First they came for the fat sassy black women, but I said nothing because I was not a fat sassy black woman.
Then they came for the idiotic lazy suburban husbands and their much smarter wives, but I said nothing because I was not one of those people.
Then they came for the hip slacker snowboarders, but I said nothing because I was not a hip slacker snowboarder.
....
Then they came for me. And there was nobody to speak up. And now there are no commercial archetypes.
As you say, tacky, stupid and stereotypical is what commercials usually are. The white people in them, the stupid, immature husband, the wise, knowing, and too-many-degrees-more-attractive wife, are stereotypes too.
Funny commercials sometimes succeed brilliantly in breaking stereotypes. The ones about identity-theft, where people mouth the words of radically different people who have stolen their identities, is a good example.
Or the ED, and female-comfort (I don't know what that product category is called) ads, at their best make middle-aged eroticism look pretty good.
Is it the article that is stupid, or the phenomenon it describes? Or both?
(I mean, if the article is saying "some professors think using this image in ads is racist" vs the article is saying "using this image in ads is racist")
You know what I was actually thinking about, Speedy Gonzalez. He's pretty much disappeared from the Warner Brothers cartoon universe, and to the extent I thought about it, I figured, "Okay, Chicanos were offended, and that's cool." And then I read something, somewhere, about some Chicano activists who were sad that Speedy Gonzalez was gone, because he was a positive Mexican pop-culture figure. (Note, I'm not claiming to be right about this -- my knowledge of Chicano politics is basically non-existent. But I can completely see finding SG more positive than offensive.) And now Chicanos are slightly less visible in pop culture than they were.
I think this is a problem of wimpiness among people afraid of being accused of racism. Sure, anytime you publish an identifiable representation of a minority figure, you risk being accused of racism. Those are the breaks -- if you work on not actually being racist, then the occasional mistaken accusation is just something to take in stride. (And the occasional "No, regardless of how you meant it, this particular thing is really offensive," is something to listen to.) But exaggerated fear of accusations of racism is a problem in itself, and one that ends up excluding minorities from the public sphere.
I think the problem this poses is for entry-level actresses. I have a dear friend who is an African-American woman, of about a size 16, and she's never in her life been around any "sassy fat black mamas," yet every time she auditions for a role, they either dismiss her or try to rewrite the role as a "sassy fat black mama" role. It's ridiculous, and, for the first time in her life, she's feeling like she has to either embrace some ghetto stereotype (that's as foreign to her as if someone asked her to be a stereotypical German oma) or not be able to make a living as an actress. I think it does have repercussions, but perhaps they are worse for non-skinny black women than for society at large.
3, 4: If you can't find people who are personally offended by the commercials, rather than abstractly concerned, and humor based on the stereotype is popular among blacks, then the article is stupid for blowing up a problem that's fairly insignificant.
But exaggerated fear of accusations of racism is a problem in itself, and one that ends up excluding minorities from the public sphere.
I think this is wrong, actually. At the worst, exaggerated fears of accusations of racism might inhibit members of the majority from depicting minorities. If you want to increase minority representation in the public sphere, you increase minority representation, you don't make it easier for whites to depict caricatures.
That is to say, I think if you're a thin white person, you get the opportunity to play, at least, more than one kind of stereotype in entry-level acting. You can be the slick hipster or the nerdy teen or the yuppie WASP or the dumb yokel. If you're not thin (perhaps even more of a factor than race), you're more likely to be forced into a single stereotype based on your race and gender.
6: Is that really different from the problem that, e.g., pretty skinny blondes have of being cast as dumb sexpots, or heavier white women being cast as the wise-cracking buddy? It's rough on actors that people think in stereotypes, and it's a real problem that directors who are aiming for realism, rather than cheap laughs, should work on. But I think you're right that it's a theater-world problem more than a societal problem.
the problem this poses is for entry-level actresses
Big Daddy Kane agrees with you.
10: Pretty skinny blondes can dye their hair brown and suddenly get cast as the librarian or the nerdy teen who gets made over at the end of the movie. Their characters can grow and change. A large black woman's character is expected to be static, and therefore never central. Even in movies about the social lives of black women, it's not irrelevant that the central character is almost always a light-skinned thin woman.
12: That's fair, but the problem is the absence of other roles, not the presence of stereotypical roles. (Which I tried to acknowledge in the post). Someone writing an article about how there need to be more diverse opportunities for black actors would very likely have an excellent point; but that's not the point this article is making.
Then there are the old stereotypes that are rarely spotted in nature anymore. Myself, I could make a fairly stereotypical TV cabbie with a bit of stubble and a knit cap.
The one my dad used to point out to me, forty years ago, was the cartoon swami, with his bed of nails, for s/m/n/x sleep aid. My dad put his finger on it: it was the fact that he spoke, with an Indian accent, that pushed it over the line.
13: That makes sense, LB. The NYT doesn't really care about how to fix the problem; they just like making people feel awkward enough about the problem that now they'll exclusively cast white people.
A bizarre aside: My above-mentioned friend was recently cast in a play about a blind date in which she was supposed to play a sensitive, intelligent woman, slightly insecure about her weight. After the first run, the director decided to put her in a fat suit, make her wear a nappy fright-wig, and make her spout crass ghettoisms, changing the play into a broad farce about ugly people dating.
I pretty much agree. I'd note further that there are slowly more opportunities for TV characters that are ethnic minorities that aren't just stereotypes, though it's been slow in coming.
Upon reflection, it may be coming faster for men than women (hush now, apo); all of the multi-racial non-stereotyped characters I can think of lately are men. I still think it's cool that my youngest sister has crushes on the cast from Lost, and she thinks the character Jin is the hottest, and it doesn't even strike her that the cast is multi-ethnic.
I saw a play about this in New York last year. It was quite good: the basic problem was, as AWB says, the situation of "here I am, a big woman who is black, and I'm an actor, and the only goddamn role I ever get is this stereotype." Which I think is the key. If all the fat black women you see on tv are popping their eyes and either cleaning things or waving their fingers at people saying "mm, mm, mm," that's pretty fucked up.
Of course, how people react to the stereotype varies. It can offend, but it can also be reclaimed: there are not a few black people who collect mammy images. But I think that on balance having this kind of stuff addressed in the paper of record is good, no?
OTOH, I think it sucks that Speedy Gonzales isn't around in more, not least because, in fact, I don't think he was a racist stereotype. Slow Poke Rodriguez arguably was, but I think that Speedy was more a cute character who was Mexican b/c the animators worked in southern Cali and found it funny to counter the "slow lazy Mexican" cliche with a fast jumpy desert mouse.
Rarely-seen-in-nature stereotypes have a welcome neutrality. When I was a kid, criminals like burglars were slouching white guys, with cloth caps and masks
Although come to think of it, that was the way the great Steve Ditko drew them too, in the mid-sixties. Maybe in his case it was a time-lag producing an inimitable style.
Thinking about it more, I wonder if the medium of advertising is especially conditioned to employing stereotypes. After all, they only have 30 or 15 seconds to make a point. Stereotypes are powerful symbols that are fairly prevalent. It does long term harm to perpetuate them, but they probably do sell cars in the next three months.
For the sassy black mama, what does she symbolize? Outrage? Is the outraged party soothed by Product X? Is the audience invited to identify with the outrage for a good ol' 30 Second Hate on the competitor?
