Children of the Corn

or, Where The Cornfield Got Its Name

There’s a famous Twilight Zone episode from 1961 called “It’s a Good Life.” It depicts a small town in a dystopian future being held in a state of terror by a little boy named Anthony, played by Billy Mumy, of “Lost in Space” fame (you young ‘uns can Google that vintage television reference).  Now, little Anthony is a tyrannical, tetchy, pint-sized sociopath. He can read your thoughts. He doesn’t like bad thoughts. He also doesn’t like not getting his way, and he has the supernatural power to grotesquely transfigure those who contradict him. Once destroyed, Anthony “wishes” his victims to “The Cornfield.”

The terrified adults around Anthony smile and grovel and cater to his every whim. Eventually one of them snaps. He can’t take the pressure anymore. It’s his birthday. He just wants to play his Perry Como record, darn it!  Anthony doesn’t like Perry Como (yup—go ahead and Google Mr. Como). He points his stubby little finger and shrieks, “You’re a bad man! You’re a very bad man!” POOF! Birthday boy is transformed into a hideous jack-in-the-box with a dead human head. The other adults (among them, a young Cloris Leachman—Google her, kids, she was a genius) scream in terror. Anthony “disappears” very bad ol’ Jack to The Cornfield.

“The Cornfield” has become my slang for “cancellation,” which I find a rather glib, benign term for that vindictive practice. Let’s get real: it’s good old fashioned blacklisting—with a performative twist: a brand of medieval shunning, justified by some offense taken, powered up by the velocity of social media. I dunno about you, but such machinations (which I’ve witnessed first hand) just kinda remind me of our wee monster Anthony. Some tantrum will erupt; the geschrei of the “triggered” over some “harm” that’s been done; the fickle finger of fate pointed at The Oppressor… “You’re a bad (see: Racist?), very bad (see: Transphobic?), man (see: cis-white-privileged etc?)!” And… POOF! The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye.

Another TV reference for ya—a recent one. The Morning Show. Steve Carrell’s character, Mitch, a fictional Matt Lauer, has been exposed as a sexual predator and canceled. He flees to Italy and keeps his testa down. In one scene, he’s sitting in a piazza having a gelato, when suddenly he’s ambushed by an angry young American tourist. She harangues him, loudly, publicly, and mercilessly: “Go away! Like, away away!” An older Italian woman calls her out, noting that the tourist’s friend is taking video of the confrontation—immortalizing her fifteen minutes of fame as an “Instagram feminist hero.” My favorite line: “I fought for your right to be an asshole, bitch, don’t make me regret it!” It’s a delicous scene that calls out the childishness of certain woke types and their need for constant “comfort.”

I shared the clip on Facebook, where it was commented on by a young female-presenting person I had recently met and friended, whose new rehearsal studio business I’d been promoting to my colleagues on social media. She went off. “I’m a 30 year old, woke-ass millennial feminist, and that obnoxious character is a gross exaggeration! I’ve never—NEVER—seen anyone act like that!” She kept on, getting nastier and more patronizing toward me—someone who’d just made her acquaintance and had taken the time to help her promote her business. She acted exactly as she’d NEVER seen anyone act before, in the name of “woke-ass-ness.” Mmm. Admirable self awareness, I thought.

BLOCKED.

Author Andrew Doyle, in his book The New Puritans, likens the shrieks of the triggered to the paroxysms of supernatural pain exhibited by the young women who testified against accused witches back in the Salem Witch trials. Having grown up across the bridge from Salem, MA, I took many a school field trip to the Salem Witch Museum, and learned about the shenanigans of these screeching young girls, whose performances led to the hanging and drowning of dozens of innocents during those fevered weeks and months.

Those who concoct every opportunity possible to foment racial tension and disruption in the cause of “antiracism,” develop contrived performances and tableaux and a lexicon of repurposed words and terms, ever-changing in meaning, and intentionally designed to create an atmosphere of fear and anxiety. Woe to the one who crosses Anthony the woke. “You’re bad! You’re very bad!” shrieks the demonic imp and, POOF!— The Cornfield awaits.

