Just my own point of view as a half-black woman I wasn't really a fan of streaming services just taking those episodes out and pretending they were never in the show. I remember Mad Men putting a disclaimer at the beginning of one episode that showed black face and I feel like that might be a more honest way of dealing with it.
Agreed, (also a mixed race women) the removal fails at accountability and ignoring what the issue is just leads to it to happen again in ignorance instead of intent.
@@elena_1776 I don't usually talk about this because as a white woman I don't think it's my place (I'm queer, but don't look it and I'm in a relationship with a man, so I'm not marginalised in that way either). I completely agree though. The way I see it these deletions did not arise from the marginalised communities themselves, but from white people who were really uncomfortable with being confronted with the bad things we did (and do) and would rather delete them and feel comfortable again, pretending none of it ever happened, rather than facing our position as oppressor, coloniser, marginaliser, and xenophobe head on, by putting them in context, having hard and uncomfortable conversations about them, and ourselves. Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it (I don't know who said it, some problematic white guy probably, but it's true), and deleting problematic media is worse than leaving it out there as a way to talk about our exclusionary and oppressive patterns. It doesn't serve a marginalised demographic to pretend they were never marginalised to begin with. It doesn't open any paths to social progress. It is a bad thing. (imho)
I think there's a lot of shades of grey to be had with art. Stanley Kubrick was a goddamn monster, he doesn't seem to have sexually assaulted anybody but he traumatized Shelly Duvall to make The Shining. I still have questions about the deal with Michael Jackson, but he's dead and the point is moot. R Kelly? Diddy? Nah. But we have libraries and p2p networks and there are many ways to watch something like Annie Hall or Chinatown without getting him any residuals or buzz.
‘Arrested Development’ gave us Liza Minnelli as Lucille Arturo wearing a brooch on her hospital gown recovering from vertigo and I will be always be grateful to them.
While I think there are a lot of good points here, I think it's important to remember the target of the joke vs. the subject. It's been a while since I watched it, but IIRC the "jokes" about homeless people in Arrested Development weren't targeting the unhoused. The jokes were targeting hipsters at the time whose style was all about looking "blue collar" and "authentic" and Lindsey, who is so vain she will stop liking someone if they are poor despite her supposedly "progressive" politics. Similarly, while much humor in the 90s and 2000s was "teehee, men liking men! a gay thing! That's not normal!" the jokes regarding Tobias were about word play and the idea that this award winning psychologist could be so un-selfaware that he doesn't realize that he is gay. And part of that is because of how difficult it was for people to acknowledge these aspects of themselves back then. The target of the joke isn't homosexuality, it is specifically Tobias for being oblivious. I think the stuff with Gob, the male assistant, and "poof magazine" is more in line with the 90s/2000s homophobic humor than the Tobias stuff. And there's a bit of it around the Prison and George Sr. IIRC too. I do think the Rita plotline deserves criticism and a lot of it. But I do think they were attempting to remark on how if someone is beautiful and especially if they have a british accent, Americans will assume they are smart. Of course, there's a lot there that crosses lines including the bracelet and all the stuff with the cricket bat and the infantilization of Theron's character. Also I think after the US Election, we would do well to not overestimate Gen Z and Gen A's ability to recognize problematic stuff or care if it is... Lot of 18-35 year old men turning out for Trump.
I can't believe I once told someone "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism" was a karl marx quote when in reality it's from tumblr of all places.
Here's an ACTUAL Karl Marx quote "It is now quite plain to me - as the shape of his head and the way his hair grows also testify - that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied Moses’ flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred with a n-word)." YES, Karl Marx spoke about eugenics and measuring skulls. In his letters to Engels... what, you expected other views in 19th century Germany? In original letters the N-word word is the one where he used the hard "r", BTW... dude was racist as F. Homophobic too. People were canceled for far less offensive tweets.
@@KasumiRINA That’s not actually eugenics, that’s just racial science which is very much unscientific and wrong but prominent in that century. Not sure what you are trying to say but in general the point should always be to let the work speak for themselves and not an authors opinion in letters (though these add important context to certain ideas)
Thank you, I have always said that we need to stop using "No ethical consumption" as a thought ending cliche and instead focusing on doing the best we can with what we're given until we can change things to do even better.
my thing with Sunny is that (partly due to their growth as creators) because of how the jokes are framed, they do still hold up in a way. like I could see them making similar jokes, but just better written today. you won't see them complaining about how you can't make these jokes anymore, cause they know there's still a way they write them
One of the classic examples of "you couldn't make that nowadays because people are so _sensitive_ and P.C." is *_Blazing Saddles,_* one of the top 5 funniest movies ever (imho). And on the grounds most often cited - racism - it's an obviously false statement. Every white person who uses the "n-word" is clearly portrayed as, "you know, morons"; and when Mel Brooks shows up in redface, he's obviously doing so as a direct parody of the Hollywood Western trope of using Jewish & Italian actors in redface, using ridiculous mannerisms and speaking in gibberish that _might as well have been Yiddish._ Fun is even had at the expense of liberal-posing people who stop _just short_ of using the word but still hold the sentiments, they just realize it doesn't look good. And beyond the surface-level obvious message that racism is bad and wrong, the entire movie is a Commedia dell'arte, with a moustache-twirling capitalist using the racism of ignorant white _petit-bourgeois_ settlers as a weapon against them in order to bilk them out of their property, whose dastardly plot is foiled by Our Hero, a black worker who (along with his white sidekick) shows them that the only way they can win is to reject racism and unite in solidarity with workers of all races against the big _bourgeoisie._ On the racial front, _Blazing Saddles_ is brilliant. On the other hand, where it's aged like fine milk is "The French Mistake" scene, because it rests entirely on "queer = funny".
@@naomistarlight6178 they made Jojo Rabbit and a poorly-received remake of Producers in THIS time too. Blazing Saddles couldn't be made today because the grifters would call to cancel it for being a "woke" movie. Tho I understand some gullible people on the left also can be ignorant of context too: in Get Smart, the original series, there's an episode where Native Americans are trying to do a terror attack on USA. It LOOKS like complete caricature, with missile being a giant arrow and all, but Max asks why Natives are so angry, we only... and proceeds to list everything from Trail of Tears to segregation, and AGREES WITH BAD GUYS (the rocket still misfires tho). The message is clearly anti-colonialism, but the VIBES are very redface. and America runs on performative vibes, not policies or actions.
Blazing Saddles is being made today. It's being made by RUclipsrs who do "Honest Trailers" and "Pitch Meetings." Ryan George is like Mel Brooks is deconstructing tropes.
It's interesting to hear someone talk about this subject in the context of pop culture media that isn't all that old. Go back farther in time if you really want to see just how bad things can get. For a long time, I've been interested in the pop culture of around the 1930s through 1950s. This time period is littered with problematic media that makes the more recent stuff seem tame by comparison. In radio shows, advertisements, movies, and theatrical cartoons, depictions of marginalized groups that would not go over well today are everywhere. Often, it is stuff that was simply baked into the culture at the time - crude and rather silly stereotypes of Native Americans, for example. Sometimes, it is far worse. There have been attempts to bury some of the most egregious media - Disney's Song of the South and the infamous Censored 11 Warner Bros. cartoons, for example - but those who sail the seven seas will never be stopped, so bootlegs are not hard to locate. I strongly believe that it is important to preserve history, warts and all. People should be able to gain access to even highly problematic older media, if only to see how far pop culture has evolved. Of course, bigots will likely love this stuff for all the wrong reasons, but that is not sufficient justification to prevent scholars and others who are interested in the history from accessing this material, or even from enjoying elements of it despite its considerable flaws. Culture will always change and evolve. When evaluating older media, it is important to consider the context of the times in which it was created. In many cases, the creators may simply have been using cultural language that was broadly acceptable at the time, and they did not necessarily have malicious intent. I am a member of a marginalized group that is sometimes the butt of jokes. It may seem counter-intuitive, but sometimes I enjoy humor directed at my group. It is healthy to see the humor in one's own situation. It depends on how it is delivered; some light-hearted joking around is fine, but when malicious intent is clear, then it crosses a line.
The term for what they do is "bleached underwear", they aren't removing cartoons for being offensive, they are trying to erase their own questionable history... Like Ford not actually putting swastikas on their cars anymore despite being the leading sponsor of literally Hitler.
I always thought the humor in "It's Always Sunny" and "Arrested Development" was the fact the characters were so out of touch with reality. The kind of humor where you laugh in spite of yourself.
And all of the cast/creators have said this in multiple interviews over the years. The Gang are NOT the heroes or even anti-heroes; they're dumb, shitty people doing what dumb shitty people do and the fact that their plans never pan out in the end should clue audiences in.
In addition to the solutions given, and in addition to calling out bad behavior if creators while still enjoying their work, we can promote and support media created by others who aren't problematic in those ways and may belong to the marginalized groups that have historically been the butt of these jokes. Taking Harry Potter as an example, instead of supporting JK Rowling or even pirating her work, you could instead read a book about a kid who goes to wizard school written by an actual feminist called A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin (and anything else written by her really). In fact, you should. Just because a thing is the most popular thing doesn't mean it's the best. There are loads of books and art and movies that are incredible and weren't made by horrible people. They can be a bit hard to find sometimes but they are out there.
I do not believe for a second that the Always Sunny cast didn’t know “tranny” is a derogatory term, the whole joke in those episodes was how transphobic the characters were.
Exactly! It's basically supported by the case he gives for VEEP and Office; it's just more of that, like the old Sunny slogan: it's "Seinfeld on crack". The whole idea that the authors "grew" aware I also buy as little as that pepsi commercial. "There's a truth behind every joke", that is true, but no one else decides why you believed it to be funny. Some of the most serious things in life is easier to joke and laugh about than talk about; take that away and what will people do... vote?
Around about 2010 here it seemed every second pub in trendy areas had t-slur bingo. That word was mainstream, and those areas were frequented by a lot of lgbt people.
@@lihchong2267 Yeah it tends to pop up a lot in that era among writers who are pretty on-their-face progressive, and example that shocked me while leafing through books I was packing for a move was Corey Doctorow's "Little Brother". People just didn't think about us enough to consider whether it might have been a slur which is honestly kind of depressing
I'm trans and appreciate all the defense, just as I appreciate Sunny learning and doing better. Yeah, "didn't know it was wrong" is a reach and hard to believe, but I do think they likely didn't properly understand the harm, that it was so abstract to them that they never gave it any thought. I grew up an army brat, raised on bases. We absolutely had a racism problem in the 90s. Probably still do, but I haven't lived on a base since 2005. Anyway, we children of service members, we self-segregated. Children are supposed to be innocent, but we felt our parents' unspoken resentments. Rodney King and OJ Simpson were very present in the white zeitgeist, as well as the probably intentional misunderstanding of "gangsta rap," while everyone else was thinking about the Branch Davidian standoff in Waco and the bombing of that federal building in Oklahoma City -- literally white terrorism. This was a time when access to information wasn't so easy as it is today, so questioning of the official historicalish narratives was not something you'd just encounter on a blog. It's strange to think about all this now, and realize that, though the 90s wasn't the true "bad old days," holy shit, it was pretty damn bad! I want to say I am presenting all of this as context, and while it is that, it is also, to some degree, just excuses. It is also history. But where I'm going with this is: In my late teens, I thought it was absolutely hilarious to yell a pretty harmful word, just for shock value. Oh, it was fine, of course, since I wasn't a *real* racist. I was just intentionally disregarding the wellbeing of others for chuckles, because their humanity wasn't something I acknowledged. Oh, wait. Now that I write it out, yup, it's pretty damn racist. That's actually pretty much how I recognized the harm in it, too. Someone spelled it out for me, and I could then see, and I'm thankful for that. I knew it was wrong, but I didn't take those that I harmed seriously enough to try to understand the magnitude of the harm. I'm just glad that phase wasn't long and I was never particularly brave. These days, we have such access to each other that it's harder to claim ignorance. That is why *most* people are better, but there are also those who refuse to change. When they trot out the "virtue signaling wokescolds" and the "pc culture," you know they're pushing back against undeniable evidence they are being assholes, and trying their hardest to remain assholes no matter what.
