Chilling Effect

Over on the blog where I was outed as history's greatest monster my outer (is that a word) finds himself, ideologically, on the opposite side of the argument about the use of sensitive subjects in comedy. One commenter (going deliberately over-the-top to make a joke about it) likens the current impending crash of Spidey and Iron Jonah into a Manhattan momument as insensitively reminiscent of 9/11. Mr. Moral Authority disagrees:

I’m having trouble understanding the problem here. If it were a plane and a building we were talking about, I’d find it easier to understand why somebody might be reminded of 9/11. But it isn’t. It’s a flying guy and an arch. And the arch isn’t full of people. And it’s not intentional, it’s because the flying guy can’t control where he’s going.

Superheroes and villains have been crashing into stuff while in flight for at least half a century now, and there’s really no reason to stop writing stories where that happens.

 I desperately wanted to make a joke about how it would become a problem if Spidey and Jonah were being flown into the monument by a Gypsy Assassination Squad, but I know that this guy is pretty thin-skinned and it's just not worth the potential drama for the sake of a joke.

So, it seems like this is an example of the chilling effect that occurs when people practice extreme sensitivity and throw political-correctness tantrums. It's not that people are won over to their beliefs, it's just that people think, "Man, I don't want to deal with that drama again, let it go."