Ooh, I got the kitten page. Now that's customer service!
She's always sassy and giving been-there-done-that don't I know it from the school-of-hard knocks sort of advice. About Pine-Sol.
I'm more with AWB on this one. It's of a piece with the commercials, about a decade ago, in which black teens would start dancing in the line at McDonald's. But the big, good difference is (from the NYT): To be sure, sassy overweight black women appear to represent only a small fraction of the African-American actresses who appear in commercials.
Unfortunately, Mo, I think the sassy black mama is not liberated from the mammy stereotype from whence she sprung, except that the sassy black mama is less likely to be cleaning on her hands and knees.
I dunno. My students often complain that commercials about white people are about "being fancy" and "living in a fantasy world," while commercials about black people going to McDonald's are about "keeping it real." That is, the black people in commercials, no matter how stereotyped, serve as a quick appeal to a world that isn't a reflection of a soap-operatic luxury-oriented lifestyle, which is the assumed background of most commercials with white people in them. Will there ever be a day when a "sassy black mama" appears in a luxury-product commercial? I doubt it.
That's the thing. Once that's the case (and I'm certainly not saying we're all the way there, but it's something) then policing for stereotypes, if the stereotypes aren't, themselves, particularly offensive, is just going to make people jumpy about casting blacks at all.
There's a very weird commercial for a single-use toilet scrubber where a thin blonde überhousewife does the martial arts 'I am the Invincible Sword Goddess' routine from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon pretending the single-use toilet scrubber is the sword.
The commercial makes no sense to me. It's borrowing all the Asian stereotypes, but with a blonde actress, and while I'm sure it would be borderline offensive if she were Asian, it's just totally weird.
25 to 23.
Will there ever be a day when a "sassy black mama" appears in a luxury-product commercial?
The character was slim, but I just saw a commercial for wide-screen TV's with a stereotypically no-nonsense scary black woman (she knocks a hole in the wall of an apartment with a sledgehammer, frightening the black men she's with.) It's not the same stereotype, but it is a related one. Are wide-screen TV's luxury goods?
Oh, upon reading all the interim comments, it seems we're approaching a kind of consensus on the fact that the "mammy"/SFBM character is a way of appealing to whites and blacks in a way that announces itself "realer" than the luxury ad. (Aunt Jemima pancake mix is supposed to be an everyday product, not a special treat, etc.) Thus, it makes extra-much sense that the SFBM in commercials has become more common in the 21st-century era of luxury-worship.
My wife thinks many commercials have literal dream-associations. She can't stop complaining about their non-linearity and not making sense, though.
Is "A Raisin in the Sun" just filled with stereotypes? Granted, I don't know that it's in production anywhere, at least not in New York. But if it were, would the problem be that the main character is "too sassy?" I agree with LB, and am in general against schoolmarmishness of all varieties.
We all trade in stereotypes. The key question, I think, is whether the stereotype is in of itself hurtful or malicious. Also, more narrowly tailored stereotypes (e.g., "fat sassy black women" rather than "all black people") seem to me less harmful, though I'm not sure why.
LB, I'm starting to think wide-screen TVs are no longer considered a luxury purchase, but more of a necessity for all Real Americans.
Aside from that, a play in which the subject is that the lead actor can't get any non-stereotypical roles, isn't that something that belongs in a Pynchon novel? (note: I haven't read any)
(meaning, isn't that deliciously ironical, or would be had I phrased it less awkwardly?)
Is anyone else enjoying Deadwood's examination of the Aunt Jemima character type? She's my favorite new character in the show. As a powerless figure, she socializes with other powerless castes (the Chinese) and you get the clear sense that she's as hard as the rest. When she plays the character around the powerful figures in her life (Hearst, her son), she does so in a way that's convincing (within the show).
Is "A Raisin in the Sun" just filled with stereotypes?
I'd like to make a distinction between satirizing an old play, and in so doing pointing out its stereotypes, and playing scold in the NY Times. Maybe there is no distinction to be made, but I'd like to make it.
'The Last Mama-on-the-Couch Play" IS PRETTY FUNNY.
I'm pretty much in favor of things that are funny and against things that are preachy. So if you want to call me a racist, make me laugh and it's ok.
joe o -- are you ALLCAPS PEOPLE?
One way to solve this is to make it so that not everyone determining what gets shown on TV is white. This is still a problem -- for instance, does anyone remember Tavis Smiley's statement that the Bush Administration is more diverse than NPR? These accusations of "over-sensitivity" are a great way for the white content-providers to dismiss minorities as over-sensitive -- as in, not emotionally mature enough to have control over what should be on the airwaves. Then of course there's the problem of tokenism, where certain minority representatives feel strong pressure to fulfill stereotypes, because of the patron-client relationship with the white capitalists.
Overall, there's been a premature announcement that racism no longer exists, but it hasn't been followed by any genuine loss of power by whites. It's the same thing that has destroyed the idea of "meritocracy" -- no one currently in power is willing to embrace the ideal of downward social mobility. In fact, the relative advantage of the super-rich (who are, by and large, white -- Oprah excepted, of course) has only increased.
This is why MLK became more militant and socialist in his later years, leading to his assassination. Now we get Condi Rice and Colin Powell instead.
36: Oh, I'm fine with that-- I'm not really following the argument here. I just thought that, with all of the attention focused on the "fat sassy black women" stereotype, it was worth noting that alternative roles had their own particular limits.
Also, regarding 6, perhaps A White Bear's friend needs to take some lessons at the Black Acting School.
Was that from Hollywood Shuffle?
Wow. Allcaps people sure are concerned about what people's families think.
IF YOU WERE SASSY BLACK MAMA'S KID WOULD YOU WANT SOMEONE TALKING ABOUT YOU AS A STEREOTYPE I DON'T THINK SO!!!!!!!
I'm all for downward social mobility for the W's of the world, but what does that have to do with Sassy Fat Black Women in commercials? I agree that racism still exists. But complaining about the Sassy Fat Black Women isn't the way to defeat it. It just gives racists ammunition to ridicule your efforts.
Allcaps people sure are concerned about what people's families think.
Yes, they sure do. Same with the nocaps people.
Harlan Ellison is an allcaps person. STOP THE SHOUTING!
But Adam is right, text, about the problem of white execs and white writers making all the decisions about how blacks should be represented in commercials or on television. And seriously, NPR is so white and bourgeois I really don't feel comfortable listening.
What examples do you think are out there of programs or commercials starring African-American actors that don't pander to stereotypes or hinge on cultural assumptions while not "whitewashing" black culture? I haven't watched TV in a while, but I remember thinking "Girlfriends" was really good, and my parents are big fans of "The Bernie Mac Show" and that show Chris Rock wrote. Of course, again, this is white people dishing about black culture (my parents' favorite movie is the stereotype-ridden Barbershop), which is inherently not-to-be-trusted, but I think it is pretty clear when you're watching something that seems to be about individuals, rather than stereotypes.
