It’s worth noting that this stereotype was once so well-known that it figured prominently in a story told by the father of a friend of mine about a fight he got into in Newfoundland, probably in the 1950s, when there weren’t even that many black people in the province, and most of those were US servicemen stationed at US bases there.
“Jojo Rabbit” would beg to differ.
I’ve never seen The Music Man, and I know nothing about the storyline, or attitudes towards race and race relations expressed in/by it.
I love harness racing, though, and I know that any fan of harness racing would be outraged by the idea of anyone sitting on a trotter.
I think that SNL’s “Canteen Boy” sketches might be problematic.
That is doubtful. Jockeys were often young, they had to be small. Yes, if was one occupation where blacks were not uncommon, but nothing in that song, other than one doubtful double purpose word, is possibly racist.
Throughout the play Professor Hill is appealing to the innate conservatism of small-town Midwesterners circa 1912. Whatever they’re familiar with and used to is good; whatever is new and different is bad. The folks of River City are used to harness racing and billiards and certain styles of wearing the knickerbockers, and he manufactures fears of horses with jockeys and tables with pockets and rebuckling the knickerbockers below the knee. The specifics don’t matter:
Harold: “Now, what’s new around here? What can I use?”
Marcellus: “Nothin’. 'Cept the billiard parlor’s just put in a new pool table.”
Harold: “They never had pool here before?”
Marcellus: “Nope. Only billiards.”
Harold: “That’ll do.”
I doubt very much Meredith Willson had anything racial in kind when he wrote the show.
In Young Americans (1967), which is a treacly wholesome movie, they’re singing about foods in different languages (starting in about 1:04). Of course the Black Guy sings about his ‘poke chop.’ Then at about 1:06, they sing about ‘yaki tori,’ which translates to ‘chicken reg.’ (Also, look for a young pre-Carol-Burnett Vickie Lawrence.)
Side note: Milton Anderson, who created the Young Americans and appears as himself, died three years ago at the age of 90. In this movie, they sampling of songs they did was pretty ridiculous (like ‘Yankee Doodle’ and 'Down at the Station), but I think the songs were just vehicles to carry his choral arrangements, which were pretty impressive.
the song Baby Let me Bang Your Box
A few years ago he was very popular among Saudis. Now they are into “Fluffy.”
Agree with all of what you said, but just noting that there is also the “Tonga” song in F&S’s “Songs for Our Time”, which is also about date rape, besides making fun of “savage” language “gibberish”.
Admittedly “Tonga” is being presented as a failed “candidate for the hit parade” as a popular song. But the audience is still expected to be amused by its central notion of “Because this dusky maiden’s savage language is such illogical gibberish it takes ten syllables just to say ‘No’, so by the time she finishes turning me down I’ve already raped her, tee hee”.
Again, I think you’re right that this has much more to do with the extent to which racism and misogyny were simply baked in to that midcentury social context than with any particular not-niceness on the part of F&S as individuals.
Also, harness racing and billiards were genuinely viewed in the early 20th century as more “genteel” and socially acceptable than thoroughbred racing and pool (which was popularized in “pool rooms”, or betting parlors. Prestigious private homes didn’t have pool rooms, they had billiard rooms).
And the “above or below knee” knickerbocker styles were a genuine controversy of the period, too. Schoolboys in the early 20th century were expected to fasten their knickerbocker legs above the knee, as in this contemporary advertising image, while men wore plus-fours and other knickerbocker-style pants fastened below the knee. Young boys would imitate the below-knee style in order to seem older and more manly, which to their parents was a shocking act of “teenage rebellion” avant la lettre.
Apparently you can’t make fun of the French anymore, a recent PC remaster of the 2006 game Sam & Max Save the World was secretly censored without telling buyers that changes had been made to the game. While some of them make sense (the developers claimed they were taking out jokes that didn’t age well into 2020) they also removed the following
You may call me, Jean-Francois Sissypants, the cowardly French anarchist.
and changed it to
You may call me, Jean-Francois Bonde-A-Part, the new-wave French anarchist.
They didn’t even try to change the potentially problematic (in the developer eyes) “Sissypants” into either a coward joke or just generic French insult. Instead if just became a French reference which really doesn’t fit the character. I know French are coward jokes are considered played out but at least keep the spirit and make it “Jean-Francois Prétentieux the hoity-toity anarachist” or something similar.
? Isn’t the pun on the Godard film “Bande à part” and the “new wave” reference basically doing exactly that? Godard, the Nouvelle Vague, Truffaut and une certaine tendance, all very “hoity-toity” and “prétentieux” from the ordinary popular-entertainment standpoint.
I get the pun but the problem in the actual game is that it seems it was a rush job since in-game they still refer to him as a cowardly Frenchman, which makes it seem like they really wanted to get the coward reference out of his introduction but that was it.
Clever person: As you can see by this glove and ball right here, clearly I was playing baseball during this alleged crime.
Police: How do you explain the blood and brain matter all over your Louisville Slugger there?
Clever person: It was a rough game.
I would not necessarily say that these scenes are funny per se but Quentin Tarantino has a habit of playing rape scenes for laughs (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and The Hateful Eight) and considering how close he was to Harvey Weinstein I’m surprised he hasn’t been canceled for that yet.
If you have people’s good graces you can get away with as many rape jokes as you want. Seth McFarlane was still making rape jokes on Family Guy when I was still watching in 2015.
I don’t remember any rape scenes being played for laughs in Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill. (Haven’t see The Hateful Eight.) I remember that there were rape scenes, but they weren’t supposed to be funny.
Continue being good to yourself and Don’t
Isn’t there a rape in one of the Lethal Weapons?
Seem to recall the younger guy tied to a chair and the villians girlfriend rapes him with a comment along the lines of most wouldn’t be able to get it up?