HARRY Belafonte, Barry Humphries, Jerry Springer.
Death is part of life, but not the part most of us think about all that often.
We hear of celebrities moving on, and occasionally there’s a group – as there has been the last little while – who come from a similar generation.
Neither Les Patterson or Dame Edna Everage will define a generation, but they can certainly be pinned to an era when things were a little different, when political correctness was interpreted differently.
Jokes that would no longer be tolerated, far from woke, and which in a modern world would have Sir Les cancelled on social media.
Yet, in a world gone by, we chuckled. Maybe we even shared at dinner parties what we’d heard on the wireless or seen on the box.
And now we laud what the creator of Sir Les and Dame Edna contributed to the world of comedy.
But it was more than that. Through sattire, he sold our country to the world, mixing it with royals and Hollywood glam.
Harry Belafonte was different.
All week I’ve been wandering around the house singing Day’o, the Banana Boat Song and Island in the Sun.
Yet, it is the work he did for human rights that is being remembered, to combat racism with fierce courage through an era that wasn’t so woke.
This is a good thing. It shows we’ve moved on. Maybe not yet far enough, but we’ve moved.
Then, I found myself waving my fist, chanting “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry” to the hum of the vacuum through the living room.
Again, Springer’s shows won’t be known for wokeness, if that’s a word.
But they spoke about issues which have since been normalised.
What was once a freak show is now accepted because we’ve realised it’s less important to judge than it is to allow someone to be themselves.
I’ll sit around the bar at the bowls club occasionally, listening to people who haven’t moved on from that era – still telling sexist jokes, harbouring racist tendancies, and judging those around them when it’s none of their god damned business.
But then I wonder. Here I am being the person I don’t want them to be by judging their judginess.
Because it makes my varicose veins pop just a little higher when people think it’s okay to be intolerant and narrow minded, when they think it’s a fair thing to be critical of others within earshot of a public audience.
Let them be them, Wanda says, bless her cotton socks.
As I growl, she strikes a chord of wisdom and explains that at times, there’s value in letting people be old.
“I know you’re ahead of your time, Wayne. You have a young heart,” she says, knowing flattery is a terrific passage to influence.
“But these people are like the proverbial birds of a feather, flocking together to comfort themselves that an era in which they felt most comfortable hasn’t left them.
“That there are people around them who understand and acknowledge a zone that makes them feel a little smarter because within that era, they have answers. They know how to behave and react. There’s acceptability. You see, they can be who people of that time were expected to be, and they feel solace in the fact that the person on the other side of their beer shares similar memories.”
She’s a wise woman, my Wanda. And she’s right. Sometimes you’ve just got to let old people be old.
They’ll never be swayed at a pace younger generations would like. They carry too much baggage.
As Wanda will often remind me, I too carry baggage.
I’ll try to think like a 20-year-old. But just as speaking the language of a foreign country won’t enable me to fully understand its people’s culture, to fully speak the language of a new generation – a modern way of thinking – won’t enable me to fully shed my upbringing.
Yet, having lived the behaviour of an era which young people see as abhorrent helps me understand it. And if I understand it, maybe I’m empathetic enough to subtly change some stubborn minds.
Hey Wanda, I feel all woke up. Want to go to the club?