The sassy mammy thing is complicated, which is why it works as a stereotype. On the one hand, you have a figure who has some authority. On the other hand, she is also basically subservient/comforting. So the commercial where the guy drops the luggage on her head is funny b/c, on the one hand, it's scary: here is a black person, who is big, and who is not going to put up with shit! On the other hand, it's not *too* scary: she is, after all, a woman/mammy. So she'll give you a tongue lashing, which you can ruefully laugh at and then shrug off. But she isn't going to kick your ass.
But she isn't going to kick your ass.
This is at odds with the sassy black mothers I have known in my life, who would unreservedly kick your ass.
41 is exactly right.
Re. 45: no, it's not *the* way to combat racism. But it is a way to combat blindness towards racism. You can't fight the perpetuation of iniquity without recognizing that the iniquity itself exists, right?
I agree. I don't know what we're arguing about anymore. But in this:
"What examples do you think are out there of programs or commercials starring African-American actors that don't pander to stereotypes or hinge on cultural assumptions while not "whitewashing" black culture?"
I think you're asking me, a clueless white guy, to do the impossible. There are shows and movies I like with black actors. I'd like to think those are shows and movies about individuals.
In addition, there are probably shows and movies that black people find offensive (some of them written and produced by other black people) while other black people might enjoy them. Still others might feel sort of ambivalent towards them. So I don't know. I'm all in favor of stuff that doesn't feel contrived, that is funny or moves me in some way, and I'll put my dollar there. I don't know what complaining about commercials does for me in that endeavor, though.
52: I'm talking about a stereotype. Not an actual person.
I think my conclusion about what's wrong with the NYT article is that it's just further evidence that the audience for the NYT is wealthy clueless white people. Like it's *news* that the mammy stereotype exists, or something.
The black stereotypes interact with gender issues in really complicated ways.
Dave Chappelle was apparently constantly being asked to dress in drag, and he refused. But how many other current black male stars can you think of who haven't appeared in drag at some point? (Okay, I'm sure there are some, but dressing up a black man like a woman seems to be a "thing," which is not true for white men.)
54: no, I think scolding people about stereotypes that might not actually be harmful at all is a really bad way to do anything but turn people against you.
59: Right, minorities should just take white power and control as a given and try not to make too many waves. That's achieved a whole fucking lot.
that's not at all what I'm saying. It hinges on a deliberate misreading, Adam.
25: Once [there are more blacks in commercials] then policing for stereotypes, if the stereotypes aren't, themselves, particularly offensive, is just going to make people jumpy about casting blacks at all.
I really hate disagreeing with LB, since it often means I'm wrong, but... your sentence should say "is just going to make white people jumpy about casting blacks at all." I'm sure that a black writer, black director, and black casting director will have no problem casting black actors actresses without being terrified about the stereotype police. So I'm with Adam and AWB.
Also, I have a hard time believing that sensitivity towards stereotyping is actually going to decrease opportunities for minority actors and actresses. Maybe it will just lead to better writing.
Kotsko, are you fucking with us?
And doesn't NPR's Michele Norris have enough black in her to placate you people? Juan Williams, too. Maybe there just aren't enough black radio personalities who are willing to debase themselves peddling NPR's dreck. Seriously, NPR isn't indicative of anything: if you were an ambitious reporter of color, would you be aiming for public radio? Of course not, and TV news is full to bursting with acceptably oppressed peoples.
More seriously still, of course Kotsko is right that the lack of black executives is a serious problem, but that itself is the result of much deeper institutional problems, like the fact that so few black people actually get a decent education in this country, for example. And then we wind up in the affirmative action debate....
59: that might not actually be harmful at all
That's the rub, isn't it? How can we (clueless white guys) be sure? I think the stereotypes we've been talking about in this thread are, in fact, harmful.
And, man, am I getting tired of all of these arguments that we shouldn't point out stereotypes and prejudices because it might insult the people who hold them.
let's have that debate, and the debate about funding lower education in a more equitable manner, if we want to deal with racial inequality, and stop lobbing softballs to Sean Hannity.
we shouldn't point out stereotypes and prejudices because it might insult the people who hold them
No one has actually made that argument.
I'm talking about a stereotype. Not an actual person.
Yes, I know. Just saying that the stereotype is wildly at odds with the reality I've observed.
I think my conclusion about what's wrong with the NYT article is that it's just further evidence that the audience for the NYT is wealthy clueless white people. Like it's *news* that the mammy stereotype exists, or something.
The Bitch is saying something upon which my entire criticism of the NYT hinges. How can we possibly trust a bunch of white masculinist Ivy-League grads to know dick about anything except real estate, weddings, and vacation homes? Every article they publish on "the Midwest," "religion," "race" or "class" is about as ignorant as they come, in that they seem not to understand that what to them is news is quotidian experience for pretty much everyone who doesn't use "summer" as a verb. Hence our allied hatred of Modern Love columns, for example.
66 to 64.
to 65: A lot of people would respond, "Man, I am tired of being scolded by white people for things that are not on their face offensive at all."
Explain to me how sassiness is offensive, and I'll march with you against the ad agencies of America.
67: No? Maybe not so baldly as I've stated it, but it seems to be the underlying assumption in 59 (which I what I assume set Adam off). Also comments like this and this from the last thread.
70: It's not that sassiness is offensive. See #51.
"is just going to make white people jumpy about casting blacks at all."
Fair, and the stereotype in question is one that is frequently (as the article notes) used by black artists. But if it's something that white (casting directors/producers/whoever) have to cautiously avoid, the sort of caution that involves is likely to limit opportunites for black actors when working with white (casting directors/producers/whoever), and even if jobs were distributed in an entirely non-racist manner, there would still be a whole bunch of white (casting directors/producers/whoever).
Is anyone else enjoying Deadwood's examination of the Aunt Jemima character type?
'smasher is right, there's something interesting in Sassy Fat Black Mama territory going on with Aunt Lu on Deadwood. It's not clear yet whether it will have a satisfying resolution the way the Steve the Drunk Racist plotline did, but I suppose with Deadwood the safe bet is that it will.
For what's wrong with the sassy black mama thing, the excerpts here might be instructive.
72: Sure, but an even better solution is to write better, non-stereotypical roles, and then cast people in a non-racist manner.
What's with all the hatin' on NPR? Did they send you guys the wrong color tote bag or something?
51 is B's explication of the phenomenon, which I find rather unconvincing. The harm is that the character is actually harmless--what?--which is based on--what evidence? I'm sorry, I don't buy it.
Ditto with the luxury goods argument. If wide screen TVs aren't luxury goods to you, I think you have at least as big an insulation bias as the Times.
I think scolding people about stereotypes that might not actually be harmful at all is a really bad way to do anything but turn people against you.
This may be the case. But the unstated assumption here, which is sadly true, is that people will only care about racism if they can do so without being made to feel bad. When the issue is, whether or not it makes (the hypothetical) you feel bad is beside the point: the point is that it's wrong.
"Sassy" is offensive because it's condescending.
I'm just saying that underlying your statement is an assumption that the goal is to avoid alienating mainstream whites -- well, I'm saying that mainstream whites are pretty fucked-up and defensive about race issues (*cough*) and probably will not make good allies anyway. What your saying seems to me to be structurally identical to the obnoxious David Brooks columns generously offering advice to Democrats.
I know I'm a racist asshole who hates walking down the street in a black neighborhood and is intimidated by sassy black women -- if I were giving advice to blacks, I would not recommend making an alliance with me a major priority.
