Given the lyrics, perhaps the Fleet Street paper is correct that it is a surprise the song lasted as long as it did, and the question could be asked whether it was really ever appropriate.
UK journalist Piers Morgan was among those on social media who felt it was the wrong choice to make, sharing a link to his coverage and tweeting, "I'm getting no satisfaction from seeing the Rolling Stones surrender to the woke brigade – when the charts are full of rappers glorifying violent sex, misogyny and guns why is Brown Sugar the song that's deemed offensive?" The news that the song would be retired from the current set list for the aptly named "No Filter Tour," also took social media by storm. "But I'm hoping that we'll be able to resurrect the babe in her glory somewhere along the track." At the moment I don't want to get into conflicts with all of this sh**," added Stones' guitarist Keith Richards. Didn't they understand this was a song about the horrors of slavery? But they're trying to bury it. "I'm trying to figure out with the sisters quite where the beef is. Others have seen the song also being about drugs. "We might put it back in."Īt issue are the lyrics, which describe an African American slave being sexualized and likely raped. "We've played 'Brown Sugar' every night since 1970, so sometimes you think, 'We'll take that one out for now and see how it goes,'" singer Mick Jagger told The Los Angeles Times. The song, written two years before its release, has been a part of The Stone's live shows and has been played at least 1,136 times. The song, which was a number one hit in both the United States and Canada, has also been ranked as the number 18 song for 1971 by Billboard magazine, while Rolling Stone magazine ranked it number 495 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and a number five on their list of 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time. The Rolling Stones announced that they have "retired" the classic "Brown Sugar," which appeared on their 1971 album Sticky Fingers. "That is certainly a risk," warned Sinnreich.Īs the aging British rockers are now touring the United States, one familiar song for their repertoire won't be heard. On a smaller level, such misinformation could still impact careers and livelihoods if people believe it were to be true. We don't know the agenda, but it is a pretty good guess that it is to sow civic discord that diminishes our power on the world stage," said Sinnreich. "We know for a fact that there are Russian and Chinese government initiatives to spread disinformation in our social feeds. In this case it likely wasn't a foreign actor, but Sinnreich warned that this is the sort of misinformation/disinformation that can be weaponized and worsen our divide. "This is exacerbating the divides in our country." "That is 100 percent true," said Sinnreich. Eastwood may be controversial, but social media has shown the ability to take ones views and amplify it. However, some users on Twitter did immediately see that it wasn't real, yet many others showed both support and contempt for Eastwood from a faux letter, which further highlights how "misinformation" and "disinformation" can almost be weaponized to great extent. Whether it was meant as a parody isn't entirely clear. Another tweet also made the rounds, in which it essentially misattributed a quote to Eastwood about the state of the country and even took aim at President Joe Biden. It wasn't just the old comments that suddenly had the actor/director in the spotlight on social media this week. Misinformation And Disinformation From Eastwood The problem is that there is no independent or third party that exists outside of society that can provide a reasonable order that we can all agree with." "What we need to determine is where we draw the line.
"You can't give everyone a free pass for everything they may have done, but you can't hold everyone accountable for everything they did as well," he added. It isn't really 'cancel culture,' but something that we should have at a national level conversation about what is permissible to say."īoth extremes of ignoring it or completely erasing someone is what is unacceptable said Sinnreich.
"The question to bring up is how thoroughly are we going to police the cultural archive around civil rights and cultural sensitivities. Aram Sinnreich, professor in the school of communication at the American University. "It was pretty far from Eastwood declaring for team cowboy," said Dr. This stirred up the usual debate or "cancel culture" and whether past comments are even necessary to be brought up years later, especially as seen in the video from the decades old Oscars, Eastwood didn't exactly disparage Littlefeather.