From your link:
If you think this is an accurate representation of “All in the Family” then you and the author of this piece completely missed the mark. The jokes reflected on Archie, not on Mike. In other words, I think your link is extremely unpersuasive.
Well Don Imus himself repeatedly said that his “nappy-headed hos” comment was a JOKE.
You never heard of insult jokes?
Q) Why are most Polish jokes so short?
A) So that Nazi idiots like yourself can understand them
I see what your saying. To a sophisticated viewer, “All in the Family” was “supposed to” make Archie look like a bigoted fool.
Nevertheless, there were still many instances where the producer Norman Lear made the Polish character look bad.
Not too mention all the general public got out of “All in the Family” were tons of Anti-Polish sound bites. I have never heard anyone say they had sympathy for the Polish charatcter. The only thing I ever heard anyone say is that they “got their Polish jokes” from “All in the Family”.
Polish Americans were ridiculed with the SAME Polish jokes Archie Bunker was bashing Poles with. Polish Americans across the US were being called “meatheads” and other slurs that Archie was saying about Poles. This just goes to show the TREMENDOUS POWER OF TELEVISION of tearing down a person or group of people.
As a kid growing up I heard other kids saying “I"M GLAD ARCHIE GAVE IT TO THAT DUMB POLACK MEATHEAD!” WHY would they say that?? Evidently they saw Archie as some kind of Polish-hating hero. They were taking ARCHIE’S side against Poles because the producer of the show many times made the Polish character look bad and “deserved” to get verbally attacked with ethnic slurs by Archie Bunker.
Don’t underestimate the power of television. Why do you think companies and poiticians pay millions of dollars for TV commercials for favorable TV imagery of themselves???
Don’t call other posters idiots or Nazis in this forum. Insults are allowed in the BBQ Pit, but nowhere else on this site.
I’m tempted to point out the irony in all this, US News Review, but I probably shouldn’t bother. If you’re able to do so, please continue making your arguments without insulting other posters.
Speaking in a non-moderating capacity, I think Telemark is correct: so far you’ve misunderstood the jokes completely and your assertions that Hollywood is adopting Nazi propaganda regarding Polish people is not at all credible.
I thought this was blatantly obvious to everyone. Polish jokes are acceptable because people of Polish descent in the U.S. are no longer members of an ethnic group that’s discriminated against. Whereas people whose ancenstors were Mexican or African are.
Duh?
You make an interesting point. Did you notice that my insult was in the CONTEXT of a JOKE??? That’s the whole point. Jokes DO insult.
It just goes to show jokes are CAPABLE of insulting other people. Yes my insult joke was a REACTION to the other guy’s insult joke about Poles. ITS INTERESTING you have no reaction to his insult joke though.
I never said Hollywood is officially adopting Nazi propaganda against Polish people since it would be insane for Hollywood to ever admit to that. But do they use the same Anti-Polish propaganda against Poles where they try to characterize Poles as having SUBHUMAN INTELLIGENCE? ABSOLUTELY!
When a Polish Catholic Auschwitz survivor like Michael Preisler says that the Anti-Polish bigotry he hears from Hollywood and TV shows is similar to what Nazis used to say about Poles, is he lying?
Its so obvious that that there has been a hate campaign against Polish people by a certain element of Hollywood and the TV media.
Its true that just about every group of people have been put down by a Hollywood movie or TV show. But the raw quantity and viciousness of the Hate-through-humor slurs against Poles in the past has been in a class by itself because of this sick hatred Hollywood and the TV media has for Poles.
Yes, but not because they were Polish. This is a key point; Mike sometimes did dumb things, but certainly less than Archie. If anything, Mike’s liberal views were skewered, not his ethnicity. If you think otherwise I’d question whether you ever watched the show.
Are you claiming that Norman Lear has an anti-Polish bias and used the character of Archie Bunker in an attempt to push that agenda? If so, you have a long uphill battle since the evidence you’ve presented certainly doesn’t support that argument.
Q: How does a Polish woman get pregnant?
A: And YOU think Poles are dumb?
(Double checks for the words ‘Nazi’ and ‘idiot’. Not seeing them, proceeds to hit Post.)
What a ridiculous thing to say.
These Nazi Polish “jokes” in and of themselves ARE discriminatory.