I think it's interesting that I as a trans woman and trans women that I'm friends with actually really like the Always Sunny trans episodes and the people most offended by it usually aren't trans lol. (Not trying to call you out or anything just sharing my point of view) The gang is incredibly transphobic, but through the whole show they're consistently demonstrated to be awful people in every way and the joke is that they suffer for it and the way they interact with normal people around them. Carmen is consistently portrayed as a very normal woman in contrast with the gang being really weird about everything which I think is a really funny joke and actually a really good example of how to do offensive humour well
that frickin' sucks, I'm sorry dog! It's kinda amusing that black metal fans tend to either be the nicest, most thoughtful people... or legit nazis. (They're mostly nice people though)
as a classic rock fan, the black metal fans harrass me online and ive been called slurs and threatened by a lot of them and im just so sorry that for whatever reason such repulsive people latched onto black metal. that must be really frustrating
I get why Paul is problematic, but also our society has gotten so violently transphobic recently (more IRL now than in fiction) that it feels kind of quaint when i rewatch 30 rock and he’s portrayed as a normal and levelheaded guy who’s good for Jenna who also happens to be into freaky sex and cross dressing. There are jokes in there that make me cringe but Paul is one of my favorite characters in 30 rock, i wouldn’t call him poorly aged tbh. Queers generally *like* campy humor about our weirdness as long as it stays endearing and not too mean-spirited, and i think Paul qualifies. Kind of reminds me of how the character Buddy Cole in Kids in the Hall was criticized by gay media at the time for being “too effeminate” and that was seen as a negative stereotype for gay people, but now he’s fondly remembered as a lovingly flawed portrayal of queer men. (I know it’s different because Will Forte isn’t queer but i see similarities in the characters.) Edit: not trying to tell people who Are offended by Paul how to feel, I can see why you would be, but i also think that for a lot of people around my age, Paul was the first “positive” portrayal of a drag queen/cross dresser they’d seen
@@safetybootsthis here. It takes a very short amount of time to learn. You just need an internet connection, a storage device, and a VPN (depending on your country). Pay for stuff where possible of course, especially when it comes to small artists and makers of media.
@@safetyboots I'd argue that often in cases there's still a moral issue surrounding consuming the media even if you aren't paying any money towards a problematic creator
@@avieee_ Maybe if you're streaming it to a big enough audience. Just playing by yourself, though? There's no problem if you're not giving money to awful corporations.
@@safetyboots In some cases I'd absolutely agree! However at other times I feel that an authors work is so inherently tied to the author themselves that consuming it at all, wether you're pirating it or not, is still something you should consider about being moral.
Thank you for introducing me to the word meta bigotry. It's language I've been searching for. When I was a teenager I loved the musical The Book of Mormon. And when I revisited it, I was shocked by all the racist, anti-black humor. When I watched it as a teen, and I'm white, I swallowed all the racist humor and laughed because I believed I was laughing at the white missionaries in the cast saying this stuff. I felt like I was laughing at them being neo-colonial on their mission trip in Uganda. It's uncomfortable that though at the time I would have said, "racist humor isn't okay," that one layer of abstraction was enough to make me feel fine about the jokes. Absolutely a show that prided itself on being edgy.
@@MicahRion Oh, I had a similar experience with Avenue Q which was an extremely popular musical when I was a teenager. There's a few bangers, but it definitely hasn't aged well, especially the song "everyone's a little bit racist" which floats the idea that, because everyone harbors some level of personal bias, that's a thing that can be normalized and celebrated. I get that this was the era of shock jock humor, but that song is just super cringe with that off base messaging. There was this idea in comedy at the time that it was okay to do racial stereotype jokes as long as you didn't have a single favorite target and picked on everyone equally. A lot of people took too long to understand, and we're still dealing with people not understanding, why that's still not okay. But I'm glad the musical gave me a learning experience and required me as a white person to think critically about racism. A lot of times white people just don't talk about race whatsoever and pretend it doesn't exist, and I think that Avenue Q to its credit, was trying to be funny and also bring this up for a largely white audience. Getting a laugh out of our own discomfort with the whole idea of race. But it came at the expense of accidentally endorsing personal prejudices.
@@naomistarlight6178 everybody is racist to some degree though. thats a pretty important part about racial theory. acknowledging your prejudices so you can do better is the only way forward
@@MicahRion I was under the impression that The Book of Mormon was parodying The Lion King. Edit: and in the Liberian Civil Wars of the early 1990s, there actually was a General called "Butt Naked" who often went into battle wearing only shoes.
There's also the utterly fascinating reaction among the "you can't even tell a JOKE these days" crowd when someone makes a dark joke at the expense of white men, cops, or the 9/11. Suddenly they're all up in arms over it, often by completely ignoring THAT it's a joke and engaging with the statement as if it's a 100% serious statement. But at the same time, they'll play Shrodinger's Douchebag with their own "jokes" where they pretend to just say these things for shock value and edginess, but then the group chat gets leaked and it's all very clearly NOT a joke, they were just saying their bigoted beliefs. But yeah, at the end of the day, part of the aspect is just owning the flaws. I love a lot of Heinlein stuff because he had some interesting and compelling ideas. But he also had some VERY dicey opinions on women and queer people. But even some of THAT is complicated because for an author from the 60s he WAS progressive on SOME women's issues and he also wrote for long enough that you can see where the books he wrote in his 20s and the books he wrote in his 50s have very different ideals. And it's easier to handle considering the man is dead and gone, and therefore can't use any social capital to ACTIVELY impact people's lives but ignoring these aspects of his works would propagate them further. I also like super hero comics, but also acknowledge the sort of inherent fashy threads that permeate just the whole GENRE. It's actually quite hard to fully extract them just because the very tenets of the material lean towards them. Or even just the idea of conflict resolution through violence that is critical to SO MUCH media, how escaping that trap is both difficult and often also self defeating.
@@amla2263 LMAO, that is actually amazing. Had a different thought there at first when I thought of the 9/11 example and apparently forgot to fully edit the change.
I think enjoying something that has aged poorly is fine. If you're aware of how and why some things are no longer socially acceptable, going back to experience something in spite of that may not be totally 100% harmless, but close enough that it doesn't matter. After that, I'm not comfortable making blanket-rules. I don't think boycotting Hogwarts Legacy or bullying streamers that played it did transpeople any favors. I also don't think Ben Shapiro or anyone that works with/for him deserves any attention beyond having comically large cakes thrown after them, and that goes double for his bootleg movie studio. Everything is on a case by case basis. Well, except the comedian-thing. If someone can't tell an hour worth of jokes without punching down, just go see someone who's a better writer instead. As always, thank you for the insight Salari, and please stay safe in these f***ed up times.
If a comedian can't be funny without acting like an asshole or offending someone than maybe they were never funny to begin with. Great video Salari. I appreciate how you tackle themes and topics that other people are too one domensional or afraid to discuss properly.
For me, I think it's more useful to distinguish between "problematic" and "hurtful". Things like jokes made at the expense of minorities is problematic, but more importantly it's just hurtful. Meanwhile, any story that deals with complex, unresolved social issues could easily be classed as problematic unless it approaches it in a very stilted and santized way, but if it isn't hurtful then I have no problem enjoying it. Or writing it, for that matter.
In 2005 (when i was a teenager) i also went through an edge-lord phase. Gay jokes were the norm with young men in the UK at that time, and it was partly a rejection of what was called 'PC culture', and partly this idea that true equality means everyone was fair game for comedy. This was the sentiment in the 2000s, and you can see it in the media produced at the time. The mindset was supposed to upset the uptight Helen Loveyjoys of the world, and it totally forgot about the people it threw under the bus. I've grown up now, but how am i supposed to feel about my jokes of the past? I suppose all i can do is own my mistake and say sorry
I've often said that, while trying to live a virtuous life in general, if we try to go an entire lifetime without ever contradicting ourselves, we would certainly go insane. Doing the best we can can suffice.
I am confused by the perceived difference between, lets call it "edgy" humor in things like The Office vs. It's Always Sunny. In both cases, the cast are portraying ignorant people that you are not supposed to take seriously. To my sensibilities these are both satire, and are actually jokes aimed at the characters that are speaking, reflecting on how terrible their belief (or verbiage) is, and those who agree with them. You're not supposed to laugh with Michael Scott, as you say, but the same is also true of the entire cast of It's Always Sunny, whose characters are very obviously horrible people. This feels like you're picking and choosing arbitrarily, and I'm not sure what the basis for doing so is. I'm not sure you want to get into a discussion here, but I am genuinely confused by the difference here and would love to hear your thoughts, even privately.
I don't know for sure either, but I wonder if it's more so to do with the reactions within the show. For instance when michael says something awful, you'll almost always see the rest of the cast reacting horrified. In Always Sunny there's basically never a character to react to their poor actions, beyond potentially their victim. I guess you ccould argue the Sunny characters tend to morally get their dues anyway, but perhaps it's in how clear it is that the jokes are supposed to be 'wrong'. Community for instance also has Pierce frequently saying offensive stuff, but then immediately the rest call him out oin it. I'm not saying I personally have anything against Sunny's form of humour, that's just my observation on what could be his difference.
@@Spamhard This was kind of my thought too, and I almost typed it, but I didn't want to put words in Salari's mouth. It's more obvious in The Office that Michael is wrong in his statements because you have the foil of Jim and Pam. There is no such foil in It's Always Sunny because literally all of the characters in the show are awful people (except Dee and Dennis's biological father who, ironically, is played by a person who has done a truly terrible thing).
With the Office the take away is supposed to be these are just normal people who sometimes do uncomfortable things. Whereas in It’s Always Sunny the cast is always portrayed as bad people. One makes roads to sympathizing with the characters despite their bad actions and the other is supposed to highlight they are bad people you aren’t supposed to sympathize with. The problem with satire as a whole is that we tend to inherently sympathize with the main characters making this distinction lost on most audiences. It is a legitimate question creators of satire have themselves, does satire just pay into racism/sexism/homophobia or does it meaningfully critique it. I don’t think we have that answer and it might just depend on the person watching. If the intent is to ridicule racists does it fail if racists like it?
