For the record, I laughed my ass off at these videos and didn’t feel guilty.
The 30 Rock episodes featuring blackface have been pulled out of circulation:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/23/entertainment/30-rock-episodes-blackface-trnd/index.html
Another 30 Rock episode which featured a fake Fox News chyron that read “Exclusive Interview With Kenyan Liar,” a reference to Barack Obama birther conspiracy, is also being pulled. I disagree with that decision. The joke in question is mocking the birther movement, and ridiculing Fox News for treating it as a legitimate “controversy”.
Correct. There had been a recent news item where some mortician had been arrested for ‘desecration of a human corpse’ for using them for, um, sexually gratifying himself. Kinison was riffing on that. The joke was basically, “Even after you’re dead, you’re still not safe from the craziness of this world.”
I don’t think the joke would’ve worked if he’d attempted to reference a female mortician abusing his dead body.
The blackface episodes were also mocking blackface as horrible and cringeworthy, but now the subject is so toxic that even satirizing it is unacceptable to many.
Never seen the show, although I did read Bossypants. The article listed ten recent examples, not including two less public interludes featuring Canada’s leader.
I do remember laughing heavily at SNL’s whiteface when Eddie Murphy put on makeup and found he was able to get generous bank loans, receive free money and gifts and join in “bus parties”. His ice cream bit would now be contentious. So would looking mighty fine in jeans and Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood . A gifted comedian.
Interestingly, Kinison married a Moroccan-American actress six days before his death.
I guess that’s where we are now. I think it’s sad if even mentioning a topic is deemed out of bounds. Reminds me of some Christian fundamentalists out there who think: “You can’t show King David consorting with Bathsheba, because that’s adultery! Think of the children!” Um, yeah - that’s what the story says. And King David winds up paying a very heavy price for it.
Canceled in 2019, but now in Australia.
Also,
comedy while drunk - Bing video
People still think drunks are funny.
Wrong late night Jimmy. It was Kimmel, not Fallon.
You’re probably right. Been a while since I looked at the article, and (much longer ago) only saw the TV show a few times.
Yep. He always said he was stupid and would fall for it again.
But he believed in what he ranted about and stated numerous times in interviews that his statements weren’t just an act.
Both the Jimmys have done it. From the CNN article upthread:
Jimmy Fallon’s blackface portrayal of Chris Rock on “Saturday Night Live” in 2000 made the rounds again earlier this year, while Jimmy Kimmel’s blackface impression of NBA player Karl Malone resurfaced last year.
(Too late to edit.)
Anyway, these examples differ from the 30 Rock episodes, in that the Jimmys were actually doing blackface, while Krakowski was playing a character doing blackface.
Granted, that line can get blurry, but there does need to be a line. Otherwise fictional characters could never do anything objectionable, and how boring would that be?
I don’t know which side of the line Robert Downey’s performance in Tropic Thunder goes.
He was very clearly playing a character who wore blackface, and the movie specifically condemns and mocks the practice. That’s why he’s never faced any significant blowback for it, he wasn’t using blackface to play the part of a black guy or to mock a black person or black people in general, he was mocking the practice itself (and acting as the butt of the jokes and criticism).
Lifeguard (1976)
Sam Elliott has an affair with an under age girl. No big deal.
Teenager gropes girls under the waves and steals their bikini tops. Now that’s funny!
Old man exposes himself to females at the beach. Pffft, he’s harmless.
And more…
How about the movie Animal House:
”Daddy, this is Larry Kroger, the boy who molested me last month. We have to get married”.
This after she told Larry she was only 13 prior to having sex with him on a football field.
Of course, AH might fall into the South Park exception of being in bad taste just for the purpose of being in bad taste, and thus acceptable.
Re: blackface
The suits of Mad Men have declined to remove the episode where Roger Sterling dons blackface for his wedding party.
There was also a flashback scene where they were adopting Lily. I think Cam and Mitch named her themselves? Anyway, someone commented something like, “Lily? Is she going to be able to pronounce that?”
mmm
Supposedly, the writers put in “13” as a censor decoy, expecting to get it flagged and have to “compromise” on “16”, which was the original intent. It didn’t get flagged and didn’t get revised.