something to post about
Alright, so after whining that there was nothing to post about...a small controversy comes along!
There's a bit of drama going on at the moment because there's a show that's just come back on the air here - Hey Hey It's Saturday - as a reunion special thing, and last night they did a skit called Red Faces. It had five guys in blackface doing a Jackson Five number, with another guy, face painted white, pretending to be Michael Jackson.
Now, Harry Connick Jr. was a judge for the episode, and he said - quite reasonably, I thought - that he wouldn't have done the show if he'd known that there would be people in blackface. His argument was that there's been a lot of work in the US to try and get rid of this stereotype of making black people look like "baffoons" (I believe that was his word), and that he was personally offended by the skit.
Here's the skit, and what he has to say. (He's on from about 5:00):
I'm listening to the radio right now, and the general consensus seems to be that he overreacted, or that blackface may be offensive in America, but not here.
What I'm wondering is, where do you guys weigh in on this one? I get that there are things done all in good fun, but I think blackface - like the golliwog dolls that are still popular here - is one of those things that definitely has racist undertones, even if it's not meant to be racist currently.
It's a bit like when that girl was talking about a shooting that happened in Melbourne, and called the people involved "wogs" and did the voices - in Canada, that's an offensive term; it wouldn't be used. Here it's used frequently.
And alright, for the Australians on my flist, I am not trying to accuse your entire country of being inherently racist. I'm just commenting on the differences between North America and here, and what you think about them. Is it just that Canadians and Americans are too politically correct, and too uptight about things? Do we just not know how to take a good joke? Or is it that, at least in some parts of Australia, there's a certain racist undertone that just isn't acceptable anywhere else?
There's a bit of drama going on at the moment because there's a show that's just come back on the air here - Hey Hey It's Saturday - as a reunion special thing, and last night they did a skit called Red Faces. It had five guys in blackface doing a Jackson Five number, with another guy, face painted white, pretending to be Michael Jackson.
Now, Harry Connick Jr. was a judge for the episode, and he said - quite reasonably, I thought - that he wouldn't have done the show if he'd known that there would be people in blackface. His argument was that there's been a lot of work in the US to try and get rid of this stereotype of making black people look like "baffoons" (I believe that was his word), and that he was personally offended by the skit.
Here's the skit, and what he has to say. (He's on from about 5:00):
Click to viewI'm listening to the radio right now, and the general consensus seems to be that he overreacted, or that blackface may be offensive in America, but not here.
What I'm wondering is, where do you guys weigh in on this one? I get that there are things done all in good fun, but I think blackface - like the golliwog dolls that are still popular here - is one of those things that definitely has racist undertones, even if it's not meant to be racist currently.
It's a bit like when that girl was talking about a shooting that happened in Melbourne, and called the people involved "wogs" and did the voices - in Canada, that's an offensive term; it wouldn't be used. Here it's used frequently.
And alright, for the Australians on my flist, I am not trying to accuse your entire country of being inherently racist. I'm just commenting on the differences between North America and here, and what you think about them. Is it just that Canadians and Americans are too politically correct, and too uptight about things? Do we just not know how to take a good joke? Or is it that, at least in some parts of Australia, there's a certain racist undertone that just isn't acceptable anywhere else?