@@Spamhard if you need a movie character do performative virtue signaling to know something is wrong, you need better media literacy and a moral compass. I don't need Luke reading a pathos-induced speech that "Empire is bad", seeing what they do is enough.
7:58 Whoa, there. Pump the brakes, Speedy. The point in 30Rock could be...stay with me here, the point could be...Paul isn't transgender. Paul is exactly what Paul wants to be. Jennas loves Paul for what Paul is. They are unapologetic about whatever they want, whatever they do, and whatever they become. If Paulis sexually attracted to couches in general, only couch mascots, only poorly designed couch mascots, or only specifically Couchie - we will never know. That's Paul's business, not ours. Paul and Jenna had a healthy relationship, they supported each other, and they were happy. He is, as far as I can tell, one of the least problematic depictions of a "cross dresser"*** in television history. Fite Me. *** - If you want to call Paul a "cross dresser" as a convenient label, we can do that. Similar to the Dean in Community, it was addressed in the show. Most people who don't fit neatly into a category, or have a non-standard sexuality or gender, resist the idea of being categorized by others who don't fully understand what they're going through.
Thank you! Honestly I always thought the biggest joke was on Jenna for being such a narcissist, but they're so cute together that I was just really happy about something beyond average hetero-norms happening at all.
This video is basically the philosophy of the show "The Good Place". Capitalism basically makes every choice a net negative for the world but we are able to still have conivctions.
7:45 I mean, really, I thought the point of Paul by the end of the show was that someone may not be what you consider 'normal', but it doesn't mean they aren't a good person. No one really had an issue with him after the initial shock: it was just Paul being Paul (or Jenna, in some cases). True, there was *some* language used then that might be considered extremely objectionable by *some* people today, but I don't feel it was particularly mean-spirited and, thus, worth of any kind of cancellation. I'm speaking as someone who is very well educated in trans issues and a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Also: "obscene" by whose definition? Yours? Isn't that displaying the same judgment on your end that you're criticizing the show for? Just a little thought experiment (to show we all have prejudices and what we consider "normal").
See the reason why It’s Always Sunny’s offense older comedy works is because the audience is shown that from the get-go these characters are COMPLETELY unsympathetic & horrible; despite being the protagonists we know they’re always in the wrong
I think we underestimate just how much influence media can have over how we perceive groups of people and how that perception informs the way we treat and behave around those depicted. Hollywood has had a long and sordid history of depicting people with albinism negatively which did wonders for my childhood trauma from being bullied. A child that consumes problematic media without any kind of course correcting from an adult can grow up to become someone that writes, passes and votes for laws that negatively impact groups whom he believes are problematic due to his conditioning. They could even choose to continue the cycle by making content that punches down at those very same groups, but for a modern audience that then could also be influenced.
I don’t think you should joke about that, and you don’t get the disorder like that, those are flashbacks and you can only get them if you already have the disorder
Remember in the 2010s when JK Rowling was demanding that people take refugees into their homes, but clamned up when people pointed out she had 18 spare bedrooms in her mansion & had taken none in herself?
Fantastic video, well done. Sometimes it is hard to look back at the things we love with a modern critical eye. We can enjoy them but we should be more aware than we were.
The thing about Hogwarts Legacy boycott is that it was just the first time so many casual HP fans encounter the idea of boycott. As a person who was active in the online HP community, at least in the parts that cared about trans people, the idea of boycotting everything that gives Rowling money was not new. People have been boycotting official merch, universal studios, Fantastic Beast movies etc for years by that point. By the time the game came around, a lot of people who care about trans people have already left the fandom but many of us boycotted everything official long before we left. I think people are too invested in immediate impact of their actions. Social changes don't happen over night. Not consuming something is a very small action and likely the impact will be just as small but it's worth trying.
Your dad still drinking Coca Cola is like me still streaming music from certain problematic music agencies. Yes, I enjoy the music. However, no. I do not want artists to be underpaid and in potential unsafe situations. Ultimately I do feel like it's up to the Coca Cola company and the music agencies I stream music from to better their game. I don't think that's fair to put that on the customers.
Certain problematic music agencies? All record labels are predatory and evil. Universal, EMI, the third one... and streaming services aren't better. If we stopped listening to music based on some evil person profiting from it, welcome to silence. THAT SAID, you can EASILY refuse to listen to artists who openly support actual dictators, I mean, anybody miss Limp Bizkit or Steven Seagal's music career? And Kane getting chair shots to the head aged like fine wine.
Isn't the whole point of It's always sunny that the characters are pieces of shit and the humor comes from their eventual downfall every episode and how absurd and self centered their views are despite they being pathetic ? Like, i never felt like that character, for 2006, was the butt of the joke, the gang was
i honestly don't think the tobius jokes are laughing at him BEING GAY, and instead are more so laughing at his own ignorance and the way he "hides in the closet" so to speak. its funny because he won't just admit to being gay or whatever he is feeling, he just kind of acts out in insane ways. You may be putting to many eggs into that basket of thought
I prefer whqt disney does with the aristocrats. It is still there unedited, tuere is explanations and apologies in the beginning. Vs retcon deleting episodes like nbc not streaming certain episodes of 30 rock. Honestly 30rock showed the backstage of a comedy show, it is delivered in a way that is obviously grotesque. Yet now its just deleted. Comedy is better with layers, rather than washed out beaver cleaver comedy like we are going for today.
I'm very much on the left and I indeed think you can enjoy problematic media for one simple reason - it's fictional. I firmly believe that a fictional character played by an actor telling a racist, sexist, homophobic etc line to another character played by an actor is _NOT_ the same as it happening in real life. We can watch action movies with crazy stunts and leave it as being fiction and not to do those things in real life. We can watch musicals and know in real life people won't randomly break out into song. I think it's reasonable that people can see edge black comedy and stuff that would be fucked up in reality and know its simply fiction. It's when it breaks into the real world that it becomes a problem. A white guy using the n word is NEVER acceptable in real life, but in fiction, especially historical fiction, there could be a reason for a character to say the word. I'm not saying it's not problematic, but we need to be able to see fiction as fiction and not reality.
I love the keyboard and mouse setup in the background! On the subject I have been wrestling with this issue with some of the art and music I once enjoyed. It’s definitely not easy to separate the art from the artist, same as once enjoying certain foods only to find that they have connections to some less than desirable groups (Dominos for instance).
I feel weird liking Extras since Ricky Gervais went full transphobe in recent years, it's a real shame that he turned into the exact type of person he used to satirize. Oh well, just pirate it.
From my experience, people don't really care until it affects them directly. Space marine 2 was made by a developer team based completely in russia, and millions of dollars from sales of this game in the form of corporate tax went to fund to bomb my family in Ukraine. When talking about it, most people are dismissive - even people who generally are supportive of Ukraine, because there isn't a big online backlash about it. I think consuming without context is the problem. Pretending like situations like this dont exist is the problem. But also assuming most people understand what is problematic is wrong too. There should be disclaimers, warnings, publicity. It's exhausting to talk about it but it's right.
Yes agreed. Everything has to come from somewhere, is made (one way or another) by people's labor, and is intrinsically a part of the politics of its context. Unfortunately--and toooootally accidentally--this isn't taught like, at all in schools (at least not in fashmerica), so fostering that consciousness in people who have never paused to consider it is difficult af. That's why so many people still think "apolitical" is a thing that can exist in reality. Ignorance is exhausting to deal with but all the more reason to question and educate
I think it's possible to engage with problematic media as long as a) you acknowledge what about it is problematic and are capable of being critical of it, even if it's something you love; and b) you are not giving money to people who are currently profiting off of terrible and bigoted views (like JK Rowling). In this instance, pirating is better.
It depends. You can't really compare Harry Potter children's books to Leni Rifenstahl's clear propaganda movies? But also, READ ANOTHER BOOK. Just one. How many times can you re-read ONE author of kids stuff?
@@KasumiRINA I wasn't really referring to propaganda, however you could argue that even that can and possibly should be engaged with in say a media literacy course -- to discuss it in the correct context and understand why it is propaganda. The truth is, most people don't know when they are being fed propaganda anymore.
I mean, the father of one of my favourite genres of horror had a reputation for racism even by the standards of the time. There are still various themes associated with cosmic horror that hold up well like challenged primacy, forbidden knowledge, madness that are always fun
Lady Ballers is clearly a ripoff of The Ringer but made by people who only remember that movie from the trailers. I recently rewatched it and found it to have aged shockingly well compared to most early 00s comedy and did not punch down, the punch rather being squarely at the abled characters (and by extension viewers) for assuming that disabled means inferior.
This was literally my main issue with Lady Ballers. It's not even truly offensive to trans people imo, it's the sheer fact the creators of this movie GENUINELY seem to believe a group of washed up, average men could easily beat trained women athletes. The movie ironically doesn't make much commentary on transphobia, more so it's just hugely miisogynistic. This movie could have actually had some comedy to it with the same set up, but them then getting absolutely owned.
Juwanna mann did a similar story better. And that didnt age well either. But at least it was a washed up athlete doing that and learning that these women are just as much athletes as he was and he ends up bonding with his teammates and becoming a less shitty person by the end. It's still a rough watch but when the bar is that low and shapiro's buddies cant clear it, its pretty clear their intention wasnt to make a good movie or write a redemption story. it was just to push the men in womens sports bullshit.
I only find offensive humor acceptable when the character committing the offense IS the butt of the joke, their ignorance, stupidity or just downright awfulness IS the joke.
@@MicBain Pierce from Community is a great example of this. He makes a lot of racist remarks and jokes, but everyone around him treats them with derision and exasperation.
As someone who’s obsessed with old-school music, I will be the first person to tell you that many, if not most, old-school musicians were such shitheads in their personal lives.
I often wonder if jokes made at someone else's expense (gay, trans, black, whatever) makes them harmful by default. Here's an example. Back in high school, I wrote a sketch about a guy having no one to go on a date for Valentine's Day with and is made fun of by his roommate. Cupid pops up and after having had enough of being insulted, he shoots an arrow in the back of the protag's neck. He falls in love with his roommate and goes out of his way to get the man to go on a date with him, even though he's visibly repulsed by the concept and says no every time. Is it offensive? Absolutely. No beating it around the bush. Now imagine if the roommate was a girl and the same scenarios would play out. It wouldn't be considered offensive. It would be considered social commentary on catcalling, niceguys(tm), alpha males, yadda yadda yadda. My point is, using jokes made at someone else's expense by default do not and should not represent an entire group of people that that someone happens to be part of.
Well it sounds to me like, the joke there was not just "lol gay people existing is inherently funny because they are weird alien freaks" so that makes it like you said, more of a commentary on relationships in the modern world.