Polish people are still very much discrimated against. The fact that Polish people even have to defend themselves against these Hollywood slurs where as Hollywood wouldn’t make them against Mexicans or Blacks, shows just who is being more discriminated against.
The fact that Polish people have been the biggest target of HOLLYWOOD/MEDIA DISCRIMINATION makes them much more discriminated against then Mexicans or Blacks.
Is there discrimination in employment, housing, or voting against Poles? I’m Polish and I’ve never seen it.
And you haven’t made a case that Hollywood or the Media created or perpetuated this anti-Polish bias. Aside from a completely off the mark interpretation of “All in the Family” where is this coming from? Who organized this effort, and to what end?
Being made fun of for being stupid when everyone knows that being Polish has nothing to do with being stupid isn’t discrimination. OTOH, there are a bunch of people who think that being Black or Hispanic means you’re missing some IQ points off the top.
Show me a recent occurence of someone being beaten to death in the U.S. for being Polish, and I’ll concede your point.
Oh, and I just went back and actually read US News Review’s whole last post instead of skimming it. I call troll–don’t waste your time.
TIME magazine pointed out years ago that Poles, in Poland, tell Polish jokes. They like to poke fun at themselves, said TIME.
I swore off ethnic jokes long ago, with a few exceptions. I keep one harmless black joke. I have one joke about a Polish joke. I keep one joke about an unnamed state south of here, that could just as easily be about a Hoosier.
My rule, aside from those few, is that if I couldn’t tell the same joke about my uncle or brother-in-law, then I don’t want it.
A great many jokes insult somebody, yes. Probably most of them. You picked a poor rhetorical flourish, however.
I would also not react to a knock-knock joke.
I don’t know how “Hollywood” would officially do anything, but in this same post you describe it as a campaign, which is a ridiculous assertion that you have not supported.
I’m aware the Nazis depicted Slavs as subhuman and I’m sure they often said they were stupid. So I would not say he is lying. I would say the same thing a bunch of us have already said, however, which is that many of these jokes are not being understood correctly. For instance, if your intention is to defend Polish people, it is misguided (at best) to stick up for Polish people by criticizing a movie in which a character is made to look stupid for telling a Polish joke.
This is pretty crazy. You made a fair point earlier about jokes being misunderstood - most kinds of humor get misunderstood, critical humor especially - but this is rather crazy.
Same. There’s no reason to intuit or discover an anti-Polish conspiracy in Hollywood.
Do not call other posters trolls outside the BBQ Pit. Thanks.
Of course I saw “All in the Family”. Growing up myself and many other Poles knew it was on when people would ridicule us with the Anti-Polish slurs Archie was saying the day before on the show.
So why was there even TV imagery of a Polish character on national TV doing dumb things in the first place?? What does that tell you? Sure Archie may have done some dumb things but there were never any sound bites about him being a “Dumb WASP” or anything like that. The only deragatory sound bites filling the air waves for millions of viewers, were about trashing Polish people.
As for your original point about questioning Norman Lear having an anti-Polish bias, again your looking at “All in the Family” as a sophisticated viewer. 80% of the public didn’t see the show with the analysis you’re giving it. The average Joe sick pack just saw Archie Bunker as a guy who was bashing “Dumb Polacks” because the “Dumb Polacks” “deserved it”.
But other sophisticated viewers saw it as a vehichle to push anti-Polish sound bites into the American culture.
Even if you feel that “All in the Family” was not meant to be Anti-Polish, you have to remember that at the end of the day people do NOT remember the context they hear these anti-Polish sound bites.
Go ask someone today who saw “All in the Family” who Michael Stivic is. They will tell you “he was the meathead”, “he was the meathead Polack” or he was the “Dumb Polack”. You will NEVER hear someone say that Michael Stivic was the Polish guy who was unfarily attacked with ethnic slurs.
As for Norman Lear having an anti-Polish bias? You have to be kidding me?
After his show he was reported to say anti-Polish comments about Poland.
Call up any Polish American newspaper or Polish Anti-defamation organization and ask them if they think Norman Lear was anti-Polish.
In case you didn’t notice, every character on All In The Family played the fool at one time or another. That’s the nature of social comedy. However, if you total up all the scenes, Archie was consistently a jerk, and Michael Stivic was consistently honorable.
If you believe Norman Lear is an anti-Polish bigot, I think you need to do some more research. Read more of what Lear has said and written about the show. Read about Norman Lear’s part in founding People For the American Way, and what PFAW stands for. Go ahead, take your time. We’ll wait.