One more exhibit…for your consideration. This is the most egregious Woke mob-style intimidation I’ve seen captured on video.

Philosopher and professor Peter Boghossian does street epistemology, often on or near college campuses, posing a controversial issue and asking random participants to consider their chosen positions and answer questions. In this particular clip, Boghossian has posited the idea that there are two genders. He’s displayed a poster board stating There Are Two Genders and asks students to take a position of agreement or disagreement and defend their views. In the midst of his thought experiment, he’s interrupted by shouting from a window somewhere above the plaza, yells of “fuck you” and demands that he cease and desist, as “harm” is being done by the display of the placard (and, one assumes, the presence of Mr. Boghossian at the University that canceled him, n’est ce pas? Hmmm?).

The screaming from the window proving unsuccessful, Boghossian is thereupon confronted by a cabal of young, mostly white, mainly female-presenting self proclaimed social workers who have come to the plaza holding their fancy takeaway coffees to tell him of the harm he’s doing to gender nonconforming and trans students in their care. The mere presence of the placard stating the existence of two genders was apparently so shattering to one trans student (whom we never meet) that they had to go home to recover. In that student’s name, and others they wish to defend against this assault on their identities, they demand to know what Boghossian is up to and is he aware of the harm he’s doing?

Now, how this mythical trans-student-who-had-to-go-home benefits from this harangue on their behalf by this team of social workers is unknown. It seems to me that if these folks wanted to support this person in pushing back at Boghossian’s apparent thesis (he merely asked a question, mind you) and claiming legitimacy for their gender identity, they’d have brought this trans student down with them, and stood behind that person and encouraged them to engage directly with the professor. That, it seems to me, would amount to empowerment, as opposed to the apparent infantilism and victimhood prescribed by this patronizing gaggle of social justice warriors gripping their lattes.

Which leads me to another tactic of the children of the corn: the withering patronization of their elders. At some point in any such exchange, the words “social construct” will arrive on the scene, and we will be treated to a rattling off of familiar Woke buzzwords and concepts, usually accompanied by some form of ridicule of their opponent’s genitalia and his-cis overall cluelessness due to his having a penis and being over 50. As in the following exchange from this video clip (SJW: Social Justice Warrior confronts PB: Peter Boghossian):

SJW: I am gender non-conforming, I use they/them pronouns, do you know what that means?

PB: I believe so, yes.

SJW: Are you aware of, like, the theory of social constructionism?

PB: So, yes, I’m a gender studies scholar so--

SJW: I’m much younger than you, this is all very new, I understand, like, my parents are boomers, they’re in their sixties, they’ve had a really hard time understanding, so I had to explain this to a lot of people from your generation, so…genders are social constructs that we’ve made up from birth, because you have a penis I’m assuming, you present as male, do you identify as male?

PB: Are you asking if I identify as a male? I identify as a male.

SJW: Because you were assigned a male at birth? Are you cis—?

PB: I’m sorry, I’m not sure where you’re going with this.

Oy vey.

And keep my penis out of this, they/them.

I am not a gender studies scholar, but as a veteran actor and theatre scholar, I know an unconvincing performance when I see one. Since the patronizing thing makes them look ignorant (see my exact transcript above) it is, in fact, the shrieking that remains the primary cudgel employed by these “warriors.” If you howl and shout down those whose views are opposed to yours, you don’t have to engage, or defend your beliefs. Or persuade. In my experience, those who refuse to permit debate or to be challenged or questioned, usually have no defense for their ideas. They’re afraid to have to answer questions. They have no answers. Much easier to scream, “BAD!! BAD!!” or belittle, or patronize, or claim some sort of psychic “harm” than to have to accept a challenge and THINK.

Am I the only adult in the room who thinks a TIME OUT is in order for the children of the corn? Now, where did I put that Perry Como record…?

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