I'm from the Netherlands. 'Sinterklaas' is a celebration that is held annually on December 5 and has always been portrayed as a benevolent old man with a long beard who provides gifts to children who 'have been good this year'. Santa Claus is very similar in concept. He is aided by his army of 'Black Piet'. When I was 7 years old, I wondered to myself why Black Piet was called that. The conclusion my child brain reached was simple: it's because he has to climb through all the chimneys and the soot sticks to his face. It's a fully black face because from AMERICAN CARTOONS, I had learned that exaggeration is typically used for comedic purposes. So that was my take: a 'comedic exaggeration of soot on their face'. The entire rest of the body of Black Piet would always be completely covered by clothing, so it wasn't full-body black, either. At least to my knowledge. Then, when I was in my twenties, came the allegations of Black Piet being racist. And when you look at history in general, it's easy to see the link to slavery. Perhaps there truly is one. But my child brain had drawn that one conclusion long ago and I was a bit baffled by the backlash. It wasn't until 6-10 years later (!!!!) that I finally heard someone use the term 'blackface' when the celebration turned up in conversation. Never in my life had I even heard the term, let alone learned of its concept, so I asked what it meant. It was ONLY then that I understood why people took offense to the portrayal of Black Piet. The celebration itself had long since been thoroughly destroyed in my mind and I've never bothered with it since the allegations turned to yearly protests. I take serious issue with the original people throwing the allegations _without educating those they took issue with on why they took offense._ Had that part been clearly conveyed, then solutions could've been offered, such as simply sticking to soot streaks. This solution was actually offered, but the haters wouldn't accept it. _"The entire celebration was one endorsing slavery/racism"_, in their eyes. A children's celebration, at that. There comes a point where one must learn to listen and communicate. It's alright to hold your convictions, but it's equally important to properly convey them to those you deride.
It's also curious how various movies and series warn viewers of 'depictions of violence and/or blood', or 'otherwise shocking to the viewer'. Should we introduce something similar for takes that have gone out of favour? And why aren't those shown in series depicting slavery?
Also, sometimes in such cases the majority of people whom it concerns may either not know or actually not give that much of a shit, but those who scream the loudest are rather representing them.
@@Celis.C this kind of runs into the problem of bad faith. ideally you would have a nuanced discussion but alot of the time the questions asked are rhetorical and the person asking was just looking for someone to commiserate about 'political correctness' or whatever.
Late into this video essay, the film Ladyballers was invoked. My problem with that film isn't that it is problematic, but far more basic - it is a bad movie. The jokes are lazy, predictable and stale. The direction of the movie, the edting, and the pacing are all poorly handled as well. A movie about a group men pretending to be women is offensive, but it also could be handled well and be funny. Ladyballers was not. It exists only to confirm the views of the converatives it targets.Views they _already_ had.
Good offensive humor makes the target audience uncomfortable, it confronts us. But with Ladyballers you have to agree with it to laugh. Cinematography wasn't important because it's more a long pamphlet than a proper movie.
Yeah, I agree; the issue is that it clearly intends to offend first, and actually being comedic comes second. The movie _The Ringer_ comes to mind as a good example of doing an offensive topic well (imo)
I feel that the idea that some comedians have that they shouldn’t have to change their comedy, the audience is the problem, is all the way through our society. How many companies have said that the issue is millennials not liking their product, not that they have decided to move with the times?
Workers wanting healthcare: it's the free market, a company can decide to do what it wants! When a company is failing: don't you guys know you HAVE to support businesses you don't like???
It still surprises me how an entire generation of millennials just can not let go of a single just okay wizard series. Like i get it, it was the biggest thing in the world for a minute, I was there, but come on
The idea that Community was a "different time" is wrong. Blackface and brownface were not acceptable at the time. They were also not shown as acceptable in the show. That was the point. Pierce is a boomer bigot. When he uses stereotypes he is criticized. Chang is not dressed in blackface, either. As pointed out, he is cosplaying a Dungeons and Dragons race of elves with black skin, not an African American. Nevertheless, the characters do object to his choice as at the very least potentially insensitive. If you are going to criticise media it should be done honestly and in context. There is a difference between situations like John Wayne playing Genghis Khan and a character who is racist doing racist things and being hated in universe for doing it. The same could he said of Always Sunny. The whole point of the show is the characters are reprehensible and unredeemable. And they know it. So they do horrible and insensitive things. We are not supposed to like them. We are supposed to judge them as horrible people for doing them. Again a big difference. The gay character in Arrested Development. Again the intellectual dishonesty. His being gay is not at issue and none of the other characters have a problem with it. Things he does that make him seem gay aren't the joke. The joke is his repression. The fact he is obviously gay but even though everyone else would accept it and has, he will not. As for the Hogwarts game one of the more important justifications was that buying the game did not support Rowling. She got no money from sales. The developers of the game not only disavowed her anti trans views, but included pro trans storylines and trans representation in the game. That is why people felt justified in buying it. The attempted boycott was wrongheaded and actually did more to hurt the LGBT cause than it would have helped. Quite apart from the fact it wouldn't make a dent. You should be honest in your descriptions here.
frist video i have seen and i love it already, this is a hard topic to tackle and you do a great job of deconstructing it, I feel like I have leanred something from this video
i 100% am on board with death of the author as an idea but in practice, at least for me personally, i just dont enjoy much if any of the stuff i used to. i think only some musicians/bands that were problematic are all i still engage with and even then i have different feelings
18:43 - I don't get the editor's comment. The same things you say about The Office apply to Sunny. It is obvious to the audience that the Gang is a bunch of horrible people. But this comment makes the creators of Sunny more culpable than the creators of The Office?
I think the danger of removing past episodes is the old "those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it". You need to have records of the bad as well as the good. I think it's better for new generations to be able to see that we once did things and know they are wrong now. The way we can see things done before us.
I both agee but at the same time i got an ad for "am i racist" and all i can think, maybe we have bigger fish to fry in terms of racist media than a decade old media. Like the very harmful stuff that is current. But i think you should be critical about the media consume and nothing is above reproach. So conflicted but its fair criticism.
A great video on an important (and annoying lol) topic. As there are a bunch of things that would be good/bad even if capitalism and bigotry wasn’t around, personally I try to place a lot of my focus there, rather than quibbling over the other stuff. For example, overconsumption is bad in any society, it’s a good idea not to keep on buying iPhones vs just buying one and trying to repair and maintain it as long as possible. Things like veganism come into this as well-animal cruelty is cruel no matter the economic system etc.
Sketchy media from the past can be contextualized and used as a teaching moment and still enjoyed. It is history as well as entertainment. You can't fix the past, but you can make progress in the present and future, and the stuff that you make better will still reflect the flaws in the present as we progress in the future. Do what you can to subvert capitalism and consumerism in your life and don't beat yourself up for enjoying a Coke or an old movie every once in a while. If you're miserable and neurotic about smashing capitalism, nobody else will think it's a good idea. Do your best and enjoy your life.
I think the Veep argument also applies to Always Sunny and Jimmy Carr. In both cases they''re playing characters who are explicitly wrong. The AS cast are self-absorbed to the point of solipsism and the best that can be said of any of them is that sometimes they only do bad things through ignorance rather than malice, and Jimmy Carr's whole thing is portraying a bad person who does bad things; the joke is how he justifies his behaviour, drawing parallels to the ways real people justify the real harm that they do.
Legends heard about this video on the recent stream and some legends have already watched. Such a fun topic honestly because it’s quite the conundrum. P.S. I love the thumbnail. Steve Buscemi, the icon that you are.
My first thought upon clicking this video was "Kevin Spacey". I still like a number of movies he's starred in despite the sexual assault cases brought against him. I've come to separate the art from the artist, while still bearing in mind that I now better see things that are and were problematic. So in regards to what media I'll consume in this vein, it's highly dependable on the content. Like I'll watch Baby Driver again if I feel inclined, or even The Usual Suspects. But probably not American Beauty.
Half black man here. I feel like trying to erase racist humor and trying to pretend it was never there is like trying to pretend racism has never existed which would in itself be an insult to those who suffered from it. It’s a part of history and should be discussed. We also have to simply accept just because you enjoy a comedy movie/series, you’re not going to approve of everything it does. I grew up on old Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry cartoons so I’m probably a bit more used to… questionable humor to a point. Keep moving forward and doing better, but you can’t really appreciate where you are if you can’t see where you’ve been
Creator Lily Simpson made a 10 hours video essay breaking down why the Harry Potter books and movies are terrible. I agreed with everything she said. I won't give the franchise any money or participate with the fandom but I still get a comfy cozy happiness from the movies and books. I think interacting with media you already own is fine, especially when you're willing to acknowledge the problems. The issues come in imho when people refuse to think critically about what they're consuming. And when people continue to throw money at highly problematic, awful people.
Okay I am usually a big fan of your videos, but this one was kind of a miss. It felt like you maybe didn't consult many other perspectives for this, which is essential if you're looking at media that's potentially problematic. First, I think you've grossly misrepresented what the 'Death of the Author' theory was invented for: Yes, it's been heavily bastardised by modern iterations but you brought up Roland Barthes, I thought you might've tried to contextualise it a little? I normally wouldn't be so pedantic but this wasn't a one off mention, you based a significant argument on it. Yes, it can be summarised as 'judge a work on its own merit, not the author's intent' but Barthes did not form his theory on the context of whether something ia problematic or not, the original theory is better contextualised as being against the notion of 'author as god', and instead posits the idea that authors may be more like sculptors or scriptors. The JK debacle actually doesn't clash against death of the author at all, in fact, it actually supports death of the author: Death of the author would say that if you're a queer reader who felt Harry's story was allegorical for a queer experience, that's a valid reading and JK can't do shit about it. An anti death of the author take would be "Well JK never intended it to be a queer allegory, therefore your interpretation is wrong and holds no merit". The idea that we knew less about authors historically is a bit of a fallacy- sure, Austen never had twitter, but author's lives and beliefs were actually pretty well known, and that was actually a huge problem. Respected authors were seen as Gods of their works, not only did what they said go, but if they deemed your opinion incorrect, that was that. God had spoken. Death of the author was not penned as some way to enjoy slurs guilt free, it is actually integral to queer media analysis as a medium. You ever get told your gay reading of Great Gatbsy is wrong because Fitzegerald didn't intend it that way? That's when you use death of the author!! Secondly, I believe you mischaractersed Its Always Sunny. I personally am not a fan of Its Always Sunny, the jokes arent for me, but I think it's irresponsible how you described Carmen's appearance in the show. I highly recommend Lily Simpson's video on this very topic- she is a trans woman who literally dissects trans rep in 90s-2000s media for a living, and her points were very enlightening for me personally. I fully believe we can debate if IASIP should've been executed the way it was, but it's honestly deceptive how you framed the Carmen situation as you did. I don't believe you had any ill intent as I am a long time subscriber, but the creators didn't 'accidentally write a transphobic character then grow as people', those transphobic jokes you irresponsibly skimmed are missing key context: the gang are framed as in the wrong for making them. There's a whole joke where he tries to justify his violence against Carmen because "she's not a real girl" and bystanders point out that makes it a hate crime and chase him with the intent of beating his ass. We can argue whether this joke was executed well, for sure, but to frame these episodes as you did skips over very important context. What the creators were apologising for wasn't the jokes- it was the use of the t-slur in them. They were apologising because they thought the slur wasn't harmful if it was being used by the villains, but learned that just as any other slur, its very spoken nature is harmful, even when you're portraying it at bad. Sorry if this comes across as hostile, it really isn't meant to be, again I've been subscribed for years at this point, but I'm really confused why so many of these points seemed half-baked or poorly researched?