66: So, from someone who knows nothing about education funding debates, what are the common objections to: property taxes (and all other money which currently funds any public school) are pooled on a state level and re-distributed on a per capita basis, with a binary option where each special education kid means $Y and each non special education kid means $X, where X is significantly less than Y. Political subdivisions which currently fund their schools via property taxes would have to preclear with state government any changes in their funding.
Let me start, from things I noted when suggesting to my parents that they should support this:
1) Quality of what are currently the best public schools (assuming those are the best funded ones, which my experience bears out) goes down;
2) Prices of homes in communities which have those schools correspondingly drop;
3) Unless property values in other communities (which fund schools with property taxes) rise with improvement in their schools (and even if this happens, it might well happen more slowly) either property tax rates must go up or total funding will down
4) People will be pissed about paying a higher rate to get less
I'm still for it, but open to better ideas. Sort of on this new topic, teo, am I correct that you went to Albuquerque academy? If so, I have to e-mail to ask if you know someone.
I would add that, having now lived in two predominantly non-white cities over the past ten years, I really can't watch TV anymore without thinking it often looks eerily like Nazi propaganda. All those white blond people in one place creeps me out. I know, there are large spaces of America without any non-white people in them, and they're, I guess, being pandered to, but, like, see this fake corporate website created to promote the ABC family show "Kyle XY" (about which my co-blogger posted here, without which I'd not know about it). Three white people standing in a line makes all these weird alarm bells go off in my head.
I'm starting to make stronger arguments than I actually believe in, which is a sign that I need to stop. There are all sorts of complex racial issues to be found in media, and many of them work to the detriment of black people. I think the best way to combat racial inequality is through economic and education reform, and not through fighting the images which are only a product of those things, and very difficult things to fight.
The cluck-clucking just pisses me off on an emotional level.
Well, from the article:
Black advertising executives have noticed the stereotype. “There’s an image out there of black women being boisterous, overbearing, controlling and extremely aggressive in their behavior,” said Carol H. Williams, who runs her own advertising firm in Oakland, Calif., that specializes in marketing toward blacks. “I really don’t know why that stereotype is laughed at.” Some have trouble with the new commercial images in part because they are being created by white writers. “There are images of African-Americans created for white people by white people and there are images of African-Americans created for African-Americans,’’ Mr. Buford said. “And there’s a big difference.”
Wouldn't commercials that predominantly featured Asian women as submissive and subserviant be troublesome?
What's with all the hatin' on NPR?
Let's just see how fast they pick up Mel Gibson arrested for terrorism:
http://www.bbclosangeles.com/BBCNEWS_Mel_Gibson_Arrested_On_Terrorism.htm
One issue is that capital costs aren't level across schools. My understanding is that NYC school budgets, for example, look misleadingly similar to suburban budgets, because a lot of money in NYC goes to maintaining old buildings.
But in principle I think your idea is roughly a good one.
slol, I'm not sure I agree with you about the Steve the Drunk plotline. The right, representative thing to happen (given the historical reality) would be for him to win outright and just be despicable; portraying race relations in all their hostility injustice the narrative justice and, I think, the audience justice.
Steve's horseshoeing accident struck me as a deux ex machina: someone who runs a livery and is willing to attempt to (un)shoe a horse is probably likely to know how to do it without getting killed. And earlier in the scene, he reveals that he needs from dead Hostetler (via the Nigger General) the secret to accounting while sober—a revelation I took it to mean that Steve is illiterate (though I can't remember if that's been explored), unable to do math, or can't handle staying sober enough to do the math and projects onto Hostetler some trick that made him competent. It definitely seemed like he was sober enough to complain about being sober and frustrated, so I don't think he was drunk when he was shoeing the horse, unless I've forgotten something. When the Nigger General takes his petty revenge—and then feels sorry about it!—I thought they ruined the livery's place in the story.
77: The harm is that it represents a class of people as entertaining clowns who are essentially means, rather than ends in themselves. The mammy will scold you and put her hand on her hips and raise her eyebrow, but when push comes to shove she will make you pancakes and call you honey chile. She represents the idea that the role of the black woman is essentially to comfort and provide for white people, that she is perpetually in the "mama" role. Scolding you when you behave badly, rewarding you when you behave well.
I think the best way to combat racial inequality is through economic and education reform
Totally agree. However, images in the media are symptoms of these problems, and shouldn't be ignored.
84: Holy shit! But what will Rightbot do? Rightbot loved Passion of the Christ and thinks Mel is the only Hollywooder with integrity! But Rightbot also thinks Muslims should get wiped off the planet by Israelis. Rightbot's processor is overheating! Save him!
IDP, where'd you get linked to that parody from?
Deadwood SPOILERS follow.
Shockingly, 'smasher, I disagree with you when you disagree with me! I think they've been done enough to demonstrate that Steve's racism is to some extent about self-hatred. Which I think is highly realistic. And part of his self-hatred is that he feels incapable (drunk, illiterate; not, in fact, that bright) compared to Hostetler and presumably other black people. And this has found its way out in myriad ways already. He's not right in the head, old Steve. Witness the way he, without any help from the Nigger General at all, developed a whole dialogue about the NG being a partner and having his name on the sign, etc. He's crazy. Which is how he came up with the hare-brained need to unshoe the horse in the first place. Is it a shock he'd be inept at that, too, drunk or sober? Is it not just desserts for him to get kicked?
That it's historically inaccurate, I think I disagree too. Part of the point of the show is to portray the frontier as a place where civilization has not yet come, and that means social relationships are still fluid. It may be inevitable that the machinery of institutionalized racism will come to Deadwood, but it hasn't quite yet. So Steve's relationship with the black characters is not foreordained to a particular outcome.
I read the NG's reluctant sympathy as part of that fluidity.
I did, however, find Hostetler's suicide to be implausible.
Let's just see how fast they pick up Mel Gibson arrested for terrorism:
And the length of time it takes NPR to report that story will tell us . . . what?
The harm is that it represents a class of people as entertaining clowns who are essentially means, rather than ends in themselves.
That class of people is called "actors", I believe.
I mean, this is an unfortunate stereotype, but I'd say it's mostly noticable because these are the only roles available for fat black women. Just like fat white women have no roles unless they're the sassy white friend. Just like old people are useless for anything apart from reminescence and "old people can't do that!" laughs.
I don't see young attractive black people, hispanic people, asian people, etc. shoved into stereotypes anywhere near as often on tv these days. When they are, it typically seems to be in an over-the-top parody making fun of the black-friend stereotype or something similar.
My wife sent it to me. Very neatly linked back to bbc sites. I can't tell who hosts it. It's clearly stripped out the one story and substituted the other. Quick work.
The mammy will scold you and put her hand on her hips and raise her eyebrow, but when push comes to shove she will make you pancakes and call you honey chile.
I'm not sure that the commercials themselves accord with the second clause of your sentence; it's not so much 'sassy' as 'tough old bird', and it's definitely not a mothering vibe.
Granted, it's within a larger cultural context where everyone knows that heavyset black women = submissive, sassy, mammy.
