A grown man puts on a dress. A grown man then puts a dress on his young son — oh, and a tiara — and in front of the whole world, father and son prance around on video to “Let It Go,” the song from the Disney hit Frozen.
For just a moment, let’s put aside our own personal opinions on such things, and look at the way in which CBS News — emphasis on news — reported this bit of news.
“BEST DAD,” the CBS News tweet reads, “When his son wanted to dance to ‘Frozen’ songs, this dad put on an Elsa costume and danced with him – because it’s important to just ‘let it go’ and be yourself.”
See for yourself:
BEST DAD: When his son wanted to dance to "Frozen" songs, this dad put on an Elsa costume and danced with him – because it's important to just "let it go" and be yourself 💙 https://t.co/Mhv8BYs6G4 pic.twitter.com/MOHzgMiIZK
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 24, 2019
This is a purported news organization declaring as “BEST DAD,” a dad who put on a dress in front of his son, who dressed his son in a dress (and tiara), and released to the whole wide world video of the both of them prancing around.
Hey, different strokes.
You might see this report and agree. “Hell, yeah, BEST DAD!”
You might read this report and think, “That’s adorable.”
You might read this report, look at your watch, and think, “Jesus should be returning any minute now.”
Or you might read this report and think, “What kind of father goes out of his way to confuse a young boy about something as biologically permanent as gender and then releases the video to the whole wide world, which means this will haunt the poor kid until the end of a life that’s going to require an awful lot of therapy that I, the taxpayer will probably end up paying for. This man is not a BEST DAD, this is a TERRIBLE DAD, a father exploiting and confusing his own son to feed his own bottomless narcissism. I thought the baby boomers were parasites, but just look at these beardo weirdo Millennials. Does he even know he’s a guy? You know what, I’m moving to the desert.”
Regardless of what you think, here is my overall point….
What in the hell is a news organization doing making a value judgment about what does and does not qualify as “BEST DAD?”
Does this video even qualify as news?
I don’t know. That is also a value judgment. That’s not up to me, that’s up to CBS.
But CBS is not presenting it as news — as a straight-forward report about something that happened.
No, what this powerful, multi-national corporation is doing is telling us what qualifies you as BEST DAD, is staking a position in the highly controversial debate about gender norms, which means this is flat-out propaganda.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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