I tested some dated problematic humor. Father Ted is still damn funny. Married with Children is more rellenpvant than ever, at least the 90s half is. Ranma 1/2 aged like milk, mostly because it was a badly written adaptation with 70% filler. Thank god it's getting a remake. Lupin III manga from the 70d is hilarious, but American Gen Z fans who love the animes pretend it doesn't exist.
There was a time when the band "Foghat" was really cool in the 1970s. The time passed, tastes and thoughts about the world changed too. Foghat kept playing their hits. They are still around playing bars and there are actual fans of them that will pay a cover charge to see them, but they are smart enough to realize, "hey, it was a good run and we are still playing, but the cultural zeitgeist is no longer ours." I don't know what is up the asses of some of these folks.
yeah, I take quippy youtube comments like this with a grain of salt. lots of truly loathsome interactions could look like this if sanitized of context, and it gives some people a license to act like the worst possible versions of it, as long as they can wedge it with a feeling of self-righteousness. I am not talking poorly against you in particular. it's probably a cathartic thing to relay. I just see a risk to it, when said in the mixed company of strangers, despite how much social media is optimized for that kind of quip.
I mean sure, but that isn't really the gotcha you might think it is, it's just another way of replying with "no eethical consumption under capitalism", which as Salari poiints out, is a way for people to excuse all poor practices. Why use amazon when there are other ways to purchase? Is the other company you purchase from also exploiting workers? Probably, but it's a choice you can make to seek the lesser of evils. You can still use amazon, as said it's basically impossible to live without contributing to exploitation, but there are- at times- other options out there. Same as how you can make the deccision to purchase coffee from more ethical providers.
@@Spamhard Personally I don't find this type of thinking useful. I don't believe people should be morally impinged for anything they buy. It's not their choice to put that stuff on the shelves. The reason we have such an exploitative system is not because people buy stuff, it's because capitalists have carefully engineered an economy wherein well trained consumers buy loads of products they don't really need so the capitalists can reap exorbitant profits with no regard for the environmental or human cost. Everything about the US economy is psychologically manipulative and exploitative. Corporations invest a lot of time and money into studying how best to manipulate human psychology so as to squeeze more profit out of people. Pretty much every brand available in US stores is owned by a handful of gargantuan multinational umbrella corporations, so in my opinion asking people to choose the lesser evil is basically a moot point. Encouraging people to make more ethical choices is what corporations want you to do, because it lays the blame at the feet of consumers and distracts from the true culprits- billionaires. Oil companies have done this same thing by convincing people they have a "carbon footprint" and they should do their best to reduce their consumption, all this while said oil companies are responsible for 75-80% of all human carbon emissions by themselves.
I had checked out the novel The Queen's Gambit at the library, but had to quit reading after encountering one character who was created as being an oversexualized caricature of a Black teenaged girl. It just felt icky to read this. I haven't watched the Netflix series based on it, so I have no idea if they changed this character or was "true to the source."
As someone who openly says their life was saved by Rocky Horror in the late 70s, I really do try to take everything in the context within which it was made. A good pair of shoes to address this are the twin British series Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes which involves a bit of time traveling. Even then, the trans episode from the POV of the character from the "present" (early 2000s) is a bit wobbly. But... Still my favorite series of all time.
As a Zelda fan I definitely feel this. As much as I love the games and characters I also recognize the disgusting racism and other problematic themes woven throughout the franchise. I’m trying to let myself enjoy this media while still being critical of it and changing some character designs and stuff when I do art. It’s hard to reconcile my love for these games with their gross betrayals of others, but I think being critical and avoiding giving Nintendo money is a good start.
We need to bring back the idea of "guilty pleasures" and the literal meaning of that guilt, as in, yes, you _should_ feel guilty for enjoying said thing, and maybe keep it to yourself, while also acknowledging that, yes, it is pleasurable. There's a particular comedy series from a couple decades ago that is extremely nostalgic for me. But in the series, there are some terrible representations of certain minorities, and even one whole episode that would get pulled today for it's B plot, even while the A plot remains hilariously relevant. The creator of this show has never recognized the harm they've done; in fact, they've doubled down on it. For my own reasons, I still rewatch this show once in two blue moons, but I never tell anyone what it is, and I watch under the Jolly Roger specifically so as not to benefit the original creator in any way. (I do skip past the B plot in that particular episode though.)
10:27 Removing these episodes isn’t a band-aid at all, even, since a band-aid can genuinely assist in healing. Removing these episodes is more like putting a mask over a wound as if to say it was never there at all. It’s an insulting revision of the past. What’s done is done. If you mean to be more sensitive in the future, then do so, but don’t try to make it look like you were sensitive all along.
Vanity Fair just published an article about how Cormac McCarthy met his wife when she was borderline homeless when she was 15. He was 42. They pretty much instantly started dating. Pretty clearly an issue on very many levels. This was in 1976 or so but that doesn't excuse a thing for me personally. That wouldn't be a huge problem for me reading his books and stuff because he's passed on but it was revealed that his wife inspired a lot of important elements in his books. Now im afraid of reading his books again and seeing some sort of elements trying to justify certain relations that I'm very against. I'm not sure though. McCarthy's books are generally very emotional for me so it's been awhile since I've read them. Maybe the inspiration she brought him that he incorporated into his novels wasn't awful? Anyway, I loved The Road so much that when i finished it I cried so violently that I destroyed the book and went out and bought it again the next day lol Idk we'll see what happens when I am ready to read them again. Any feedback welcome. I'd love other's takes whether you agree with my reticence or not So long as I'm not contributing my money to the author I usually don't care but if he has things that advocate for relationships where consent is...skewed I guess I feel like I'm tacitly agreeing just by reading the book I don't remember anything like that though in his books
I never thought the joke with Tobias was "haha, he gay" so much as "This guy lacks self awareness to the point that he 1) doesn't know he's gay despite everyone else knowing and 2) he says things that are overtly sexual without realizing he's done it." I'm sure it still has some bits and jokes that are homophobic, but I don't think that was the entire point.
![Twenty One Pilots - The Line (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Audio]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XCz7WUotXs8/mqdefault.jpg)
Just my own point of view as a half-black woman I wasn't really a fan of streaming services just taking those episodes out and pretending they were never in the show. I remember Mad Men putting a disclaimer at the beginning of one episode that showed black face and I feel like that might be a more honest way of dealing with it.
Agreed, (also a mixed race women) the removal fails at accountability and ignoring what the issue is just leads to it to happen again in ignorance instead of intent.
Yeah. Tom and Jerry did a similar thing.
@@elena_1776 I don't usually talk about this because as a white woman I don't think it's my place (I'm queer, but don't look it and I'm in a relationship with a man, so I'm not marginalised in that way either). I completely agree though.
The way I see it these deletions did not arise from the marginalised communities themselves, but from white people who were really uncomfortable with being confronted with the bad things we did (and do) and would rather delete them and feel comfortable again, pretending none of it ever happened, rather than facing our position as oppressor, coloniser, marginaliser, and xenophobe head on, by putting them in context, having hard and uncomfortable conversations about them, and ourselves.
Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it (I don't know who said it, some problematic white guy probably, but it's true), and deleting problematic media is worse than leaving it out there as a way to talk about our exclusionary and oppressive patterns. It doesn't serve a marginalised demographic to pretend they were never marginalised to begin with. It doesn't open any paths to social progress.
It is a bad thing. (imho)
I wish we would stop saying mixed and half. Race is not biological. Just say biracial or multiracial. The other temra reinforces race realism.
I agree- it’s like white-washing the past instead of owning it!
_Chinatown_ is a cinematic classic that everyone should watch at least once.
Roman Polanski belongs in jail.
Both of the above statements are true.
I think there's a lot of shades of grey to be had with art. Stanley Kubrick was a goddamn monster, he doesn't seem to have sexually assaulted anybody but he traumatized Shelly Duvall to make The Shining. I still have questions about the deal with Michael Jackson, but he's dead and the point is moot. R Kelly? Diddy? Nah. But we have libraries and p2p networks and there are many ways to watch something like Annie Hall or Chinatown without getting him any residuals or buzz.
I'm in interracial marriage. We use racial humor often in our home. There is a big difference between 'racial' humor and 'racist' humor.
@@KahnShawnery well put
"problematic"
This is why we never win on the Left :(
A quick thing about lady ballers. It was supposed to be a documentary but ben couldn't get it done cause the issue didn't exist
‘Arrested Development’ gave us Liza Minnelli as Lucille Arturo wearing a brooch on her hospital gown recovering from vertigo and I will be always be grateful to them.
While I think there are a lot of good points here, I think it's important to remember the target of the joke vs. the subject.
It's been a while since I watched it, but IIRC the "jokes" about homeless people in Arrested Development weren't targeting the unhoused. The jokes were targeting hipsters at the time whose style was all about looking "blue collar" and "authentic" and Lindsey, who is so vain she will stop liking someone if they are poor despite her supposedly "progressive" politics.
Similarly, while much humor in the 90s and 2000s was "teehee, men liking men! a gay thing! That's not normal!" the jokes regarding Tobias were about word play and the idea that this award winning psychologist could be so un-selfaware that he doesn't realize that he is gay. And part of that is because of how difficult it was for people to acknowledge these aspects of themselves back then. The target of the joke isn't homosexuality, it is specifically Tobias for being oblivious. I think the stuff with Gob, the male assistant, and "poof magazine" is more in line with the 90s/2000s homophobic humor than the Tobias stuff. And there's a bit of it around the Prison and George Sr. IIRC too.
I do think the Rita plotline deserves criticism and a lot of it. But I do think they were attempting to remark on how if someone is beautiful and especially if they have a british accent, Americans will assume they are smart. Of course, there's a lot there that crosses lines including the bracelet and all the stuff with the cricket bat and the infantilization of Theron's character.
Also I think after the US Election, we would do well to not overestimate Gen Z and Gen A's ability to recognize problematic stuff or care if it is... Lot of 18-35 year old men turning out for Trump.
Well said, especially that last bit, sadly 😥
I can't believe I once told someone "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism" was a karl marx quote when in reality it's from tumblr of all places.
I'm a time traveller, and I can assure you that karl marx said it, but he was quoting sonic the hedgehog.
Here's an ACTUAL Karl Marx quote "It is now quite plain to me - as the shape of his head and the way his hair grows also testify - that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied Moses’ flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred with a n-word)."
YES, Karl Marx spoke about eugenics and measuring skulls. In his letters to Engels... what, you expected other views in 19th century Germany? In original letters the N-word word is the one where he used the hard "r", BTW... dude was racist as F. Homophobic too. People were canceled for far less offensive tweets.