Well let me say this. This whole thing isn’t so much about Will Ferrell since one could argue he probably sensed a general anti-Polish bias among some of his Hollywood associates and probably just went along with it. However in an interview with Hollywood reporter Sheila Roberts, Will Ferrell was bragging how he wouldn’t mind if this comment was meant to bring back Polish jokes and he wouldn’t mind there being a backlash from Polish people. A REAL NICE GUY THIS ANTI-POLISH BIGOT WILL FERRELL IS. So much for this ridiculous notion that Poles are less discriminated against then Blacks or Mexicans. Would he say this about these groups???
He is in a long line of others from Hollywood who have bashed Poles. There was also movies like “SWAT” and “Bruce Almighty” among so many other movies where Poles were degraded as having inferior intelligence.
But as for the Hollywood/TV Networks having an anti-Polish agenda? Absolutely.
Lets just take NBC-TV
SOME examples:
NBC-TV has had literally HUNDREDS of Nazi Polish jokes on its Tonight Show, Late Night Show, SNL, etc. over the past 4 decades.
Johnny Carson in 1969 made a “joke” that his favorite year was the year Nazi Germany invaded Poland. The hatred of Poles was so bad these NBC bigots were actually making the Nazi Germans look like the good guys in comparison to the Poles. In 1985 Johnny Carson made a “joke” about all the Polish people in an airliner that just DIED the day before. He’s mocking a HUNDRED HUMAN BEINGS who JUST DIED!!! Would any comedian even mock Jews or Blacks or Hispanics WHO JUST DIED?? Obviously he did this because he and the other NBC-TV Nazis have that deep hatred for Polish people.
Sometimes filling in for Johnny Carson would be Joan Rivers who is well know for her anti-Polish slurs in the Polish Community. She would attack Polish people on national TV and one time even made a “joke” about Polish mothers being prostitutes!
Not to mention that virulent Polish-hater Don Rickles has been a regular on NBC shows bashing Polish people with hate-through-humor, who was also on the Tonight Show about a year ago where he had no problem pushing the racist stereotype that Poles have subhuman intelligence.
NBC-TV’s LA LAW had a Polish character who was mentally retarted. He was “lovable” but mentally retarted. In the show they always put in sound bites about “mentally retarted and POLISH”
In the “John Laroquette Show” they incorporated the sound bite “Stupid Polack” into the dialog of the show.
NBC also liked showing the show “The End” where “jokes” are made about Polish people being “crap”.
But one of the earliest signs of Anti-Polish hatred from NBC-TV is several decades ago when the Polish American Guardian society requested that the producer of the show “Laugh-In”, George Schlatter, to stop insulting Poles with racist jokes. Poles felt these jokes were racist because the next day after a Laugh-In show Poles around the US would be attacked with the same jokes Laugh-In had the day before.
According to the Polish American Guardian Society, George Schlatter said he would not stop pushing deragatory jokes about Poles. Interestingly, Schlatter even admitted that if a TV network like NBC displayed Polish jokes on its programming, that it would only hurt the image of Poles. I think that tells you all you need to know about this TV/Hollywood hate campaign against Polish people.
But this is ONLY the TIP OF THE ICEBERG of HUNDREDS of examples from the TV and Motion Picture industry of Anti-Polish slurs. Contact a Polish American newspapers like the “Polish American Journal” or the “Post Eagle” if you want more documented instances of anti-Polish bigotry coming from Hollywood and the TV media.
So NO of course not there is no agenda to degrade Poles in Hollywood LOL
But I will say in fairness to Hollywood and NBC-TV, these racist jokes against Poles have been on the decline since Poles have been speaking out against them. But that’s the only reason why they may have been on the decline. They still try to get them in when they can.
Anyone who took that message away from All in the Family would have to be pretty stupid to miss the point of the show so entirely.
Must have had some Polish blood in them.
Well those Polish jokes told in Poland I’m sure are not jokes about Poles having subhuman intelligence which is what Hollywood and the TV-Networks have been feeding the American people for decades.
Those jokes in Poland were more along the lines about cynicism about Communism.
What’s amazing is that there are some people trying to justify Polish “jokes” but these same people would not try to justify insult jokes about their favorite ethnic groups.
For the record, TIME magazine has not always been fair about its coverage of Poland to say the least.