But I'm not sure that's as universal as it used to be; I was pretty much raised in a cultural vacuum, but I had to learn of the existence a lot of these stereotypes in a classroom. The first time I ever heard the insult 'jungle bunny' was in a philosophy of law textbook article on hate speech. When you guys were tossing out all your Asian stereotypes I'd never heard of any of them. This leads me to wonder what harm the stereotype can be perpetuating outside of a larger context if it seems some of that larger context is dying.
I thought I'd share some haikus with y'all:
towelheaded man
allah-akbar on the plane
oppressing my ass
sassy fat mammy
loves me loudly with big hands
so I sell her child
pc nazi bitch
says "nigger" is dispreferred
oppressing my ass
everyone knows that heavyset black women = submissive
What? That is most certainly *not* a prevalent stereotype where I live. The stereotype is that heavyset black women are not to be fucked with, for fear of getting one's ass stomped.
I agree, apo; it's only 'larger cultural context' among people who get the context from textbooks, is my point.
I'm with Apo here. Sure, they're depicted as being good mothers, and being nice to their kids. But you're not their kid. You will be beaten down by the enormous sassy woman, physically if not verbally (because, as movies, tv shows, and commercials teach us, fat minority women have the ability to steal a white person's very capacity for speech with a single sassy head bob).
99: Were they lying to you about the kidney part, and actually gave you a frontal lobotomy?
BRAINS!
It's clearly time for Ogged to go back to work.
Well, the submissiveness could come from the whole house-slave thing. Not submissive tempermentally, but knowing her place.
And does anyone else find the professors really offensive in this article?
Some whites, Ms. Dates said, may laugh thinking, “Wow, she’s so ridiculous. My people aren’t like that.” She added: “They wouldn’t consciously feel that way. But there is something going on subconsciously because that’s what advertising is all about. They’re trying to tap into some feeling, some emotion, some psychological hang-up.”
Blacks, meanwhile, might laugh because they can identify with the character, Ms. Dates said. “It’s for both the people who want to snicker and say, ‘See, that’s how they are.’ And for people to say, ‘There’s one of us.’ ”
Orlando Patterson, a sociology professor at Harvard, amplified that point. “To the black audience, this may be, ‘You do your thing, sister,’ ” Professor Patterson said. “The white audience is laughing with her. Then they go back to reality, and they laugh at her.”
Who are they to say what all white people and black people are thinking? Who are they to think that white people have never known a white woman who took no shit? Haven't they ever seen the stereotype of the wise-cracking take-no-shit white waitress?
Whoops, if anyone could edit my comment, I meant for the middle three paragraphs to be italicized.
But who the hell thinks of black people as house-slaves these days? I grew up in a neighborhood that was mostly white and if I thought anything about black people as a class as a kid, it was all because of the Cosby Show (which has its own set of problems, but Mrs. Cosby wasn't sassy, she was a doctor!) I saw Gone With the Wind and recognized it as an old stereotype that wasn't true.
re: 99.
Haikus are for cunts.
one two three four five six sev
Haikus are for cunts.
Explain to me how sassiness is offensive, and I'll march with you against the ad agencies of America.
See the link in Ogged's 74: The Deborah Dickerson quotes are very good.
Sure, they're depicted as being good mothers, and being nice to their kids. But you're not their kid. You will be beaten down by the enormous sassy woman, physically if not verbally (because, as movies, tv shows, and commercials teach us, fat minority women have the ability to steal a white person's very capacity for speech with a single sassy head bob).
That is the stereotype that Dickerson is talking about in the linked quotes. It's not about subservience, it's the loud, coarse, violent, desexualized, threatening thing. And usually FSBMs are not depicted as good mothers--they're shown shouting at and beating on their kids, because they're too ignorant to deal with them any other way, and so of course they grow up to be Gangstas.
I guess I was thinking more of the Aunt Jemima origins of the image. Even in that there is a threat under the sweetness. There better not be no backtalk, you hear?
But yeah, what mcmc said.
"cunt" imported ripe
from the empire's low gutter
I take big offense
Ogged, they transfused you with Negro blood, didn't they?
A bunch of earnest white people talking about race, and my first thought is Showboat. Lord have mercy.
I've read ogged's linked post. I read it when it was written, and I just read it again. I do not think it says what you think it says.
More to the point: The movie "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" was written and produced by a black man, and due to its largely black audience, was one of the highest grossing films of 2005 (I think that's the correct year).
I never saw the movie, but I know that its main character, Medea, basically fulfills the stereotype we are talking about. She was played by a man. Before the movie, he performed the character to live audiences and was very popular in the African American community.
From the previews, I would think that the character isn't that funny, and might even fulfill negative stereotypes. But who am I to say that to a black person who enjoyed that movie? Should I tell that person that her preferences are misguided, that she's being oppressed through the movie without even knowing it, but that I know better?
"Here," I could say, "come away from that vulgar entertainment the white man has tricked you into liking (and creating) and come join NPR where you can speak in hushed voices along with all us properly educated whities."
If so, I would be opening myself up to ridicule, even ridicule from people who support things that are very bad for the black community. And they would be, on this narrow issue, correct. I would be a pompous ass for complaining about this stereotype, for thinking I knew what was and wasn't offensive better than black people themselves.
racial sexist slurs
Oh and speaking of offensive
Fuck you, clown
his umbrage is such
that Mexislamofascist
ogged ain't that shaggy.
114 -- "Lord have" s/b "Laws'a"
Earnest white Wire enthusiasts: writer George Pelicanos speaks.
since you ask, cracker
I do have an awesome god
in my deep pockets
Being a Mexican, Ogged has a personal insight into the topic of racism that many of us don't. I affirm his right to put his message in poetic form, even if I don't know that that's the best way to appeal to middle America.
flowers blush pinkly
as rage flushes my pale cheeks
earnest liberals.
So soon he forgets
"my modest member puny"
shamefully confessed
"(which has its own set of problems, but Mrs. Cosby wasn't sassy, she was a doctor!)"
Did no one notice this horrible gaffe? Mrs. Cosby (Mrs. Huxtable) was not a doctor! She was a lawyer! And, after all, who is sassier than a lawyer?
I penned one-two-three;
a fitting tribute to O's
underwhelming cock.
though he talks big, we
know ogged's emo schlong wears an
ill-fitting sweater
115: I'm not sure if I think what you think I think it says.
Did no one notice this horrible gaffe? Mrs. Cosby (Mrs. Huxtable) was not a doctor! She was a lawyer! And, after all, who is sassier than a lawyer?
Yeah, yeah. Mea culpa. Mrs. Huxtable was a gorgeous lawyer in powersuits and Dr. Huxtable was a stay-at-home-dad with a clinic next door he never had to go to. And if I remember (by reading articles later, I was too young at the time to be aware of the debate) the show drew flack for not depicting properly 'authentic' black characters.
I'm not sure if the complaint, actually, was that it wasn't good to show blacks as having functional families and careers when that wasn't true for most blacks in the U.S. in the 80s? Was it too white-washed? Too acceptable to the middle class?
the show drew flack for not depicting properly 'authentic' black characters
You mean Dizzy Gillespie and Stevie Wonder don't visit every black person's home? I refuse to believe that TV has lied to me.
this haiku writing
has gone woefully astray
all y'all are banned
I don't think I think what you're not sure I think you think . . .
oh hell. a haiku:
arguing about
sassy is like boxing with
kangaroos. dumb micks!
