It is a valid point that there has always been cultural codes and that I'm probably more sensitive to changes that I've seen in my lifetime. And thanks for pointing Hays code. I've dug into some history of censorship and morality in US cinema.

However, by cultural sensitivity I refer to something beyond codes. Nothing that this article points out is particularly illegal, immoral or even shocking. Yet, probably due to cultural globalisation, social media, and the polarisation of the debate in the US on certain social issue, I am under the impression that this kind of clumsiness is more likely to be noticed.

> I don't think such a period ever existed.

Probably not in the US, no. Then again, the world is comprised of many other locations and cultures. Even in the West, I'd say mainly predominantly protestant countries (among which the anglosphere as a whole) tend towards political correctness.

Where did this exist outside of the US? I'm a Chinese person and you can see all the way in our long and well-documented history that literature has always expressed notions of class, culture, gender roles, and clearly knew what audience it was being distributed to and considered appropriately. The language of scholarly text expected to only be read by other scholars vs the scholarly text expected to be disseminated widely are very different.

"Political correctness" is just what you call it when you notice it. You probably don't think of it as political correctness when there are no black cowboys, but that is just political correctness of another time.

A lack of representation isn't the same as political correctness in my book. Political correctness to me is the cultural elite's group-think, mainly in terms of moral judgements. Nothing about that group-think says it's taboo to have black cowboys, per se.

It sounds like you're using it more like a Zeitgeist?

I was referring to how political correctness changes over time. The Hays code was the political correctness of its time. Western movies with only white cowboys were political correct in their time. It is just the term "political correctness" that is new, not the concept.

You can call it "group-think" or you can call it "cultural values".

I was responding to the suggestion that there was a time and place without "political correctness". I dispute that. Every time and place have some ideas of what is and isn't morally acceptable. But if you are born into it, it may be invisible. The majority of the audience at the time did not wonder why there were so few black cowboys in movies. But they noticed it when more black cowboys started to appear.