Do you have a cite for that? It was an R rated film and a hard R at that. What censorship would there be on spoken words in an R rated movie?
Now that’s funny.
Andrew Dice Clay was regarded as objectionable by many people even at the time.
It didn’t occur to me for a long time that the song “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” was basically just a list of racist stereotypes.
In 47 years of listening to the song (“Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”), it’s never occurred to me that the race of the title character is even implied. Now you have me scrapping for possibilities. I suppose the name “Leroy” is more likely to be a black man. If his race is established, then I suppose the ‘King Kong’ reference could be racist.
Nah, I’m not buying it…
He’s an oversexed thug who lives on the south side of Chicago. He drives a pimpmobile and wears a lot of flashy jewelry. He carries a razor in his shoe. He likes shooting dice. He lives on the south side of Chicago.
Nope, no racial stereotypes there.
Is there any controversy about the song because of this? I don’t remember hearing of any. I did a little Googling, and came up with this analysis, which seems fair:
I’ve never heard any controversy about it. But I still think a white guy would think twice about writing a humourous song about a stereotyped resident of the south side of Chicago nowadays.
I guess I’m just not familiar with much of this. Don’t know anything about the south side of Chicago or who lives there. Didn’t know that “custom Continental” and “El Dorado” are code for ‘pimp mobile’. Flashy jewelry could be the Guido stereotype. Razor in his shoe just sounds like a low-rent gangster, which could be any ethnicity.
I’ll take your word for it. I guess it was all lost on me.
Croce did so well with that song, he kinda did it again
That song came first.
Johnny Carson voice “I did not know that”!
There was a university study of eye-witness reliability that I remember being reported in the Scientific American in the late 60’s, where they briefly showed people a picture, then asked questions about it. “Eye witnesses” reported that it was black man that had the cut-throat razor blade. I can remember my father (who had lived in Chicago) being irritated by it, because he didn’t think it was a good test of eye-witness statements in general. “Of course people reported that it was the black man who had the razor. That’s just because it’s black men who carry razors. It doesn’t mean anything more about eye-witness statements.”
Have a look at the top of page 129 here: “Although both white and Negro boys commonly carry safety-razor blades to sharpen their pencils, she thought of razors only in connection with Negroes.”, and at page 109 here: … legends relating to the Negro … the razor as a weapon …
You may also enjoy The Cider House Rules
There was a thread here years ago, that I can’t find, that suggested that Blacks carried cut-throat razors because it offered plausible deniability: any man, even a black man, may carry a razor: it’s used for shaving. Stuff I’m seeing now suggests that it was just a White myth.
Reminds me of the “legal advice” that if you carry a baseball bat in your trunk as a weapon, you also carry a ball and a glove too so if you beat someone up and the cops are looking for suspects and catch you you can claim you were playing in the park yesterday.
I find this the most dangerous of this sort of thing. It’s mocking the extremist republicans, some of the things Jack says back in 2008 is chillingly Trump mainstream nowadays though, it’s almost as if he was watching back then and completely missed the point.
Am I missing something about blackface though, the complaint is that it is both stealing roles form black people and often portraying them in a stereotypical way? In which case this clearly not the case when Jenna is switching with Tracey. Another recent complaint was Chang’s Drow on Community. What, stealing roles from all those Dark Elves out there? It was also pushing a number of buttons, including Chang being non white, and insane, and it being a taboo undiscussed.
The original problem was that blackface was horribly racist. But because of that long history of racism, blackface in general has become tainted by association.
There’s also this lovely quote from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle:
I love, “Achmed the Dead Terrorist” , but I got a PC backlash the last time I posted this link.
In Willie Dixon’s Wang Dang Doodle (1960), a razor is one if the weapons black guests bring to a party in Chicago. It was sung by various black artists including Howlin’ Wolf and Koko Taylor.
Tell automatic slim
Tell razor totin’ jim
Tell butcher knife totin’ annie
Tell fast talkin’ fanny
Tonite we’re gonna pitch a ball
Down to that union hall
Gee, I wonder why?