Princeton group cuts 'Mermaid' song over 'toxic masculinity'

[Floyd R. Turbo]

PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) — An all-male a cappella group at Princeton University has pulled a Disney movie song from its act following a student newspaper column that suggested the lyrics helped promote “toxic masculinity.”

The Princeton Tigertones have performed “Kiss the Girl,” a song from “The Little Mermaid,” for years. During performances at the Ivy League school, a female audience member would be brought onstage to decide whether or not a man from the crowd could kiss her.

Noa Wollstein, who wrote the column, claimed the song’s message is misogynistic and that too many women have been pulled on stage for unwanted encounters.

“I have seen a queer student brought on stage have to uncomfortably push away her forced male companion,” Wollstein, a sophomore from New York, wrote in her column. “I have heard of unwilling girls being subjected to their first kisses. I have watched mothers, who have come to see their child’s performance, be pulled up to the stage only to have tension generated between them and the kid they came to support.”

https://www.apnews.com/513c49f5fe704546a1dbe43efd3b81aa

[bearsfootball516]

1. "too many women have been pulled on stage for unwanted encounters. "

Maybe keep the song and just stop doing that stupid practice...

[FSogol]

2. Seriously. We act dumb, but it is a song's fault!

[FBaggins]

3. Now I get it

I had seen multiple versions of the story that just reported that the song had been cut due to consent issues... to which I figured that some people needed to grow thicker skin. There are no consent issues in the movie. The girl wants/needs to be kissed but can't say it... so a friend tries to get the message across.

Now that I see the real objection it makes much more sense.

The real story ought to be "college singing group forced to cut inappropriate behavior on stage and decides to also cut song because they see no reason to sing it if they can't use it to push their inappropriate behavior".

I doubt that anyone told them that they couldn't sing the song.

[Crunchy Frog]

4. Maybe they could ask for a volunteer, rather than grabbing someone from the audience.