Seems she’s quit Twitter because people were slamming her for having a black accent in her act. Sorry I’m unable to post a link. Fair? Or can comedians push boundaries.?
Quitting Twitter is never a bad idea.
Here’s a link:
Anyway, thanks for the info, I guess.
Wow, almost the same thing happened to Deah Park and to Dazanee.
I’m far from an Awkwafina expert, but from what I’ve seen and heard, her accent and speech patterns are similar to many young people of a variety of ethnic backgrounds who grew up in New York at the same time she did. Accent is learned, not inborn, and AFAICT she’s not putting on any “fake” accent in her performances. She might be code-switching sometimes (speaking in different ways depending on her audience), but that’s not necessarily problematic, especially if her “native” way of speaking is the one she uses most commonly in her performances.
That seems to be the case. When she gets really excited, i.e. when she’s most likely to speak ‘naturally’, is when it really comes out, which is the opposite of what you’d expect if it was a deliberate affectation. Rather than ‘pushing’ boundaries, there’s a bit of ‘forever foreign’ about what people’s expectations are about how Asian-Americans should look or sound.
This happens quite a lot for Asian-Americans. Unless it sounds like English is a second language, there are often compliments like “your English is so good” or questions like “how long have you been here?” leading to “well, because I don’t hear an accent”. Well, yeah, having spoken English natively your entire life will do that.
There’s an interesting Youtube video linked in the LA Times article that starts with an example.
Is it fair for someone to quit Twitter and deprive others of a punching bag? No, absolutely not. Others exist for me to mock them. That’s just the price of fame.
That’s a good video, and I hadn’t seen the clips of Awkwafina doing the exaggerated “blaccent”, which is different than her apparently natural speaking pattern. Hopefully she sees that or something like it and takes it onboard to learn from.
If I have learned anything from Chet Hanks it’s to just ignore any criticism and continue what you are doing. Learning and growth are for losers.
I can’t help but feel like that video is trying to too cleanly separate everything into “good” and “bad” piles, with a simple test. I’d basically say that it’s an act of stereotyping as a response to an issue about stereotyping. If you’re non-black and only sometimes talk in a certain way, then you are bad.
But let’s say, for example, that you grow up with a group of friends, including several who are African American and that you never gave a fig about what color any of them were.
Now, let’s further say that some of your friends are characters.
And then, let’s say that you’re a person who enjoys telling a good tale, regaling audiences with the activities of yourself and your friends - some of whom have particular mannerisms and ways of talking that are distinct from your own. Or, even, let’s say that you just pick up a few phrases off your friends and have a habit of mimicking them, cause, you know, you’re buds and that’s just all good and fun.
In this case, yeah, those times that you’re doing that are because you’re putting on a character for a moment. But it’s all the things that you do with all of your friends, Southerners, New Jerseyans, African-Americans, Indians, Californians, etc.
When you don’t feel comfortable doing that is when racism exists.
I don’t get it. The commercial aspect: are African Americans mortified by British groups who unapologetically adopted their vernacular - not to mention music - in the '60s? Clearly that was for commercial gain.
The comedy/caricature aspect: is there something wrong with Trevor Noah making fun of African American vernacular for segments in his stand up special (Trevor Noah: African American, clip, clip)?
And moving away from African Americans - should Brits (and Aussies) be offended by Jimmy Carr when he makes fun of the various British dialects? Or like when Eddie Murphy did the Chinese caricature, are Chinese people supposed to be offended (he made fun of a few languages there too)?
These were all for money, too, obviously… and they can’t say that’s how they normally speak.
~Max
Did you think they were ok with this? you think their complaints would have been taken seriously in the 60s?