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Euro 2020 Final - England vs Italy


smpar

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Right, so we agree it was racist. Glad we finally got there. 
 
[emoji23]
Why did he need blackface to laugh at Jason Lee’s hairstyle? 
Because they were trying to make it clear it was Jason Lee, who was black. It wouldn't have been very convincing if they didn't make the effort, and remember, blackface wasn't really considered as offensive at that time. I genuinely don't think there was any racist intention in the joke.

But as they've acknowledged, with hindsight, it was wrong.

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28 minutes ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

Why did he need blackface to laugh at Jason Lee’s hairstyle? 

 

8 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

Because they were trying to make it clear it was Jason Lee, who was black. It wouldn't have been very convincing if they didn't make the effort
 

Some effort to avoid just saying a thing you liked in the 90s was a bit racist m8

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33 minutes ago, carpetmonster said:

Clearly the only way to solve this is to put Jason Lee in a time machine and give him his own 1996 show where he wears a Groucho Marx kit and shouts ‘Frenk! Frenk! Have you drank all my Manischewitz again you alcoholic putz’ with a Brummie comatose in pished breeks in the corner.

That sounds fucking terrific! 😄

As a reminder, The Brittas Empire was still on TV in 1996. ☹

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2 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

And some effort to desperately find offence in something that happened before you were born.

1. I was born

2. I'm not offended at all. But your efforts to cherry pick what counts as context and intention, rather than adding nuance to a discussion, flatten it out with the only obvious purpose of not having to examine why you maybe shouldn't have laughed at a guy bullying a black man while mocking his ethnicity (in blackface) are really pathetic. 

I'm glad though because this conversation has confirmed you've taken your own advice and read everything in the Spiked archives. Thank you for the good faith debate and I look forward to our next joust in the marketplace of ideas

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1 hour ago, pandarilla said:

My argument is that they shouldn't be 'cancelled' - which was the original mention here.

Context matters, as for me there was no intention of racism in the joke. In the mid 90s, the damaging effect of blackface was not something that was widely discussed or known about.

The intention behind the joke really does matter. But due to the change in our society (which i fully support), anyone making a similar blackface joke today could not use that excuse.

The B&W Minstrel show was cancelled in the 70s (just checked 1978) so the lampooning of Lee on the Baddiel/Skinner show shouldn't have happened almost two decades later.

It wasn't edgy late Friday night material, just cringeworthy as was much of the show's content.

Edited by btb
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I don’t know seeing as I was 2 when it happened, but what was the intention behind the joke of ‘blacking up and sticking a pineapple on his head’? 
I'd have been in my mid 30s. The intention was to make people laugh at a hairstyle sported by a black man. A hairstyle which one would only expect to see on a black man.

It was, never mind the bullshit "context" argument, minstrel-level racism.
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57 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

You're judging something in history by today's standards. Context matters.

Nowadays we understand that the joke was racist - but that's only because we're looking at it through a modern, more educated lense.
 

I agree with that.  But the actual victim of racism - in this case Jason Lee - wasn’t given an opportunity to express how racist that joke was.   I completely get it. Those of us coming from a position of privilege do need to be educated.   That doesn’t make the joke any less racist, though.  The racism existed within the power structures, which are now being challenged.   What is racist now was racist then.  

I’m not even sure what people are disagreeing over any more, but I guess my point is this.  Just because people weren’t educated to the issues in the same way, doesn’t mean the racial element didn’t exist.  It was simply that the “victims” were not granted a right of reply.  And in that way, the racism was even deeper and more malevolent.   For what it’s worth, I’m pretty certain a sizeable number of people were uncomfortable with that sketch at the time.  

Bring it forward 25 years, and you see overt racism being punished with a ten game ban, while the player receiving the overt abuse was suspended 30% of the time for walloping him in the face.  Kamara had no right of reply there, either.  The racial power structural issues still exist.   

Edit: these things weren’t discussed in institutions, but they were undoubtedly discussed elsewhere.  And ignored.

Edited by Savage Henry
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1. I was born
2. I'm not offended at all. But your efforts to cherry pick what counts as context and intention, rather than adding nuance to a discussion, flatten it out with the only obvious purpose of not having to examine why you maybe shouldn't have laughed at a guy bullying a black man while mocking his ethnicity (in blackface) are really pathetic. 
I'm glad though because this conversation has confirmed you've taken your own advice and read everything in the Spiked archives. Thank you for the good faith debate and I look forward to our next joust in the marketplace of ideas
Interesting that you talk about adding nuance to a debate, as that's the exact opposite of what you're doing.

And despite your attempts to guilt trip my teenage self, I'll continue to acknowledge that things are a bit more complicated.
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Because they were trying to make it clear it was Jason Lee, who was black. It wouldn't have been very convincing if they didn't make the effort, and remember, blackface wasn't really considered as offensive at that time. I genuinely don't think there was any racist intention in the joke.

But as they've acknowledged, with hindsight, it was wrong.

Blackface wasn't offensive? Says who??
The bbc canceled the Minstrels in the 70s. This was nigh on twenty years later.
Sorry mate, you're talking absolute bollox here.
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Bear in mind that as recently as 2011, David Williams & Matt Lucas were getting 10 million viewers watching them in blackface make up.
And were no less offensive - and not just for the blackface. A shameful chapter in both careers.
Although Walliams joining up with Simon Cowell runs it close.
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1 minute ago, Frank Sobotka said:

Blackface was good and funny in 1996 ?

 

I did my high school work experience in the marketing department of a theatre around that time, and I distinctly remember The Al Jolson Revival Show being advertised, complete with supportive letters from Mr and Mrs Henry Jones of Colchester, and “glowing” reviews from the Daily Mail.  Unfortunately, there was a market for that kind of shite back then, and I daresay you’d still find folk claiming it’s perfectly okay even now.

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5 minutes ago, Frank Sobotka said:

Blackface was good and funny in 1996 ?

 

Pandarilla cancelled his Netflix in protest when they censored the infamous "Thai bride" Little Brittain sketches, wrote them an email saying it was all just a bit more complicated than that 

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1 minute ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

And were no less offensive - and not just for the blackface. A shameful chapter in both careers.
Although Walliams joining up with Simon Cowell runs it close.

I agree, found it unfunny, needless & offensive at the time. I just found it unreal people could actually get away with it so recently, League of Gentleman were also bad for it.

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