@@KasumiRINA That’s not actually eugenics, that’s just racial science which is very much unscientific and wrong but prominent in that century. Not sure what you are trying to say but in general the point should always be to let the work speak for themselves and not an authors opinion in letters (though these add important context to certain ideas)
Thank you, I have always said that we need to stop using "No ethical consumption" as a thought ending cliche and instead focusing on doing the best we can with what we're given until we can change things to do even better.
imo it's a slogan, but many slogans become thought terminating cliches when used as a rebuttal.
my thing with Sunny is that (partly due to their growth as creators) because of how the jokes are framed, they do still hold up in a way. like I could see them making similar jokes, but just better written today. you won't see them complaining about how you can't make these jokes anymore, cause they know there's still a way they write them
One of the classic examples of "you couldn't make that nowadays because people are so _sensitive_ and P.C." is *_Blazing Saddles,_* one of the top 5 funniest movies ever (imho).
And on the grounds most often cited - racism - it's an obviously false statement. Every white person who uses the "n-word" is clearly portrayed as, "you know, morons"; and when Mel Brooks shows up in redface, he's obviously doing so as a direct parody of the Hollywood Western trope of using Jewish & Italian actors in redface, using ridiculous mannerisms and speaking in gibberish that _might as well have been Yiddish._ Fun is even had at the expense of liberal-posing people who stop _just short_ of using the word but still hold the sentiments, they just realize it doesn't look good.
And beyond the surface-level obvious message that racism is bad and wrong, the entire movie is a Commedia dell'arte, with a moustache-twirling capitalist using the racism of ignorant white _petit-bourgeois_ settlers as a weapon against them in order to bilk them out of their property, whose dastardly plot is foiled by Our Hero, a black worker who (along with his white sidekick) shows them that the only way they can win is to reject racism and unite in solidarity with workers of all races against the big _bourgeoisie._
On the racial front, _Blazing Saddles_ is brilliant.
On the other hand, where it's aged like fine milk is "The French Mistake" scene, because it rests entirely on "queer = funny".
Yeah, people who say "you can't make Blazing Saddles now" missed why Blazing Saddles "gets away with it".
@@naomistarlight6178 they made Jojo Rabbit and a poorly-received remake of Producers in THIS time too. Blazing Saddles couldn't be made today because the grifters would call to cancel it for being a "woke" movie. Tho I understand some gullible people on the left also can be ignorant of context too: in Get Smart, the original series, there's an episode where Native Americans are trying to do a terror attack on USA. It LOOKS like complete caricature, with missile being a giant arrow and all, but Max asks why Natives are so angry, we only... and proceeds to list everything from Trail of Tears to segregation, and AGREES WITH BAD GUYS (the rocket still misfires tho). The message is clearly anti-colonialism, but the VIBES are very redface. and America runs on performative vibes, not policies or actions.
Blazing Saddles is being made today. It's being made by RUclipsrs who do "Honest Trailers" and "Pitch Meetings." Ryan George is like Mel Brooks is deconstructing tropes.
It's interesting to hear someone talk about this subject in the context of pop culture media that isn't all that old. Go back farther in time if you really want to see just how bad things can get. For a long time, I've been interested in the pop culture of around the 1930s through 1950s. This time period is littered with problematic media that makes the more recent stuff seem tame by comparison. In radio shows, advertisements, movies, and theatrical cartoons, depictions of marginalized groups that would not go over well today are everywhere. Often, it is stuff that was simply baked into the culture at the time - crude and rather silly stereotypes of Native Americans, for example. Sometimes, it is far worse. There have been attempts to bury some of the most egregious media - Disney's Song of the South and the infamous Censored 11 Warner Bros. cartoons, for example - but those who sail the seven seas will never be stopped, so bootlegs are not hard to locate. I strongly believe that it is important to preserve history, warts and all. People should be able to gain access to even highly problematic older media, if only to see how far pop culture has evolved. Of course, bigots will likely love this stuff for all the wrong reasons, but that is not sufficient justification to prevent scholars and others who are interested in the history from accessing this material, or even from enjoying elements of it despite its considerable flaws.
Culture will always change and evolve. When evaluating older media, it is important to consider the context of the times in which it was created. In many cases, the creators may simply have been using cultural language that was broadly acceptable at the time, and they did not necessarily have malicious intent.
I am a member of a marginalized group that is sometimes the butt of jokes. It may seem counter-intuitive, but sometimes I enjoy humor directed at my group. It is healthy to see the humor in one's own situation. It depends on how it is delivered; some light-hearted joking around is fine, but when malicious intent is clear, then it crosses a line.
The term for what they do is "bleached underwear", they aren't removing cartoons for being offensive, they are trying to erase their own questionable history... Like Ford not actually putting swastikas on their cars anymore despite being the leading sponsor of literally Hitler.
I always thought the humor in "It's Always Sunny" and "Arrested Development" was the fact the characters were so out of touch with reality. The kind of humor where you laugh in spite of yourself.
Always Sunny is satire. Yea the humor is edgy but it’s meant to highlight problematic behavior, not condone it.
And all of the cast/creators have said this in multiple interviews over the years. The Gang are NOT the heroes or even anti-heroes; they're dumb, shitty people doing what dumb shitty people do and the fact that their plans never pan out in the end should clue audiences in.
In addition to the solutions given, and in addition to calling out bad behavior if creators while still enjoying their work, we can promote and support media created by others who aren't problematic in those ways and may belong to the marginalized groups that have historically been the butt of these jokes. Taking Harry Potter as an example, instead of supporting JK Rowling or even pirating her work, you could instead read a book about a kid who goes to wizard school written by an actual feminist called A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin (and anything else written by her really). In fact, you should. Just because a thing is the most popular thing doesn't mean it's the best. There are loads of books and art and movies that are incredible and weren't made by horrible people. They can be a bit hard to find sometimes but they are out there.
Silver lining unlocked - problematic creators motivates people to look for good stuff that might be more obscure.
yup. bones platformed an abuser so i listen to dark rap from women instead
I do not believe for a second that the Always Sunny cast didn’t know “tranny” is a derogatory term, the whole joke in those episodes was how transphobic the characters were.
Exactly! It's basically supported by the case he gives for VEEP and Office; it's just more of that, like the old Sunny slogan: it's "Seinfeld on crack". The whole idea that the authors "grew" aware I also buy as little as that pepsi commercial. "There's a truth behind every joke", that is true, but no one else decides why you believed it to be funny. Some of the most serious things in life is easier to joke and laugh about than talk about; take that away and what will people do... vote?
Around about 2010 here it seemed every second pub in trendy areas had t-slur bingo. That word was mainstream, and those areas were frequented by a lot of lgbt people.
@@lihchong2267 Yeah it tends to pop up a lot in that era among writers who are pretty on-their-face progressive, and example that shocked me while leafing through books I was packing for a move was Corey Doctorow's "Little Brother". People just didn't think about us enough to consider whether it might have been a slur which is honestly kind of depressing
I'm trans and appreciate all the defense, just as I appreciate Sunny learning and doing better. Yeah, "didn't know it was wrong" is a reach and hard to believe, but I do think they likely didn't properly understand the harm, that it was so abstract to them that they never gave it any thought.
I grew up an army brat, raised on bases. We absolutely had a racism problem in the 90s. Probably still do, but I haven't lived on a base since 2005. Anyway, we children of service members, we self-segregated. Children are supposed to be innocent, but we felt our parents' unspoken resentments. Rodney King and OJ Simpson were very present in the white zeitgeist, as well as the probably intentional misunderstanding of "gangsta rap," while everyone else was thinking about the Branch Davidian standoff in Waco and the bombing of that federal building in Oklahoma City -- literally white terrorism. This was a time when access to information wasn't so easy as it is today, so questioning of the official historicalish narratives was not something you'd just encounter on a blog. It's strange to think about all this now, and realize that, though the 90s wasn't the true "bad old days," holy shit, it was pretty damn bad!
I want to say I am presenting all of this as context, and while it is that, it is also, to some degree, just excuses. It is also history.
But where I'm going with this is: In my late teens, I thought it was absolutely hilarious to yell a pretty harmful word, just for shock value. Oh, it was fine, of course, since I wasn't a *real* racist. I was just intentionally disregarding the wellbeing of others for chuckles, because their humanity wasn't something I acknowledged. Oh, wait. Now that I write it out, yup, it's pretty damn racist. That's actually pretty much how I recognized the harm in it, too. Someone spelled it out for me, and I could then see, and I'm thankful for that. I knew it was wrong, but I didn't take those that I harmed seriously enough to try to understand the magnitude of the harm. I'm just glad that phase wasn't long and I was never particularly brave.
These days, we have such access to each other that it's harder to claim ignorance. That is why *most* people are better, but there are also those who refuse to change. When they trot out the "virtue signaling wokescolds" and the "pc culture," you know they're pushing back against undeniable evidence they are being assholes, and trying their hardest to remain assholes no matter what.
Its not a derogitory term. Its literally what they claim to be, even though its physically impossible.
I think it's interesting that I as a trans woman and trans women that I'm friends with actually really like the Always Sunny trans episodes and the people most offended by it usually aren't trans lol. (Not trying to call you out or anything just sharing my point of view)
The gang is incredibly transphobic, but through the whole show they're consistently demonstrated to be awful people in every way and the joke is that they suffer for it and the way they interact with normal people around them.
Carmen is consistently portrayed as a very normal woman in contrast with the gang being really weird about everything which I think is a really funny joke and actually a really good example of how to do offensive humour well
I’m a black metal fan, which means I spend a hell of a lot of my music enjoyment trying to avoid the overt Nazis (which is not as easy as it sounds).
Considering how influential Varg Vikernes is to the genre, I can easily imagine how difficult it is.
that frickin' sucks, I'm sorry dog!
It's kinda amusing that black metal fans tend to either be the nicest, most thoughtful people... or legit nazis.
(They're mostly nice people though)
as a classic rock fan, the black metal fans harrass me online and ive been called slurs and threatened by a lot of them and im just so sorry that for whatever reason such repulsive people latched onto black metal. that must be really frustrating
My husband is also a black metal fan and says the same *sighs in "why can't we have nice things?"*
I get why Paul is problematic, but also our society has gotten so violently transphobic recently (more IRL now than in fiction) that it feels kind of quaint when i rewatch 30 rock and he’s portrayed as a normal and levelheaded guy who’s good for Jenna who also happens to be into freaky sex and cross dressing. There are jokes in there that make me cringe but Paul is one of my favorite characters in 30 rock, i wouldn’t call him poorly aged tbh. Queers generally *like* campy humor about our weirdness as long as it stays endearing and not too mean-spirited, and i think Paul qualifies. Kind of reminds me of how the character Buddy Cole in Kids in the Hall was criticized by gay media at the time for being “too effeminate” and that was seen as a negative stereotype for gay people, but now he’s fondly remembered as a lovingly flawed portrayal of queer men. (I know it’s different because Will Forte isn’t queer but i see similarities in the characters.)
Edit: not trying to tell people who Are offended by Paul how to feel, I can see why you would be, but i also think that for a lot of people around my age, Paul was the first “positive” portrayal of a drag queen/cross dresser they’d seen
Yeah, you can. Especially if you pirate it.
