Maybe Michael Richards is a racist, and maybe Tracey Morgan is a homophobe, but there isn’t any way to tell from what they do on stage. It’s a performance, just like actors are performers. Nobody thinks Edward Norton is a racist, even though he said plenty of offensive things in American History X.
Keeping in mind that I have not seen the piece, read the article, or threatened to kill a child … no, wait, that’s not true … anyhow, I can see the quote very differently.
Young people adopt stereotypical behaviors while developing their public personae.
Many of these behaviors are adopted from popular culture.
Many of these behaviors are very annoying, at least to parents.
It’s okay to pick on your own, including your family.
It’s okay to fantasize about throttling your children.
Step back in time and remember how people made fun of Valley Girl Speech? I don’t remember people getting all, you know, RO’d about the inherent mysogyny?
But maybe I missed that?
(But, again, I did not hear the piece.)
Have the people who are deriding tracy here, ever seen his standup? It’s pretty funny, vulgar, “hood” and bombastic. To me that art, and his integrity to the funny stands above anyone’s offenderatti attitude. It’s entirely out of context and act. If he doesn’t toe the bounds, who will?
It’s absurdist, and the offended are the truly absurded by their lack of humor and politicization. Can’t take either seriously… except the offended LGBC are positively kafkaesque in their prosecution.
You act like that’s a good thing. With every comedian i know of that has racist, sexist, or homophobic material that I know of, we can tell if they are racist or not.
If not, it is hard to tell if they are offensive or funny. Morgan is not doing well as a comedian if we can’t tell.
That’s a poor comparison. An actor taking a role in a film is unambigously playing a character, usually with an entirely different identity than the actor’s, and placed within a context that may counter the character’s stated beliefs and ideals. It is unlikely, for example, that one could watch American History X and come away with the impression that Norton supports white supremacy, because of what happens to his character as a direct result of his racist beliefs.
Stand up comics are presenting their material as their own. They are not (with some exceptions) playing a character, they are appearing as themselves. To a certain extent, this is still largely an act, but the subtext of virtually all stand up comedy is the artist saying, “This is what I think about these issues.” And there’s usually no other context, beyond what’s contained within the act itself. There isn’t a larger narrative in which we can insert Morgan’s routine to see that he’s actually deconstructing homophobic attitudes, as there is in movies like American History X. There’s just him, up on stage, with a microphone, saying whatever comes into his head. Apparently, this is something that came into his head, and he didn’t see any problem with sharing it with the rest of the world. I think that right there tells you something about Tracy Morgan.
I know that this has been said upthread, but it bears repeating.
The man’s name is Tracy? And he wants his son to talk to him like a man?
(For the record, I had never heard of Mr. Morgan before this. I assumed he was a woman from the first name. The comment sounded masculinely violent, so I was surprised.)
One thing I can say for sure is that neither of those performances were funny.
I like Tracy Morgan, though I agreed with most that his recent infamous routine was fairly reprehensible.
I’m a bit more sensitive to homophobic slurs these days since my brother came out out a year ago. So yeah, I’ve lately felt much more of an obligation to “defend” gay people.
:rolleyes:
Gay people, roll your eyes at me. I deserve it. But fuck if anyone will get away with slanging my little brother.
Tracy apologized, and I take him at his word. Hell, I’ve thrown a few epithets in my day (“Fag!” “Homo!”) though it was always as a boy’s slang insult, never an actual hatred.
He was wrong, I’ve been wrong. So I’m cautiously going to wait and see with him.
Tracy was a male name before it was a female name, I think.
Hell, I thought he was the guy who replaced Larry King…
I think you should read the article. The part about talking gay was only a single line. Morgan had already said “Gays need to quit being pussies and not be whining about something as insignificant as bullying.” and “Gay is something that kids learn from the media and programming.”
That’s not about people talking like gays. That’s about people being gay.
Still, I’d rather see the whole act, rather than taking this piecemeal and out of act.
Also, I hear this was in Nashville, if there’s anything that redneck hillbillies and niggas share in common is the hate of teh gay.
I saw the whole act. It was on HBO. The context and tone has not been misrepresented.
Bullshit. It might have been an “aside” but it was a leadup and a dramatic leveling. Pure showcraft…
And he has half a point there, too. The kids will have to deal with some form of bullying their entire lives; all the kids will. “Suck it up and deal” is not the most specific advice but it is certainly the most accurate.
“Insignificant”, now, that’s not the word I would choose for teen-age bullying; maybe it’s a toughened up attempt at ‘It gets better’, but I really don’t think teens would be persuaded by trivializing their problems, even when death or disfugurement isn’t a possible outcome.
I probably will not read the article. It sounds boring and depressing, just another kind of ugly masquerading as comedy. I’d rather drag a concept or two out of the muck and see if it’s worth anything hosed down and scrubbed off.
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We should offer our kids alternatives to popular culture stereotypes.
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We have to prepare them to deal effectively with cruel and distructive people and herds throughout life.
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Shocking or contrarian is not automatically funny.
Not to defend Morgan’s comments, which (to me) went over the line, but it’s fair to put Morgan and his act into the ‘some exceptions’ category you’ve mentioned. He’s been compared to Andy Kaufman in the way that very few people know what Morgan is actually like. He’s apparently smart as a whip and understands that Tracy Morgan the stand up comedian is a character…not unlike Stephen Colbert is a character that doesn’t resemble the ‘real’ Stephen Colbert.
Unlike Michael Richards, whose rant suspended the audience in stunned unbelieving paralysis, Morgan had the place in stitches. I don’t think anyone there saw him advocating violence against gays, ‘gay voice’ users or his son. They understood he was joking.
It sounds so much like I’m defending his comments. I don’t think he believes the shit he says, but I do still think he shouldn’t have said it.
If you took Morgan’s jokes and replaced the word “gay” with the words “Sarah Palin” the same people who are booing him now would be cheering him.
“I don’t fucking care if I piss off Sarah Palin, because if she can take a fucking dick up her ass … she can take a fucking joke.”
Doesn’t quite have the same effect.
The Limbaugh Defense.
Good Lord, this is stupid.
Never mind that the jokes would make no sense if they were about Sarah Palin. There is a large difefrence betwen mocking an entire group for an innate characteristic, and mocking a specific individual for voluntary behaviors.