Also, it is from 1994. The movie was released in 1995. The photo is very unlikely to be a frame from the movie with CGI-rendered text.
Are you under the impression that putting text on a whiteboard was beyond the capabilities of CGI in 1994?
Again, the photo is purported to be Jan 1, 1994. The movie was released May 19, 1995. That makes it unlikely that the photo is a CGI’d frame from the movie.
Because there’s three different cites in this thread that say just that. Why do you think those cites are incorrect?
Because, I repeat, the photo is purported to be from the set and dated 1994. The movie was released May 19, 1995. It is very unlikely that the CGI of the message on the blank board was done 17 months before the movie was released.
Oh and here is a cite that contradicts: http://www.movie-locations.com/movies/d/Die_Hard_With_A_Vengeance.html#.WTYCiMa1uUk
As part of some devious game, Gruber demands that his brother’s nemesis, John McClane (Bruce Willis), parade around ‘138th and Amsterdam’ in Harlem, wearing nothing but a grossly racist sandwich board. In fact, to avoid all kinds of trouble, the board read “I hate everybody” and the wording was amended in post-production.
… and another one: Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995) – Mutant Reviewers
The famous scene where McClane is forced to wander through Harlem with a sign that says “I hate n*****s” was filmed with a sign that said “I hate everyone”. The “everyone” was changed to a racial slur with CGI in post production.
… and a third one: Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) mistakes
During filming, John’s sandwich board originally read “I HATE EVERY BODY” - the racial epithet was added in post production. The original text can be glimpsed several times during the scene, such as when Zeus is pointing a gun at the street gang.
Yeah, sorry, we I posted before your edit. I get your point now - if that was a production still, the board would be blank, because the CGI would have been done in post.
I just looked up the scene on YouTube, and noticed something interesting: you only see the whole billboard once. My guess is, for that one shot, it was a blank billboard. For the subsequent shots, where you can only see the first word or two, they wrote “I hate everybody.” The production still is from the filming of those scenes.
Mr. Pryor had, shall we say, prior experience with the use and abuses of this particular word. On December 13th, 1975 when this skit aired live, but for a much- contested 7-second delay, Richard Pryor was less than a year from recording a live concert in L.A. that would comprise the L.P. “Bicentennial Nigger”.
Now, it seems obvious to me that it’s thin gruel to compare Mr. Maher to Mr. Pryor. Richard Pryor was African-American. No doubt he’d had to listen to a list of inflammatory insults longer than the list that he and the SNL writers came up with in creating the skit linked above.
In October 1980, Ebony magazine published an interview with Mr. Pryor. His thoughts on a trip to Kenya and on who he saw during his trip seem to represent a remarkable epiphany.
Mr. Pryor wasn’t appropriating an entire race’s brutal history for a cheap joke. He went from using the word for brutal effect ( including, it seemed to me at the time when watching his concert films, self-anger ) to moving his view of life and of himself to a point where he no longer used that word.
Mr. Maher has nothing to do with the journey that Mr. Pryor took vis a vis that particular word.
My two cents.
Now then, for a strange personal experience with that word. I’m a 54 year-old white guy. I used to shoot " MTV Cribs ". In May of 2001, I was hired to go to Star Island in Miami to shoot an episode of Cribs. It was, so I was told, a shoot at Ja Rule’s crib, situated on this very exclusive island in Biscayne Bay.
It was my third of fourth time working with Ja Rule. Now, as a cameraman I was right in the face of the people I was shooting. ( still am ) He did his thing, I did mine, everyone got along on those shoots, all was good.
I stood in the large driveway in front of the house featured in this article on the MTV Cribs episode and the mayhem that ensued, setting up my Steadicam. I had plenty of time, the weather was gorgeous, etc. As I’m working, a large limo pulls up. Out pops Ja Rule ( who is fairly short, and I’m 6’ 2" ) and a few bodyguards and hangers-on.
He is smoking what may be one of the largest joints I’ve ever seen in my life. It was an obscenity. He seems me, trots over and yells out loudly, " Hey wassup niggah?? " and gives me a hug. His bodyguards were…confused. He then offered me a hit, which I declined as politely as I could. Off they went.
It was a hell of a day and night of shooting before I packed up and left. I’ve told this story a handful of times since that day and I’ve always given fair notice that I was going to use the N Word. Why tell the story if the stinger is removed? I laughed when he said it, he laughed and I knew what he was saying by way of using that word.
I’m not sure I could tell that story now. Not even with a disclaimer. Not even though it’s true and happened to me.
I respect the destructive nature of the N word. And although a variation of it was applied TO me, I don’t get to own any of it.
Looks like my guess in post #162 might be correct!
Sorry, I think we’re arguing two different things. I’ve been responding to this idea:
They didn’t film two different versions. They filmed one version, and digitally altered it for the theatrical release.
Which really brings home how dumb this hijack has been.
