [@jasonh300](#): > > Ummm…the post started with “women shave their faces in Japan”. It’s a woman’s shaver, as well as a woman’s vibrator. > > What kind of vibrator would interest most men? Except that it’s labelled “men’s” all over the website – at least the part I can read. Maybe the Japanese writing says something else. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/51 "2011-04-23T18:00:35Z")
Nearly all our words for minority groups, whether ethnic or otherwise, will be seen as horribly offensive. New ones will have replaced them and will already be coming into use as insults in their own right. (However, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the United Negro College Fund will not change their names in the foreseeable future.) ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/52 "2011-04-23T18:03:40Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > But I think Apu is ultimately a sympathetic, well thought out character. He’s not just a walking stereotype–he’s pretty fleshed out. I don’t see him going the way of the minstrel shows. Besides, does it matter that a non Indian voices him? A non black guy voices Dr. Hibbert and Carl. I agree that Apu is sympathetic and pretty well thought out. But in the '50s on “The Jack Benny Show” Rochester (the black manservant) was also sympathetic and more than just a stereotype - as I understand it, in his day Benny was considered rather racially progressive. (Check out the [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Benny#Characters) page.) Yet I’ve read on Jack Benny forums that Rochester is the main reason that the show was so seldom shown on TV in the decades after it ended, as racial sensitivities changed. That example was the basis for my prediction about “The Simpsons”. As for why it would matter that he’s voiced by a non-Indian, that’s just a guess, but I don’t think an unreasonable one. It’s now considered very inappropriate for old actors to have dressed in “yellowface” as Asian characters; for a white guy to put on a stereotyped Indian accent will, I predict, be considered offensive in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/53 "2011-04-23T18:21:40Z")
**Rodgers01** : Do you think “South Park” is going to go into the deep freeze too, by the same logic? A lot of what they do is offensive _now_, and it’s the basis of a lot of their comedy. Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor are still well thought of, though, so maybe there’s exceptions granted to people who do offensive comedy on purpose, as opposed to an old show that kinda stumbled into offensiveness decades later. (Anyway, TV as we know it is on its way out. The Internet is eating it alive. Artificial obstructions in the form of laws can only postpone the inevitable for so long. Whether TV stations will play a given show in the future is going to be about as relevant to its continued popularity as whether the newspapers are going to write about it.) ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/54 "2011-04-23T18:37:54Z")
> [@jasonh300](#): > > Ummm…the post started with “women shave their faces in Japan”. It’s a woman’s shaver, as well as a woman’s vibrator. > > What kind of vibrator would interest most men? Ummm… the post referred to it as a “face-shaver/beard-shaver” and the link goes to a product that says “Men’s Shaver.” ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134/55 "2011-04-23T18:39:09Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > **Rodgers01** : Do you think “South Park” is going to go into the deep freeze too, by the same logic? A lot of what they do is offensive _now_, and it’s the basis of a lot of their comedy. Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor are still well thought of, though, so maybe there’s exceptions granted to people who do offensive comedy on purpose, as opposed to an old show that kinda stumbled into offensiveness decades later. > > (Anyway, TV as we know it is on its way out. The Internet is eating it alive. Artificial obstructions in the form of laws can only postpone the inevitable for so long. Whether TV stations will play a given show in the future is going to be about as relevant to its continued popularity as whether the newspapers are going to write about it.) Yeah, purposely offensive things like “South Park”, Lenny Bruce, and Richard Pryor I’m betting will fare differently. Those things are also explicitly for adults; family fare like “The Simpsons” and “The Jack Benny Show” (and Speedy Gonzalez cartoons!) I bet will be more sensitive. But good point that this may all be moot - all this stuff will be digitized and on demand in the future, and no scheduling programmer will be able to decide what’s on and what’s not! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-currently-innocuous-things-will-be-socially-unacceptable-in-the-future/579134.md?page=2)