@@safetybootsthis here. It takes a very short amount of time to learn. You just need an internet connection, a storage device, and a VPN (depending on your country). Pay for stuff where possible of course, especially when it comes to small artists and makers of media.
@@safetyboots I'd argue that often in cases there's still a moral issue surrounding consuming the media even if you aren't paying any money towards a problematic creator
@@avieee_
Maybe if you're streaming it to a big enough audience. Just playing by yourself, though? There's no problem if you're not giving money to awful corporations.
😊
@@safetyboots In some cases I'd absolutely agree! However at other times I feel that an authors work is so inherently tied to the author themselves that consuming it at all, wether you're pirating it or not, is still something you should consider about being moral.
Thank you for introducing me to the word meta bigotry. It's language I've been searching for.
When I was a teenager I loved the musical The Book of Mormon. And when I revisited it, I was shocked by all the racist, anti-black humor. When I watched it as a teen, and I'm white, I swallowed all the racist humor and laughed because I believed I was laughing at the white missionaries in the cast saying this stuff. I felt like I was laughing at them being neo-colonial on their mission trip in Uganda.
It's uncomfortable that though at the time I would have said, "racist humor isn't okay," that one layer of abstraction was enough to make me feel fine about the jokes. Absolutely a show that prided itself on being edgy.
@@MicahRion Oh, I had a similar experience with Avenue Q which was an extremely popular musical when I was a teenager.
There's a few bangers, but it definitely hasn't aged well, especially the song "everyone's a little bit racist" which floats the idea that, because everyone harbors some level of personal bias, that's a thing that can be normalized and celebrated. I get that this was the era of shock jock humor, but that song is just super cringe with that off base messaging. There was this idea in comedy at the time that it was okay to do racial stereotype jokes as long as you didn't have a single favorite target and picked on everyone equally.
A lot of people took too long to understand, and we're still dealing with people not understanding, why that's still not okay. But I'm glad the musical gave me a learning experience and required me as a white person to think critically about racism. A lot of times white people just don't talk about race whatsoever and pretend it doesn't exist, and I think that Avenue Q to its credit, was trying to be funny and also bring this up for a largely white audience. Getting a laugh out of our own discomfort with the whole idea of race. But it came at the expense of accidentally endorsing personal prejudices.
@@naomistarlight6178 everybody is racist to some degree though. thats a pretty important part about racial theory. acknowledging your prejudices so you can do better is the only way forward
@@danielsmokesmids yeah, but that wasn't really the message of the song at all.
@@MicahRion I was under the impression that The Book of Mormon was parodying The Lion King.
Edit: and in the Liberian Civil Wars of the early 1990s, there actually was a General called "Butt Naked" who often went into battle wearing only shoes.
There's also the utterly fascinating reaction among the "you can't even tell a JOKE these days" crowd when someone makes a dark joke at the expense of white men, cops, or the 9/11. Suddenly they're all up in arms over it, often by completely ignoring THAT it's a joke and engaging with the statement as if it's a 100% serious statement.
But at the same time, they'll play Shrodinger's Douchebag with their own "jokes" where they pretend to just say these things for shock value and edginess, but then the group chat gets leaked and it's all very clearly NOT a joke, they were just saying their bigoted beliefs.
But yeah, at the end of the day, part of the aspect is just owning the flaws. I love a lot of Heinlein stuff because he had some interesting and compelling ideas. But he also had some VERY dicey opinions on women and queer people. But even some of THAT is complicated because for an author from the 60s he WAS progressive on SOME women's issues and he also wrote for long enough that you can see where the books he wrote in his 20s and the books he wrote in his 50s have very different ideals. And it's easier to handle considering the man is dead and gone, and therefore can't use any social capital to ACTIVELY impact people's lives but ignoring these aspects of his works would propagate them further.
I also like super hero comics, but also acknowledge the sort of inherent fashy threads that permeate just the whole GENRE. It's actually quite hard to fully extract them just because the very tenets of the material lean towards them. Or even just the idea of conflict resolution through violence that is critical to SO MUCH media, how escaping that trap is both difficult and often also self defeating.
I'm never not calling it "the 9/11" going forward, thank you for that!
@@amla2263 LMAO, that is actually amazing. Had a different thought there at first when I thought of the 9/11 example and apparently forgot to fully edit the change.
I think enjoying something that has aged poorly is fine. If you're aware of how and why some things are no longer socially acceptable, going back to experience something in spite of that may not be totally 100% harmless, but close enough that it doesn't matter.
After that, I'm not comfortable making blanket-rules. I don't think boycotting Hogwarts Legacy or bullying streamers that played it did transpeople any favors. I also don't think Ben Shapiro or anyone that works with/for him deserves any attention beyond having comically large cakes thrown after them, and that goes double for his bootleg movie studio. Everything is on a case by case basis.
Well, except the comedian-thing. If someone can't tell an hour worth of jokes without punching down, just go see someone who's a better writer instead.
As always, thank you for the insight Salari, and please stay safe in these f***ed up times.
If a comedian can't be funny without acting like an asshole or offending someone than maybe they were never funny to begin with.
Great video Salari. I appreciate how you tackle themes and topics that other people are too one domensional or afraid to discuss properly.
Exactly. If you can't be funny without punching down you're just a bully.
For me, I think it's more useful to distinguish between "problematic" and "hurtful". Things like jokes made at the expense of minorities is problematic, but more importantly it's just hurtful. Meanwhile, any story that deals with complex, unresolved social issues could easily be classed as problematic unless it approaches it in a very stilted and santized way, but if it isn't hurtful then I have no problem enjoying it. Or writing it, for that matter.
In 2005 (when i was a teenager) i also went through an edge-lord phase. Gay jokes were the norm with young men in the UK at that time, and it was partly a rejection of what was called 'PC culture', and partly this idea that true equality means everyone was fair game for comedy.
This was the sentiment in the 2000s, and you can see it in the media produced at the time. The mindset was supposed to upset the uptight Helen Loveyjoys of the world, and it totally forgot about the people it threw under the bus.
I've grown up now, but how am i supposed to feel about my jokes of the past? I suppose all i can do is own my mistake and say sorry
I've often said that, while trying to live a virtuous life in general, if we try to go an entire lifetime without ever contradicting ourselves, we would certainly go insane. Doing the best we can can suffice.
I am confused by the perceived difference between, lets call it "edgy" humor in things like The Office vs. It's Always Sunny. In both cases, the cast are portraying ignorant people that you are not supposed to take seriously. To my sensibilities these are both satire, and are actually jokes aimed at the characters that are speaking, reflecting on how terrible their belief (or verbiage) is, and those who agree with them. You're not supposed to laugh with Michael Scott, as you say, but the same is also true of the entire cast of It's Always Sunny, whose characters are very obviously horrible people. This feels like you're picking and choosing arbitrarily, and I'm not sure what the basis for doing so is.
I'm not sure you want to get into a discussion here, but I am genuinely confused by the difference here and would love to hear your thoughts, even privately.
I don't know for sure either, but I wonder if it's more so to do with the reactions within the show. For instance when michael says something awful, you'll almost always see the rest of the cast reacting horrified. In Always Sunny there's basically never a character to react to their poor actions, beyond potentially their victim. I guess you ccould argue the Sunny characters tend to morally get their dues anyway, but perhaps it's in how clear it is that the jokes are supposed to be 'wrong'. Community for instance also has Pierce frequently saying offensive stuff, but then immediately the rest call him out oin it.
I'm not saying I personally have anything against Sunny's form of humour, that's just my observation on what could be his difference.
@@Spamhard This was kind of my thought too, and I almost typed it, but I didn't want to put words in Salari's mouth. It's more obvious in The Office that Michael is wrong in his statements because you have the foil of Jim and Pam. There is no such foil in It's Always Sunny because literally all of the characters in the show are awful people (except Dee and Dennis's biological father who, ironically, is played by a person who has done a truly terrible thing).
With the Office the take away is supposed to be these are just normal people who sometimes do uncomfortable things. Whereas in It’s Always Sunny the cast is always portrayed as bad people. One makes roads to sympathizing with the characters despite their bad actions and the other is supposed to highlight they are bad people you aren’t supposed to sympathize with. The problem with satire as a whole is that we tend to inherently sympathize with the main characters making this distinction lost on most audiences. It is a legitimate question creators of satire have themselves, does satire just pay into racism/sexism/homophobia or does it meaningfully critique it. I don’t think we have that answer and it might just depend on the person watching. If the intent is to ridicule racists does it fail if racists like it?
@@Spamhard if you need a movie character do performative virtue signaling to know something is wrong, you need better media literacy and a moral compass. I don't need Luke reading a pathos-induced speech that "Empire is bad", seeing what they do is enough.
@@KasumiRINA Are you ok? This reads as weirdly aggro. I was just trying to speculate meaning from Salari's commentary and OPs question.
7:58 Whoa, there. Pump the brakes, Speedy.
The point in 30Rock could be...stay with me here, the point could be...Paul isn't transgender. Paul is exactly what Paul wants to be. Jennas loves Paul for what Paul is. They are unapologetic about whatever they want, whatever they do, and whatever they become. If Paulis sexually attracted to couches in general, only couch mascots, only poorly designed couch mascots, or only specifically Couchie - we will never know. That's Paul's business, not ours. Paul and Jenna had a healthy relationship, they supported each other, and they were happy. He is, as far as I can tell, one of the least problematic depictions of a "cross dresser"*** in television history. Fite Me.
*** - If you want to call Paul a "cross dresser" as a convenient label, we can do that. Similar to the Dean in Community, it was addressed in the show. Most people who don't fit neatly into a category, or have a non-standard sexuality or gender, resist the idea of being categorized by others who don't fully understand what they're going through.
Thank you!
Honestly I always thought the biggest joke was on Jenna for being such a narcissist, but they're so cute together that I was just really happy about something beyond average hetero-norms happening at all.
I thought Paul was a drag queen, which isn't related to his sexuality or gender, it's his job and he enjoys it.
Just remember- if a joke is racist, the person who points it out isn't ruining it for you, the person who made the racist joke is ruining it for you.
This video is basically the philosophy of the show "The Good Place".
Capitalism basically makes every choice a net negative for the world but we are able to still have conivctions.
7:45 I mean, really, I thought the point of Paul by the end of the show was that someone may not be what you consider 'normal', but it doesn't mean they aren't a good person. No one really had an issue with him after the initial shock: it was just Paul being Paul (or Jenna, in some cases).
True, there was *some* language used then that might be considered extremely objectionable by *some* people today, but I don't feel it was particularly mean-spirited and, thus, worth of any kind of cancellation. I'm speaking as someone who is very well educated in trans issues and a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
Also: "obscene" by whose definition? Yours? Isn't that displaying the same judgment on your end that you're criticizing the show for? Just a little thought experiment (to show we all have prejudices and what we consider "normal").
