# "Guess Who" double standard? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 30, 2005, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924 "2005-03-30T10:12:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2005, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924/41 "2005-04-03T22:15:33Z")
Maybe Bernie Mac’s character saw _Dude, Where’s My Car?_. I wouldn’t let my daughter date that dipshit Ashton Kutcher either. She DID see the movie, and said it was your basic fish-out-of-water romantic comedy. Nothing shocking or original, just a fun spring break matinee. No big whoop. ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2005, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924/42 "2005-04-03T22:16:35Z")
Sorry about the coding. Dyslexic today, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2005, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924/43 "2005-04-03T22:29:35Z")
I wasn’t planning to see this movie because it looks _stupid_. If the trailers for a comedy (presumably being the highlights) don’t make me laugh, then screw it. I frankly don’t give a fuck about the alleged racism. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2005, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924/44 "2005-04-03T22:32:58Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Ooop! I meant to say [t-shirts](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=166123). Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2005, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924/45 "2005-04-03T22:53:49Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > If Bernie Mac thought Kuchor’s character was a serial killer or a child molestor, then perhaps you’d have a good reason to be offended. But an auditor? WTF? There isn’t even a stereotype of white people being auditors. The humor probably lies in the fact that the only reason a white guy would go knocking on Bernie Mac’s door would be if he worked for the government (especially if none of his friends, neighbors, or regular Jehova Witness solicitors are white). And if anything, the only stereotype that’s being played out in that joke is the cliche of blacks having financial problems and the ever-present need to be on the look out for the creditor/repo man types. But of course that will slip by the Misperceived Double-Standard Offenderati in their haste to find something that personally insults them. On that note, I’ll take your _Bringin’ Down the House_ and raise it a _Bullworth_ and _Baps_. Read em and weep, baby. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2005, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924/46 "2005-04-03T23:16:33Z")
> [@unclviny](#): > > WOO-HOO!, > Racial stereotypes have been approved!. I can’t wait to go find me a rap music listenin’, fried chicken eatin’, nappy headed, watermelon lovin’, fake Gold wearin’, thug wanna be with fake Gold teeth and start making fun of them!. > > Unclviny (who thinks **UrbanChic** is a freaking moron) From reading parts of this thread, I get the impression that a bunch of people in it are over-sensitive PC dogmatists. I have met rap listenin, fried chicken eatin’, nappy headed, watermelon lovin’, fake Gold wearin’, thug wanna bes in my life. So what? Making a joke about a stereotype isn’t inherently wrong. It’s applying that stereotype as a universal trait that is MISGUIDED. Fuck it, I love offensive jokes. I think that this movie just looks really fucking stupid, in the grand tradition of Ben Stiller movies, and I don’t intend to see it, but that’s the most offensive thing about it. Nearly every Hollywood schlock comedy is based on stereotypes of some suburban archetype that apparently a large portion of the populace can identify with. The only reason it bothers people is because this one mixes race. I’m sorry if 7 figure salary making Bernie Mac is being oppressed by negative stereotypes. One day he’ll throw off the yoke of his oppression, but until then, I don’t think we should deny him his meager wages. The crime is wasting celluloid more than anything. Racism will be less of an issue, when people wake up and realize it’s already less of an issue.\* Erek \*Less is not a synonym for Non ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2005, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924/47 "2005-04-03T23:35:39Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I’m sorry if 7 figure salary making Bernie Mac is being oppressed by negative stereotypes. One day he’ll throw off the yoke of his oppression, but until then, I don’t think we should deny him his meager wages. I think the OP is crying tears over Ashton Kucher’s opression, not Bernies’s. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924/48 "2005-04-04T01:06:21Z")
**monstro** , so much of humor is in characterization, but some of it can get right mean-spirited. (I didn’t see _Bringing Down the House_, but I am suspicious.) If that were a TV series, how would it compare with _The Beverly Hillbillies_ or _The Dukes of Hazzard_? Even PBS is guilty. Just _once_ I would like to see the South mentioned without fiddle music in the background. Geez Louise! Anyway, I’m not afraid of art either – even when it’s pitiful. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924/49 "2005-04-04T02:00:53Z")
Chris Rock was right - white people are apparently really, really fucking uptight. Get a hold of yourselves, guys. Funny how the Offenderati nowadays are always worried about the horrible injustices perpetrated upon white men. ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924/50 "2005-04-04T03:52:49Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > It seems to me that the people (not necessarily the OP, but perhaps a couple of people who have posted on this thread) who are vocal about racial humor targeting whites are the main ones who constantly whine about the “offenderati” and “PC police” whenever it suits THEM to be off color. Exactly. It’s tough not to read some of these complaints as anything other than “We have to be all careful not to say anything to offend black people, but they’re perfectly entitled to make fun of us all they want! Not fair!” It’s begrudging tolerance instead of truly seeing it as a non-issue. It’s like complaining about “reverse racism;” it’s technically correct but missing the point. There’s no such thing as “reverse racism,” it’s all the same thing. I haven’t seen the movie, and don’t intend to, but based on the ads, I’m actually encouraged by it. The original was ostensibly a comedy, but only in that it skewered Spencer Tracy’s character for being an outspoken progressive/liberal who was faced with his own racism – it was way too preachy and filled with long speeches about tolerance and the measure of a man to be actually funny. I like it that _Guess Who_ looks to be a broad comedy with B-list actors instead of Important Stars the calibre of Tracy & Hepburn & Poitier. It means that most of us are finally ready to laugh at stereotypes and how stupid they are, instead of having to preach about how they’re wrong and evil, and pick them apart like scientists in lab coats. > [@monstro](#): > > These people are some of the biggest hypocrites. I’d wish someone would slap them and then ship them off to the moon. Yeah, where they speak that crazy moon language! ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924/51 "2005-04-04T05:43:56Z")
Stop being such a lunaphobe, **Sol**! ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924/52 "2005-04-04T16:21:08Z")
> [@you with the face](#): > > I think the OP is crying tears over Ashton Kucher’s opression, not Bernies’s. Ahh yes, poor Ashton Kutcher, I felt so bad for him when he played that Stereotypical dumb white guy on “That 70s Show”, that made him a movie star. What a horrible way to be forced to make your fame and fortune. But that was nothing compared to putting him into the role of a stereotypical dumb white guy in a movie with a BLACK PERSON IN IT! That’s just beyond the pale! :smack: Erek [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-who-double-standard/296924.md?page=2)