A British author says the world has become so politically correct that it’s almost impossible to invent fictional villains.

Anthony Horowitz is known in Great Britain for his television work on Foyle’s War and Midsomer Murders, but his greatest challenge is in finding suitable adversaries for Alex Rider, the teenage hero of a series of spy novels who has been compared to a young James Bond by fans.

Horowitz wrote that he found it increasingly difficult to find someone for Rider to fight.  After all where does one find as Horowitz says “A bad guy who won’t give offence, who won’t break some new piece of politically correct legislation, who won’t, in short, damage my career.”

According to Horowitz the villain couldn’t be black, homosexual, a woman (that would be sexist), disabled or fat.

With such limitations the author came up with Major Winston Wu, a Hong Kong Chinese gang leader who drinks English wine and suffers from osteoporosis as his hero’s new nemesis though he is aware that even so that someone might still find Wu politically incorrect.

What Horowitz is complaining about is something Hollywood has been facing but is unwilling to admit.  Over the years thanks to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russians are largely out as the bad guys and have been replaced by North Koreans even though that country poses little threat to the U.S. On the other hand after 9/11 Hollywood has succumbed to pressure and eliminated Arabs or Muslims as villains despite the fact that the majority of terrorists come from Arabic speaking or Muslim dominated countries. 

Maybe once Horowitz feels that his career is safe and that he has earned enough money from his work he can have the young hero battle the most politically incorrect villain he can think of.  Slaying the p.c. monster would be truly heroic.

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