130 is short
a syllable but we'll let
it pass, Mexican.
deeply offended,
kangaroo boxers file suit,
micks say: fuck you clown!
the clown, that racist
happens to be part-mick, just
like Adolf Hitler.
w/d: I didn't go to Albuquerque Academy, but I do know a lot of people who did. Feel free to e-mail me.
mick in giant shoes
honking big red nose invokes
godwin's law: you lose!
"I'm not sure if the complaint, actually, was that it wasn't good to show blacks as having functional families and careers when that wasn't true for most blacks in the U.S. in the 80s? Was it too white-washed? Too acceptable to the middle class?"
Well, I think the best argument made against The Cosby Show was that it played into the myth promoted by Reagan etc. that the race problem in the United States had been solved.
kangaroo boxers bounce.
clownish micks duck, jab and weave...
guinness! brilliant!
micks drinking guinness
hitler drinking becks, and the
kangaroos conquer.
no fair taking becks'
name in vain when you know that
she's on vacation!
Has Unfogged ever
had a haiku thread before
in its history?
let kangaroos and
hitler contend with the clown.
we get the guinness!
fuck bitter guinness -
tastes like used motor oil.
belgian hoegaarden.
At Acephalous
there was just a haiku thread.
I'm plumb haiku'd out.
half and half lager
and guinness, with a lime, yes!
and ice! I want now!
all beers are lovely,
but not black-and-tans: because
miscegenation.
Am I insane to
Go to the beach tomorrow
In all damned heat?
Black and Tans also
were total bastards back in
I-er-land, it seems.
Jackmormon, you are
missing both an article
and a syllable.
The article was
The missing syllable, you
Officious pedant.
No, friend Jackmormon!
The city heat sucks your soul;
The shore refreshes.
haiku exhaustion
strikes one out of three poets
say all the studies
"Officious pedant"
is a high-toned way to say
"such a little bitch."
it strikes people, too
we're not all poets, the world
being what it is
By the way, I sent
you some e-mail yesterday;
it's not important.
My rad new easel
Has a giant umbrella.
(The sun still scares me.)
I'll get back to you
Soon, very soon. Ish. Just when
You don't expect it!
Ok, I'll jump on the haiku bandwagon in a bit, but I have to get caught up.
That class of people is called "actors", I believe.
No. The class of people being *depicted* are large black women. The class of people *depicting* them are actors.
this is an unfortunate stereotype, but I'd say it's mostly noticable because these are the only roles available for fat black women. Just like fat white women have no roles unless they're the sassy white friend. Just like old people are useless for anything apart from reminescence and "old people can't do that!" laughs.
Yeah, and? All those stereotypes are offensive.
Who are they to say what all white people and black people are thinking? Who are they to think that white people have never known a white woman who took no shit? Haven't they ever seen the stereotype of the wise-cracking take-no-shit white waitress?
The professors seem foolish in the article, sure. But not because they're explaining how stereotypes work; those stereotypes *do* exist, and even if you didn't know that, all you'd have to do would be watch American TV and movies for a while and you'd be all caught up. The stereotype of the smartass waitress is a class thing that's somewhat overlaid with race: like the phrase "white trash," it's in part about the white middle class distancing itself from its inferiors and cultivating a divide & conquer strategy between poor blacks and poor whites. Not consciously, but functionally.
114 and 115 are problematic, because they both seem to implly that the only people who should talk about race are people who aren't white. But what good does that do?
Also, I think that 114 means that Labs is gay.
The thing is, I don't think that the professors do sound all that foolish -- there's nothing wrong with talking about stereotypes. I think the Times is foolish to report it as it did; at the level being discussed, stereotypes are a matter for academic media criticism, not an article in the Business section.
Your 158 would carry more weight, B, if you could pare it down to 5-7-5.
What's foolish is the excessive worry about what the Times itself admits are a small fraction of a portrayal of black women in commercials (which, as someone pointed out, only have 15 seconds to make a point anyway.) The academic discussion, even an academic discussion that leads to positive results, isn't foolish, but presenting it as more of a media problem than it is seems off.
162: But it isn't all that small. The mammy stereotype is huge. Yes, there are black women getting other kinds of roles nowadays, thank god. But that doesn't make the stereotype less of a problem. Any more than saying, "well, portraying fat white women as disgusting pigs isn't a big deal, because after all, there are plenty of white women who aren't fat playing other roles."
146:
When text in number'd syllables speaks his mind;
deep thought in haiku's crucible refined,
Ah! then must I the Black-and-Tan abjure
As every Irish lass ought, to be sure.
The cases aren't quite parallel, though, B. First, you'd have to construe the nasty ads with fat white women as standing in for all white women. I don't think we accept that, and I don't think we accept that for the sassy character, either.
Second, they're not parallel because of the black directors and writers who presumably know the stereotypes and think that it's just fine to laugh at them. This to me suggests that something's changed -- the stereotype is being reclaimed, it's become harmless enough to laugh at (like the Guinness commercial), or that the stereotype is small enough and countered by enough examples that it's okay to laugh at it.
There's a Scrubs episode where one of the main characters, a Latina nurse, pokes fun at the WASPy young doctor because she tried to give the nurse attitude by demonstrating how to properly deliver sass.
I'm not saying that the ads are good or praiseworthy, I'm saying that the article is pointing to three or four ads and two movies as evidence the clock is going backwards, and that seems too big a conclusion to draw.
Bitch, Actually, this might seem kind of weird, but white people don't have a "race." They're just "people." So they obviously wouldn't know anything about race.
Clearly, what's needed is an accounting of what part of the black population is female, overweight, and "sassy." Then these characters can appear in commercials at just the right rate, neither under- nor over-represented.
To be sure, sassy overweight black women appear to represent only a small fraction of the African-American actresses who appear in commercials. Marketers have made strides in recent years toward making advertisements with a more diverse cast of characters.
Blacks regularly appear in commercials selling products as diverse as toothpaste, credit cards and erectile dysfunction medication. Indeed, according to several academic studies, over the last 15 years the number of blacks appearing in commercials has been roughly proportional to their share of the American population, about 14 percent.
I got lost in all the haiku. Has someone made the point that it's going to be a hard sell that "Big Mama's House" is fine, but the DQ commercial isn't?
Mr. Buford, of Prime Access, said part of what makes the comedy of Mr. Perry and Mo'Nique acceptable is that it is written from a personal experience common to many blacks.
"Authenticity makes a lot of difference," he said. "It’s authenticity born of having lived that life versus having been cast in that role."
Well, I'm convinced.
First, you'd have to construe the nasty ads with fat white women as standing in for all white women. I don't think we accept that, and I don't think we accept that for the sassy character, either.
What? No you wouldn't. And if the mammy stereotype is only prejudicial towards fat black women, it's still prejudicial. But you and I both know that the way fat white women are treated by the media *does* affect all white women: it helps us (perhaps not everyone, but enough) become self-loathing neurotics who feel guilty if we eat dessert.
Second, they're not parallel because of the black directors and writers who presumably know the stereotypes and think that it's just fine to laugh at them.
I'm fine with my friends calling me a skanky whore. That doesn't mean I want people who aren't my friends doing it, or
that it would be okay if they did so.
I'm saying that the article is pointing to three or four ads and two movies as evidence the clock is going backwards, and that seems too big a conclusion to draw.
