Wokeism of the day *Revised Mod Note in OP and threadbanned users*

‘We will no longer be performing or releasing records under the name Girl Band. We apologise for choosing a misgendered name in the first place and to anyone who has been hurt or affected by it.‘When we were starting off it was chosen without much thought, from a place of naivety and ignorance. We had no grasp of the weight of it at the time and in the past few years have found it impossible to justify or explain this choice.

‘Regardless of our intention the effect of the name has been damaging to individuals . To Try and negate any unfortunate role we’ve played in propagating a culture of non-inclusivity in music or otherwise, we have decided to change it.

‘Thank you to those who spoke up about it and educated us on this. Either directly or indirectly Moving forward we will be performing and releasing records under the name Gilla Band. Gilla being a given name taken from old Irish.’

A couple of weeks ago the Royal Court Theatre announced that it was making a change to the name of a character in one of its plays. Rare Earth Mettle has at its centre a money-grabbing, power-hungry billionaire and gave this character the distinctively Jewish name of Hershel Fink. The playwright and theatre apparently didn’t realise it was Jewish. Which I completely believe since people often don’t realise I am Jewish either.

I only noticed this play and the whole Hershel Fink thing in the first place when the theatre issued an apology and changed his name to Henry Finn. But I also noticed something else. The apology didn’t work. Indeed it seemed to make things worse.

The theatre acknowledged it was “an example of unconscious bias” and people found this formulation so annoying that the apology itself became controversial. The Royal Court had to issue it again, this time without the reference to “unconscious bias”. In addition to it being controversial, people found it inadequate — where were the consequences? And they pointed out that Henry Finn was just what a Jew would call themselves when anglicising their name (my grandmother did indeed use Finn when teaching in language school). So maybe the whole play should be abandoned.

....

...Such public apologies come every day now in a constant stream from real corporations and political leaders.

And the stream has attracted researchers to study their effect. In Cass Sunstein’s recent book This Is Not Normal he describes two pieces of work that seek to measure the impact an apology has on people’s opinion of the person doing the apologising.

The first uses two real events. In a survey respondents were told about an occasion when the senator Rand Paul seemed to suggest that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was wrong to forbid private discrimination on the basis of race. They were also told of the difficulty Lawrence Summers got himself into as president of Harvard University. Summers had talked about genetic differences between men and women that might influence their scientific interest and ability.

Different versions of each of these stories were tested. Some respondents were told that Paul or Summers had apologised and tried to make amends; some were told they had toughed it out. Would you vote for senator Paul? Should Summers face negative consequences?

For Paul, an apology made no difference. For Summers the apology produced a serious negative reaction. And indeed in real life Paul avoided an explicit apology and remained a senator while Summers repeatedly apologised yet had to resign.

...asked whether he would play the role again if he were offered it today. “No, I wouldn’t take it on now,” he said. “I made that film with the best intentions, but I think it was a mistake.”

Redmayne was once again criticised for playing a role traditionally portrayed by LGBTQ+ actors after being cast as the Emcee in a new production of Cabaret currently in previews at the Playhouse Theatre.

Speaking about starring in the show opposite Jessie Buckley’s Sally Bowles, Redmayne added: “Of all the characters I’ve ever read, this one defies pigeonholing. I would ask people to come and see it before casting judgment.”