Just over two years ago I
read about Native actors walking off of the set of Adam Sandler's The Ridiculous Six.
I supported their action.
A big part of that is that Native American women have the highest rates of rape
and assault. Giving Native women names that are sexually dehumanizing supports
that. Art matters.
The other thing that I
couldn't help but think was that it didn't sound that funny. I was recently
able to see that was true. I saw a clip, and it was so stupid. They also
oversold the joke, indicating that they knew it wasn't funny enough on its own,
but the producers still thought it was worth alienating a group and losing cast
members over.
I have enjoyed many Adam
Sandler films, though I have seen enough stupid humor that I can believe he
would stick with a stupid joke over doing the right thing. What I really want
to get at is this idea that political correctness is the death of humor.
I like Seinfeld too. I
have enjoyed many episodes of his show. Nonetheless, if he and Chris Rock and Larry
the Cable Guy don't want to play college campuses because the college kids are
too politically correct and they think that is a problem with the college kids,
they are wrong. Jokes that rely on racism and sexism are the lowest-hanging
fruit there is. If those kids are saying that you need to do better and you
can't, that's your problem.
I don't particularly like
Ralph Nader. I think he has done some good things, but I am afraid he is
undoing them really quickly. When you say the two parties are exactly the same
because you are mad about the flaws in one party, it really strengthens the
party that is mostly likely to undo the Clean Water Act, the Freedom of
Information Act, the Consumer Product Safety Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices
Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, and the National Traffic and Motor
Vehicle Safety Act. That was true even before the guy who suggested that for
each new regulation you have to roll back two got in.
I referenced Ralph Nader
in yesterday's post on trigger warnings, but in the same interview he also
spoke against political correctness and lamented the loss of ethnic humor joke
books because that's how tension was defused. (Also a problem, not being able
to catcall women.)
No, the tension that you
have now is that the people who once never had to question that they were on
the top, or that there were any problems with them being on the top, now are
having their superiority questioned. Previously they didn't have to say they
were superior, because it was understood. They didn't have to think about who
was below and whether there was anything horrible about that.
It happens all the time,
especially with older white men, that you ask them about the achievement of
someone else and they just can't admit to it. So Jerry Lewis doesn't think that
women are funny - including Lucille Ball - because women are baby-producers and
can't be aggressive enough. John McEnroe sounds every bit as asinine as Bobby
Riggs, saying that Serena Williams would be 700th in men's rankings. And then
they walk it back, because there is all of this flack they weren't prepared
for, but it hurts them to believe that accomplishments can be for someone else,
too.
There is a level of
oafish stupidity there that is unlikely to come up with really great humor. Sure,
sometimes the stupid stuff gets a laugh. Also, sometimes you can subvert the
old racist and sexist tropes and mine the humor out of turning them upside
down, but there's a lot of stuff going on in the world that you can joke about.
Is pushing down people who are already being pushed down really the way you
want to go? Is that the loss you are going to mourn?
I remember a bit from
Eddie Murphy when he was chastised by Bill Cosby (paragon of virtue) for using
the F-word in his comedy. He called Richard Pryor to ask about it. I'm
paraphrasing, but...
Pryor: Did the audience
laugh?
Murphy: Yes.
Pryor: Did you get paid?
Murphy: Yes.
Pryor: Then tell Bill to
have a Coke and a smile and shut up.
They're not really
talking about the same point, but some of the self-assurance comes from having
an audience. If there's not one for you, or your current audience is limited,
is that the audience or is that you?
Frankly, we don't have
enough people who are done being sexist and racist yet. If college students are
at least being more discriminating in their humor, I am going to be grateful
for that growth.
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