Sure: it's not a scholarly study, it's a newspaper article. And god knows the NYT isn't free of the tendency to extrapolate a trend from very thin evidence, and I don't think it's an especially good article on the subject. But I do think that the mammy stereotype is out there, I recognize it in commercials and movies all the time, and I think it's offensive. The article does a bad job of explaining this well, which sucks, but that doesn't mean that the mammy thing doesn't exist, or isn't harmful.
B, Adam:
What would you say to an overweight black woman who enjoyed Diary of a Mad Black Woman? Would you sit her down and explain that, although she enjoyed this movie, it was actually offensive to people like her: fat black women? Would you then explain the reason why it is offensive, because [you fill in the blank here, because of some garbled Kantian argument, whatevs].
Don't you think that woman would smack you upside the head, before you were finished? And wouldn't she be right?
The mammy stereotype is huge.
And sassy. See my forthcoming paper, "Toward an essentialist account of badonkadonk."
Is the stereotype of a fat woman itself fat?
Text, the whole fucking point of this conversation was that it's not for me as a white man to decide and there should be more black people in control of content decisions in the fucking media!!!
Or the whole point of what I've been fucking saying in this conversation.
167: Oh, I'm all over the idea that Big Mama's House is fucking gross. And the "authenticity" argument is totally weak. But again, all that does is make it a bad article.
That said, the seed of truth in the authenticity thing is this: when porn directors or strip club owners say, "go get some tit implants, honey, because the girls here have to have big boobs," that's gross. Pamela Anderson's having had boob implants is way less offensive, because at least she's exploiting herself. And I say more power to her. But it's also undoubtedly true that in deciding to cash in on the big tit expectation, she's perpetuating it to some extent.
But yeah, the argument that it's okay when black-made movies traffic in the same grotesque stereotypes as white-made movies is essentialist and gross.
then we never disagreed, and I don't understand why you've been so hostile, frankly.
174 to 172
I hereby excise the word "Adam" from 169. I've yet to hear from B.
I'm fine with my friends calling me a skanky whore. That doesn't mean I want people who aren't my friends doing it, or
that it would be okay if they did so.
Sure. I get this; in-group uses of words vs. non-in-group. We can call you 'bitch', we can call ogged a 'dirty Mexican.' More seriously, rappers get to use words that white middle class people don't.
Where I think this breaks down, though, is in a movie or a commercial. They're certainly not released to a private in-group audience, and it's not at all clear in the case of commercials at least, whether the writer has a right to use those words or not. But since we can't tell, if we think the stereotypes are harmful and should be removed, it seems that we're telling the black writer that he can't write a black woman how he wants. That seems a bit weird.
Clearly, what's needed is an accounting of what part of the black population is female, overweight, and "sassy." Then these characters can appear in commercials at just the right rate, neither under- nor over-represented.
I know you're joking here, but it brings up a great point (already made by someone earlier in the thread, I forget who). You want people in commercials who are instantly recognizable and are interesting. Hence the vast numbers of stereotypes and celebrities. The producer in the article brings this up when he points out the disproportionate number of bald people in their commercials. Do they have it in for bald people? Are there particular bald-person stereotypes? Not really, but such characteristics will stick in one's head more easily, or provide a no-setup-required comic foil. Hell, even most TV shows and movies want people like these, since it takes a lot of the character development burden off the lazy writers.
Besides, aren't we all forgetting that the black mammy stereotype of the "house negro" hasn't existed for years? If the commercials were really trying to play off the "inferior but firm maid" stereotype, all these fat sassy women in commercials these days would be hispanic, as evidenced by B's earlier comment about her Puerto Rican friend being mistaken for a nanny.
And Adam, you're missing my point:
lots of overweight black women liked that movie! The audience was largely african american, male and female, and I will assume that some of those females were fat! They are consuming this media! So, in the absence of a compelling argument that it is offensive, who are you to say it is?
If you agree with that, fine. But it's all I've been saying, so I don't understand your tone. Are you drunk?
and lots of overweight black women smack people upside the head! you would get smacked upside the head! That's all I'm saying.
sorry if my tone has gone overboard here as well. I've got to play trivia now.
169: No, I'm not a condescending asshole, usually. But you seem to be implying that because I wouldn't do that, I shouldn't tell anyone else that the stereotype is demeaning, either. Which is itself essentialist: because I'm white, I don't have the responsibility or capability of recognizing racist stereotypes?
Like, example: two conversations. One with a black student who was very Afrocentric, about the movie Jerry McGuire, which was just out. She wanted to see it, because she really liked Cuba Gooding. I said I'd seen it and it was awful. She asked why. I said, "it's all about how the black guy and the white women quit their jobs to support the white guy." She hadn't seen the plot in quite that way, but when I said that was how I read it, she instantly agreed.
On the other hand, conversation with a black friend-of-a-friend about the Ernest Gaines novel A Lesson Before Dying. Her: it's really important that the narrator gets the executed man to *be* a man before he dies. Me: yeah, I get that, but part of what I liked about the novel was the ambiguity of that--before he saw himself as a man, he was less agonized about his pending execution. In a sense, teaching him to be a man is necessary to his human dignity, but it also makes his death much harder. Her: No, not at all. You do not understand how important the sense of community is to black people; you're seeing this through a white, individualist perspective. He has to be a man because the community needs him to be a man. That makes his death more tragic, but tragedy connotes nobility in a way that the slaughter of an animal never does. Me: huh, I'll have to think about that.
In other words, the hypothetical black woman who thinks Big Mama's House (or whatever) is just a fabulous film? I think, at this point, that she is wrong, and that the film is racist, and I think I have an obligation to say so. If she wants to tell me my head is up my ass and explain why, then I'll listen to what she says, right?
kotsko's righteous tone
infectious small satan seed
anger is sublime
174/5: Adam's gone to get dinner, but I think you misunderstand his point. He isn't saying "white people shouldn't talk about racism." He's saying that white people shouldn't presume they're the *experts* on racism. I agree. But I maintain that nonetheless white people have a responsibility to learn to recognize racism, and to fucking point it out to other white people occasionally.
the black mammy stereotype of the "house negro" hasn't existed for years
What? You can still buy Aunt Jemima syrup, for god's sake.
Where I think this breaks down, though, is in a movie or a commercial. They're certainly not released to a private in-group audience, and it's not at all clear in the case of commercials at least, whether the writer has a right to use those words or not. But since we can't tell, if we think the stereotypes are harmful and should be removed, it seems that we're telling the black writer that he can't write a black woman how he wants.
This is what tips it for me. I'll completely agree that an in-group member can make jokes that would be unacceptable from an outsider to a select audience. Once you're releasing something into the media, though, I really believe that whether something is offensive or harmless can't depend on the race of the author. (This isn't arguing against the proposition that more minorities should be in the position of being the author -- just that we can't look at two equivalent portrayals, Big Mama and the woman in the DQ commercial, and be okay with the first and offended by the second because of the race of the person behind the portrayal.)
The basic problem with 169 is that it's an evasion of the issue. Instead of saying, "that's not racist," you're summoning an imaginary black person to say "that's not racist."
