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Anybody else feel like TV's getting kind of racist?
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
Anybody else feel like TV's getting kind of racist?
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| It's meta, dude. |
Disclaimer: I am woefully, scandalously under-qualified to write anything about TV. Until discovering I could watch shows on the internet (and what a discovery!), I hadn't watched TV since the late 90s. Having said that . . .
Anybody else feel like TV's been getting uncomfortably, overtly racist?
I've got two shows in mind: Curb Your Enthusiasm, and 30 Rock – both of which I watch religiously (although - 30 Rock's hurting these days, don't you think?).
And I like those shows! Man cannot live on blogging about casinos alone, you know?
But this racism thing is on my mind largely because it's actually started to upset the flow of those those delicious, smooth TV brainwaves through the old cranium.
You know what I'm talking about: Larry's household being taken over by a black family, and the storyline revolving partially around his trying to get rid of them; the minstrel-like Leon; the cunnilingus-loving Krazee Eyez Killa. Tracey Jordan's stupidity, Dot Com and Grizz's servility, Angie's bitchiness.
It's not like it's hidden, or something: the shows put it right in our faces – I mean, that's supposed to be the whole joke, right? They're not racist, they're meta. It's meta-racism - the opposite of racism.
But I don't really buy it. And yeah, I'm the asshole who's ruining the joke by talking about it: but of the many things that make Curb and 30 Rock hilarious, I gotta say: black people playing crazy black people doesn't top my list.
On a side note, The Office has managed to be witty, meta -- and yet doesn't, I think, do the same thing to its black characters: Stanley and Darryl are as real and fully-developed characters as the others, it seems to me.
Anyway, that's it. What do people think?
Tiger Woods is a racist...he doesn't like black women.
[...] as fun as watching 30 Rock is watching liberals laugh and then think (out loud on their blogs): “Does laughing at the antics of Tracy Morgan make me racist? This might be, at best, a [...]
Isaiah: Thanks for jumping over to my blog to respond to my take on this issue. I thought I'd come over here and offer one more thought. Which is: Good, smart comedy, at its essence, is very often transgressive. It can obviously go too far -- depending on who you talk to, it often does. But because of that, I think that means whenever you mix race and comedy it's inevitable that these kinds of questions will arise. During its day, "The Chappelle Show" seemed a daring take on our collective racial hangups; after Dave gave it up he suggested he'd gotten uncomfortable playing what he'd come to view as a kind of high-tech minstrel show. Seems the comedians are feeling their way forward on this stuff about as uncertainly as the rest of us.
Thanks for the comments - very thoughtful. I'm going to mull them over. Drew, I think you're on to something: the weirdness of perspective in 30 Rock is bigger than just a white/black thing. There's definitely an element of making fun of the ways of the rich and famous, that I find pretty entertaining. It also feels a little like out of touch and slightly prejudiced people making jokes, through their characters, about how out of touch and prejudiced they are -- but still being out of touch and prejudiced in the process.
30 Rock has been a little slow this season, but the most recent episode was really funny. I do not find it to be racist. I genuinely feel Tracy Morgan's character is everything he and Tina Fey discussed having him do on SNL but never got around to. His character at the end of the day is a lampoon of the average uber-wealthy/privileged person, not the average black person.
Yeah I can see that, but there are also jokes about their emotional intelligence and sensitivity, which I have always interpreted the punch-line as "look these big tough guys have feelings too." Those jokes would work just as well if Grizz and Dot-Com were the size they are and a different race. I think with Twofer they make more "People who went to ivy league schools are pretentious jerks" jokes than they make "look at this educated black guy jokes." Also, if you want to talk about race jokes, how many times has Jack told Liz that she looked "ethnic?" (ethnic white as opposed to American white) I feel like all of the characters on the show started as stereotypes and then were developed into more full characters. Jack: Corporate climbing heartless white man Liz: Career woman who doesn't have time for a family Jenna: Crazy Actress Pete: Emasculated married man Suri: Hot girl who doesn't think Kenneth: Backwoods Christian Sure there's racial undertones, but I think they make fun of everyone equally. It's an interesting debate for sure. There's lots of times watching that show when I say "Oh man, I can't believe they went there" and many of those times are about race-related jokes.
[...] Thompson asks a question my dear little elitist liberal heart doesn’t want to contemplate: Is 30 Rock racist? I’ve got two shows in mind: Curb Your Enthusiasm, and 30 Rock – both of [...]
True - but have you ever noticed how sometimes they'll do a joke with Grizz or Dot-Com, where the joke is that one of them can speak a full sentence or say something smart or somethign? Hmm? It's probably less useful to talk about whether things are or aren't "racist," (the way I just did) and more useful to talk about undertones of racism or of racial assumptions, or whatever. Do the writers try to make black characters like Grizz and Dot Com more multi-dimensional? Sure: but at the end of the day, you've got four black men on that show: one fool, two faithful servants, and Twofer - a character who's comedic premise is that he's black and educated. Those are some pretty old-school steriotypes for a show as postmodern as 30 rock.
I think on 30 Rock they represent more crazy boss/suck-up assistant relationships than just Tracey with Grizz and Dot-Com. They have Jack and Jonathon, Jenna and Kenneth, and to a certain extent Liz and Pete. They don't only show black characters in those roles.
That's funny, because I agree our culture's racism is reflected in the media but those are the last two shows I would cite as examples. I'm sorry. I like both of those shows a lot, I think they tackle racial issues in a refreshing way. I think they're progressive. They "play" on stereotypes to some extent but that they also dispel stereotypes by delving deeper into those characters.
OMG! did u see tonights episode? NOW what do u think????
Anyone of you knuckleheads thought about Larry? But it ain't racism 'cos he plays himself. Geez you morons!!!
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