This was actually a big factor for me in "leaving the 'Left'" - i.e. remembering back when it was the religious establishment trying to censor the films (and succeeding in many countries). And now it's happening all over again but by the new "woke" establishment and LGBTQIA2S+ movement.
Hate to break it to you, but if complaints about one movie scene was all it took to get you to "leave" the left, then you were never really on the left to begin with.
It's not just that though, but the general shift to identity politics - even in Britain you'll see "leftist" groups doing things like silencing "white males" etc.
And also in many cases their proposals focus too much on the symptoms and/or end up with worse consequences, which is exactly what Marx was against. Like decriminalising theft below 300 euros which is common in many places now, but just leads to organised gangs exploiting it (just like lesser / no sentencing for teenagers, etc.). Likewise for pushing for rent control which usually just results in great unfairness in who is lucky enough to get the rent controlled properties - and then pass them down in their family, so you end up with unlucky working people paying far more in rent than much wealthier lucky families and pensioners.
I still usually vote for the centre-Left just due to being anti-religion and republican (anti-monarchy). But I wish there were more sensible economic and justice options too - like supporting the working class by shifting the tax burden to property owners and the wealthy (and taxing unproductive economic activity) over income and VAT, supporting the free market except for natural monopolies, etc.
Do you have any more info on that? I know a couple of trans people. They found that scene hilarious. It sounds like the sort of false flag complaint that come out of the far right quite often.
Unlike the right, the left does not aim to be monolithic. There are a variety of views on many topics, and how to fix them. There are idiots across the spectrum though, and all groups need to police them, to some extent.
I'm quite surprised it made you shift to the right. The right have been doing FAR more censorship, and that is backed by the leadership, to the point is being pushed into law.
I never said I shifted to the right, I just don't really take part in politics and usually vote for more centrist options on specific issues. I agree the right-wing are worse, here in Europe they're mostly extreme Catholics and royalists to start!
It doesn't say anywhere in that article that leftists are trying to censor that scene, John just mentions other actors he knows personally who suggested that he cut it out of worry that it would be viewed as offensive. Not because people on the left actually called it offensive or called for it to be censored. So according to that article, nobody tried to censor it, just suggested that Cleese cut it, and their reasoning wasn't because it's offensive, but because they were worried that it might be considered offensive. It also mentions in that article how religious groups were the ones actually trying to censor the movie in the past. Cleese didn't want to cut that scene, so he didn't. It wasn't at risk of being censored considering he'd never had any intention of cutting it and the choice was always his to make.
This discussion actually made me think, so who pushed to get the dark elf scene removed from Community? I don't know if it was the left or right, but whoever it was, is a moron.
I don't know about the reasoning behind that one specifically, but most leftists I know generally don't have an issue with that scene because the butt of the joke is the guy inadvertently looking like he's doing blackface, not black people. If I had to guess, in a lot of cases like those, it's a corporate decision made by higher ups who don't understand the nuance of the topic and just want to avoid controversy or try to shallowly virtue signal regardless of how offensive the scene actually was or whether the people they're virtue signalling to actually wanted them to do it or not.
Just some suit who works for the Mouse and has never heard of a Drow but definitely knows blackface and the controversy it causes. Ironically, probably in large part due to Walt’s prolific racism and the actual blackface scenes they’ve put out over the years.