It's ridiculous. There are plenty of women out there who say anti-feminist shit all the time, and who would argue that obvious sexism is just fine and dandy. So what? Would I recommend that a guy try to tell them why they're just wrong and need to learn to be more feminist? No, probably not. That's just replacing one kind of sexism with another. But I would argue that men who recognize sexist stereotypes when they see them should damn well point them out.
181: In other words, the hypothetical black woman who thinks Big Mama's House (or whatever) is just a fabulous film? I think, at this point, that she is wrong, and that the film is racist, and I think I have an obligation to say so.
Hrm. The thing is, my strong impression is that she exists. The film was targeted at black audiences and did rather well. I feel very weird calling a film made largely by black people for the enjoyment of other black people racist. From what I saw of the publicity for it, I'm fine with calling it stupid, but that's different.
pomo, you bitches
what the work "is" will differ
through a big black ass
All right, you fuckers.
I know I'm shrill and tedious
But that's not the point.
Or of course, you know
I might be wrong. It's been known
to happen sometimes.
Essentialism
Bugs me. Context matters, but.
Not all blacks agree.
Isn't there a point
Where popularity shows
That something's okay?
Sexism differs.
Aren't women more involved with
Men, than blacks with whites?
But I'm arguing
in haiku, not doing my
Timesheets. I hate them so.
White people can't read?
Gangsta rap is popular.
Not all blacks like it.
Let's take sexism.
Pamela Anderson rocks.
And she's sexist too.
haiku indenting
graceless law-flat sentences
lame like wiggers
Pam Anderson Lee
was pretty when she was young.
Now just plastic skank.
eastern form used wrong
whitey takes as he protects
indian chief cries
Form and tone matter.
But content matters too. No?
The well is poisoned.
Your emphasis, text,
is all wrong; tone is crucial
in matters like this.
it's not for me as
a white man to decide and there
should be more black pee
ple in control of
content decisions in the
fucking media!!!
Honky abrogates
epistemic position
at his own peril.
Anger's upsetting;
It makes people defensive.
Ignore common cause.
Labs, I have to ask:
Does experience matter?
Are we brains on sticks?
Calapropism!
mein0ng calab0t pwns 4ll.
whack whack calabat.
Don't query Labs.
Junior profs will oscillate
Between two answers.
Maybe that's because
There isn't just one answer.
Maybe it depends.
What? You can still buy Aunt Jemima syrup, for god's sake.
You can also buy Quaker Oats, despite the stereotype of the "honest Quaker" dying out along with the religious group. In a similar fashion, I'd say the housemaid and nanny stereotype for black women disappeared as a common meme when black housemaids started disappearing sometime presumably decades ago (before my time, at least).
Unfogged Cultural
Studies Department is oh
so busy tonight.
But mcmc
emailed a thing of beauty.
Behold the meatcake!
208: Well, I don't know how old you are, but I remember black housemaids being a staple on television in my childhood. And I'm not that old. It's not like we wipe our historic memories every five years.
Quakers haven't died out, by the way.
208:
Yeah, maids and nannies
are stereotypically
Hispanic these days.
Oh shit, that's not haiku.
I broke the rules. Forgive me?
That cake's nauseous.
It's not like we wipe our historic memories every five years.
PK is five, right?
You're still wiping him if I
recall correctly.
We have at least one Quaker commenter at this very blog. I wouldn't exactly say they've died out.
That cake is so not
nauseous. Perhaps you mean
nauseating, Bitch.
211:
So Aunt Jemima,
On the syrup bottle there.
Totally bizarre?
I guess what I'm trying to argue is that the idea of fat 'n sassy isn't really a race issue. It's a fatness issue. Fat white women are sassy in the media. Fat hispanic women are sassy in the media. Fat asian women are non-existant in the media (though Margaret Cho is pretty sassy).
If you are fat, you can not be portrayed as sexy. Your only hope is to be funny or good-natured. This isn't even limited to women, just look at the number of fat male comedians or sitcom dads. Fat men are just stripped of any aggressiveness (otherwise they could be seen as dangerous), so they can not be truly sassy like the fat take-no-shit women.
213:
No, thank all the gods.
He wipes his own ass now days.
I'm off that duty.
216:
Look up nauseous.
It means "nauseating," too.
Plus, it scans better.
218:
It's not always race.
But sometimes it is, you know.
Race does have meaning.
208: Well, I don't know how old you are, but I remember black housemaids being a staple on television in my childhood. And I'm not that old. It's not like we wipe our historic memories every five years.
Quakers haven't died out, by the way.
I'm 21, so admittedly I'm a real young 'un.
And sorry people, especially any Quaker posters, I was thinking of the Shakers. I can't keep unsteadily-named Christian sects straight.
So Aunt Jemima,
On the syrup bottle there.
Totally bizarre?
Not really, Coke and Pepsi are still using similar trademarks nearly 100 years later. Uncle Ben's rice still shows a black guy and Quaker Oats still shows a white guy in an old hat. Companies don't want to change their central image as it dilutes the brand they spent so much money cultivating. However, Aunt Jemima has been changed over the years to look more like a middle- to upper-class mom than a nanny. Note the nice earrings, collared shirt, and nicely done-up hair (looks like a perm more than a true 'fro).
Aunt Jemima's changed,
But you know what "mammy" means.
So it's not dead yet.
Nauseous for nauseating.
Old dictionaries said don't.
New ones say whatever.
Look up nauseous.
Dictionaries are
tools of the patriarchy.
Revisionists suck.
It's not always race.
But sometimes it is, you know.
Race does have meaning.
To me, bigotry is one of the most vile characteristics anyone could have. I say and do a lot of things that may somehow be construed as sexist or racist if seen in isolation, though I know I'm really neither. I believe in giving others the benefit of the doubt, especially since so many of those I know have shown virtually zero bigotry over the years.
Gah, 225 was me, though I suppose it's obvious.
Aunt Jemima's changed,
But you know what "mammy" means.
So it's not dead yet.
Actually, I only knew because people explained it so clearly in this thread. Maybe if I thought back to the couple of 50's era Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry cartoons that I've seen with a black housemaid character (or at least her shins), and the brief bits I've seen of old movies addressing white-black relations in those times, then I might have been able to puzzle it out.
Shakers were the shit. We need to get back to that.
I proposed lifelong celibacy in the infidelity threads.
Shakers were the shit.
I like shitshakers.
228: Yeah, but you really didn't know what you were saying, so it would be wrong to hold you to it.
Those threads were not making the alternative look good.
Monogamous marriage is the only alternative to celibacy? No, no, no, little grasshopper. There's a whole wide world out there.
No, sex is the only alternative to celibacy. And those threads did not make it look good at all.
Actually, marriage is the only alternative to celibacy. Sex is the only alternative to chastity.
Okay, then. Lifelong chastity it is.
Nauseous for nauseating.
Old dictionaries said don't.
New ones say whatever.
Isn't it funny?
Popularity triumphs.
Usage shifts meaning.
Contra 191
though; not true for people.
Even characters
(214: me?)
109. What d^2 said. He saved me the effort.
"it's all about how the black guy and the white women quit their jobs to support the white guy."
This did not happen
in the film called Jerry Maguire
I'm pretty well certain
Your lack of response
concedes the correctness of my
view, bitchphd.
Hey washerdreyer
Are you ever going to
Send me that e-mail?