Sorry.
“Did you see the sign in front of my house that says Dead Everybody Storage?”
…hmm, doesn’t seem to work as well.
And from the same movie -
It wouldn’t be as scary a quote if it was watered down.
Both the above quote, and the “dead n*gger storage” quote, and Richard Pryor’s work, seem to me to be of a piece - the use of the term is organic to the work. It’s shocking, but it is not done only to be shocking. It’s a presentation of the inner voice of the performer.
The actors are presenting characters who would make a sarcastic reference to “dead nigger storage” and think nothing of it, and that underscores the dark humor of the scene where they have just accidentally killed someone, and the dominant emotion is social embarrassment. And the “hard, pipe-hitting niggers” phrase is addressed to someone who just tried to dominance-rape a black guy, and is about to find out what being dominated is. That’s why Marcellus calls him “hillbilly boy”. The racist is about to be tortured to death by the people he thought he could dominate - by niggers.
And Richard Pryor could talk about niggers and say motherfucker and the rest of it, because that was his authentic, inner voice. That was real - it wasn’t something he put on just to be shocking. It was shocking, but the whole presentation was shocking. Pryor’s “Wino vs. Dracula” was shocking because of context, especially the lead-in line “A wino ain’t scared of nothing but running out of wine.” (From his album That Nigger’s Crazy!).
Of course, I think Pulp Fiction is a truly great film, and Richard Pryor is one of, if not the, greatest stand-up comedians of all time, so maybe the comparison to Maher isn’t fair. But that’s the point - you can get away with stuff that you can’t get away with (or perhaps, shouldn’t) for just a throwaway line.
Regards,
Shodan
Doesn’t have to great art or great comedy. It can be just fishing with your boys.
Content warning! Profanity, racial language, and fishing are all involved.
That said, these are some fellows who would probably be fun to hang with.
I think this is an astute analysis.
I love the word “if” (bolding mine), don’t you? What I hear people saying when I drop my kid at school can’t be cited here and I’m not going to dig through alt-right rags for you, but thanks for asking.
Bill Maher just needs to watch it, if you ask me. The n-word is no joke without proper clearance. To not be black and just use it is because you feel comfortable using it is out of bounds. It’s like sex without consent, and we’ve been f*cked so hard that the n-word from a white man’s mouth is continued rape.
I’m black and I’m also super understanding. I get that he’s a comedian or was a comedian, but I hardly know him. You don’t just drop the n-bomb no matter how cool or not racist you think you are. He’s walking the line, man, and I’d prefer he didn’t cross it.
I thought it was funny because I have a huge appreciation for humor. I’d have been dead six yeas ago if I didn’t have humor as a defense mechanism to fall back on. So I’m not on guard because of this personally, but I can’t speak for everybody else. He’s a grown man and I hope he knows what he’s doing, and I’m sure he knows that anything he says or does out of line comes with consequences. He’ll have to deal with whatever he does.
What am I, chopped liver? 
Yes, what did Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton say?
They should call for his job, and attempt to boycott sponsors, that is if they want to be viewed as genuine.
Otherwise, there’s a double standard which still tolerates people using this sub-human derogatory word on air as if it was a joke.
Proper clearance? From whom? That’s ridiculous. It’s not like there is a conclave handing out passes somewhere. Gets you a plate at the BBQ and you can use the local vernacular!
And have you guys/gals not heard of Howard Stern? Listen to some of his stuff and he’s suffered no “consequences.”
I’m sorry. It’s difficult to tell these things over the internet.
[QUOTE=octopus]
Proper clearance? From whom? That’s ridiculous. It’s not like there is a conclave handing out passes somewhere. Gets you a plate at the BBQ and you can use the local vernacular!
[/QUOTE]
LOL.
Seriously, though. Have you ever walked up to a complete stranger and called them a ‘‘nigger’’ and/or ''nigga"? If not, why not?
I’m going to WAG that you used this language with people you knew, in a specific social context, because you had already established yourself as trustworthy. You established some kind of ‘‘in’’ by nature of being from that neighborhood, or in that social group, or whatever. I suspect that if you walked up to some random black guy in some other city and referred to him that way, it wouldn’t go so well.
It’s the reason I could refer to myself as a ‘‘fag hag’’ in high school. But despite the unique relationship I have to my gay friends, ‘‘fag’’ still remains a derogatory term that can hurt the people I love. My use of the term in a casual, trusting setting doesn’t cancel out other people’s use of term coming from a place of ignorance or even hate. And when you are used to being on the receiving end of so much hate, and that word comes up from someone whose motives you don’t know, you unconsciously brace yourself for the hate. Which is why I don’t use it around people I don’t know. I also only use it around some of my gay friends, because it is a more charged word for some than others. It really just depends on the context.
Now me, joking on some talk show that I’m a ''lipstick dyke" when I know that word has the potential to hurt people? Not gonna happen.