See the reason why It’s Always Sunny’s offense older comedy works is because the audience is shown that from the get-go these characters are COMPLETELY unsympathetic & horrible; despite being the protagonists we know they’re always in the wrong
I need to touch grass with how early i am
I think we underestimate just how much influence media can have over how we perceive groups of people and how that perception informs the way we treat and behave around those depicted. Hollywood has had a long and sordid history of depicting people with albinism negatively which did wonders for my childhood trauma from being bullied. A child that consumes problematic media without any kind of course correcting from an adult can grow up to become someone that writes, passes and votes for laws that negatively impact groups whom he believes are problematic due to his conditioning. They could even choose to continue the cycle by making content that punches down at those very same groups, but for a modern audience that then could also be influenced.
At this point, JK Rowling's Face in any thumbnail gives me PTSD
I am so glad many people, who grew up with her books have better attitudes
Based queen tho
I don’t think you should joke about that, and you don’t get the disorder like that, those are flashbacks and you can only get them if you already have the disorder
Remember in the 2010s when JK Rowling was demanding that people take refugees into their homes, but clamned up when people pointed out she had 18 spare bedrooms in her mansion & had taken none in herself?
I'd like to promote the concept of supply chain ethics legislation to mitigate capitalism
Fantastic video, well done.
Sometimes it is hard to look back at the things we love with a modern critical eye.
We can enjoy them but we should be more aware than we were.
The thing about Hogwarts Legacy boycott is that it was just the first time so many casual HP fans encounter the idea of boycott. As a person who was active in the online HP community, at least in the parts that cared about trans people, the idea of boycotting everything that gives Rowling money was not new. People have been boycotting official merch, universal studios, Fantastic Beast movies etc for years by that point. By the time the game came around, a lot of people who care about trans people have already left the fandom but many of us boycotted everything official long before we left. I think people are too invested in immediate impact of their actions. Social changes don't happen over night. Not consuming something is a very small action and likely the impact will be just as small but it's worth trying.
Your dad still drinking Coca Cola is like me still streaming music from certain problematic music agencies. Yes, I enjoy the music. However, no. I do not want artists to be underpaid and in potential unsafe situations. Ultimately I do feel like it's up to the Coca Cola company and the music agencies I stream music from to better their game. I don't think that's fair to put that on the customers.
Certain problematic music agencies? All record labels are predatory and evil. Universal, EMI, the third one... and streaming services aren't better. If we stopped listening to music based on some evil person profiting from it, welcome to silence. THAT SAID, you can EASILY refuse to listen to artists who openly support actual dictators, I mean, anybody miss Limp Bizkit or Steven Seagal's music career? And Kane getting chair shots to the head aged like fine wine.
Roman Polanski is probably one of the first names that comes to mind when it comes to this topic. Great film director, horrible human being.
Yep, and it makes my skin crawl that Whoopie Goldberg defended him on The View. Chinatown is still a great movie...
Isn't the whole point of It's always sunny that the characters are pieces of shit and the humor comes from their eventual downfall every episode and how absurd and self centered their views are despite they being pathetic ? Like, i never felt like that character, for 2006, was the butt of the joke, the gang was
i honestly don't think the tobius jokes are laughing at him BEING GAY, and instead are more so laughing at his own ignorance and the way he "hides in the closet" so to speak. its funny because he won't just admit to being gay or whatever he is feeling, he just kind of acts out in insane ways. You may be putting to many eggs into that basket of thought
I prefer whqt disney does with the aristocrats. It is still there unedited, tuere is explanations and apologies in the beginning. Vs retcon deleting episodes like nbc not streaming certain episodes of 30 rock. Honestly 30rock showed the backstage of a comedy show, it is delivered in a way that is obviously grotesque. Yet now its just deleted.
Comedy is better with layers, rather than washed out beaver cleaver comedy like we are going for today.
I'm glad I never cared about those books
I'm very much on the left and I indeed think you can enjoy problematic media for one simple reason - it's fictional. I firmly believe that a fictional character played by an actor telling a racist, sexist, homophobic etc line to another character played by an actor is _NOT_ the same as it happening in real life.
We can watch action movies with crazy stunts and leave it as being fiction and not to do those things in real life.
We can watch musicals and know in real life people won't randomly break out into song.
I think it's reasonable that people can see edge black comedy and stuff that would be fucked up in reality and know its simply fiction. It's when it breaks into the real world that it becomes a problem. A white guy using the n word is NEVER acceptable in real life, but in fiction, especially historical fiction, there could be a reason for a character to say the word. I'm not saying it's not problematic, but we need to be able to see fiction as fiction and not reality.
I love the keyboard and mouse setup in the background!
On the subject I have been wrestling with this issue with some of the art and music I once enjoyed. It’s definitely not easy to separate the art from the artist, same as once enjoying certain foods only to find that they have connections to some less than desirable groups (Dominos for instance).
I feel weird liking Extras since Ricky Gervais went full transphobe in recent years, it's a real shame that he turned into the exact type of person he used to satirize. Oh well, just pirate it.
From my experience, people don't really care until it affects them directly. Space marine 2 was made by a developer team based completely in russia, and millions of dollars from sales of this game in the form of corporate tax went to fund to bomb my family in Ukraine. When talking about it, most people are dismissive - even people who generally are supportive of Ukraine, because there isn't a big online backlash about it. I think consuming without context is the problem. Pretending like situations like this dont exist is the problem. But also assuming most people understand what is problematic is wrong too. There should be disclaimers, warnings, publicity. It's exhausting to talk about it but it's right.
Yes agreed. Everything has to come from somewhere, is made (one way or another) by people's labor, and is intrinsically a part of the politics of its context. Unfortunately--and toooootally accidentally--this isn't taught like, at all in schools (at least not in fashmerica), so fostering that consciousness in people who have never paused to consider it is difficult af. That's why so many people still think "apolitical" is a thing that can exist in reality. Ignorance is exhausting to deal with but all the more reason to question and educate
I think it's possible to engage with problematic media as long as a) you acknowledge what about it is problematic and are capable of being critical of it, even if it's something you love; and b) you are not giving money to people who are currently profiting off of terrible and bigoted views (like JK Rowling). In this instance, pirating is better.
It depends. You can't really compare Harry Potter children's books to Leni Rifenstahl's clear propaganda movies? But also, READ ANOTHER BOOK. Just one. How many times can you re-read ONE author of kids stuff?
@@KasumiRINA I wasn't really referring to propaganda, however you could argue that even that can and possibly should be engaged with in say a media literacy course -- to discuss it in the correct context and understand why it is propaganda. The truth is, most people don't know when they are being fed propaganda anymore.
I mean, the father of one of my favourite genres of horror had a reputation for racism even by the standards of the time. There are still various themes associated with cosmic horror that hold up well like challenged primacy, forbidden knowledge, madness that are always fun
i don't think we should erase history, streaming services can remove the whole show if they want, but not single episodes, that just rewrites history
Lady Ballers is clearly a ripoff of The Ringer but made by people who only remember that movie from the trailers. I recently rewatched it and found it to have aged shockingly well compared to most early 00s comedy and did not punch down, the punch rather being squarely at the abled characters (and by extension viewers) for assuming that disabled means inferior.
This was literally my main issue with Lady Ballers. It's not even truly offensive to trans people imo, it's the sheer fact the creators of this movie GENUINELY seem to believe a group of washed up, average men could easily beat trained women athletes. The movie ironically doesn't make much commentary on transphobia, more so it's just hugely miisogynistic.
This movie could have actually had some comedy to it with the same set up, but them then getting absolutely owned.
Juwanna mann did a similar story better. And that didnt age well either. But at least it was a washed up athlete doing that and learning that these women are just as much athletes as he was and he ends up bonding with his teammates and becoming a less shitty person by the end. It's still a rough watch but when the bar is that low and shapiro's buddies cant clear it, its pretty clear their intention wasnt to make a good movie or write a redemption story. it was just to push the men in womens sports bullshit.
I only find offensive humor acceptable when the character committing the offense IS the butt of the joke, their ignorance, stupidity or just downright awfulness IS the joke.
@@MicBain Pierce from Community is a great example of this. He makes a lot of racist remarks and jokes, but everyone around him treats them with derision and exasperation.
@bransonallen2925 Yeah, perfect example!
As someone who’s obsessed with old-school music, I will be the first person to tell you that many, if not most, old-school musicians were such shitheads in their personal lives.
In a video about the tastelessness of stereotypes for comic effect, maybe don't include a tired stereotype of a French chef.
I often wonder if jokes made at someone else's expense (gay, trans, black, whatever) makes them harmful by default. Here's an example.
Back in high school, I wrote a sketch about a guy having no one to go on a date for Valentine's Day with and is made fun of by his roommate. Cupid pops up and after having had enough of being insulted, he shoots an arrow in the back of the protag's neck. He falls in love with his roommate and goes out of his way to get the man to go on a date with him, even though he's visibly repulsed by the concept and says no every time.
Is it offensive? Absolutely. No beating it around the bush. Now imagine if the roommate was a girl and the same scenarios would play out. It wouldn't be considered offensive. It would be considered social commentary on catcalling, niceguys(tm), alpha males, yadda yadda yadda.
My point is, using jokes made at someone else's expense by default do not and should not represent an entire group of people that that someone happens to be part of.
Well it sounds to me like, the joke there was not just "lol gay people existing is inherently funny because they are weird alien freaks" so that makes it like you said, more of a commentary on relationships in the modern world.
S L A C T I V I S M
If only we could have got a vpn sponsorship for the piracy portion 😂
I'm from the Netherlands. 'Sinterklaas' is a celebration that is held annually on December 5 and has always been portrayed as a benevolent old man with a long beard who provides gifts to children who 'have been good this year'. Santa Claus is very similar in concept. He is aided by his army of 'Black Piet'. When I was 7 years old, I wondered to myself why Black Piet was called that. The conclusion my child brain reached was simple: it's because he has to climb through all the chimneys and the soot sticks to his face. It's a fully black face because from AMERICAN CARTOONS, I had learned that exaggeration is typically used for comedic purposes. So that was my take: a 'comedic exaggeration of soot on their face'. The entire rest of the body of Black Piet would always be completely covered by clothing, so it wasn't full-body black, either. At least to my knowledge.
Then, when I was in my twenties, came the allegations of Black Piet being racist. And when you look at history in general, it's easy to see the link to slavery. Perhaps there truly is one. But my child brain had drawn that one conclusion long ago and I was a bit baffled by the backlash.
It wasn't until 6-10 years later (!!!!) that I finally heard someone use the term 'blackface' when the celebration turned up in conversation. Never in my life had I even heard the term, let alone learned of its concept, so I asked what it meant. It was ONLY then that I understood why people took offense to the portrayal of Black Piet. The celebration itself had long since been thoroughly destroyed in my mind and I've never bothered with it since the allegations turned to yearly protests.
I take serious issue with the original people throwing the allegations _without educating those they took issue with on why they took offense._ Had that part been clearly conveyed, then solutions could've been offered, such as simply sticking to soot streaks. This solution was actually offered, but the haters wouldn't accept it. _"The entire celebration was one endorsing slavery/racism"_, in their eyes. A children's celebration, at that.
There comes a point where one must learn to listen and communicate. It's alright to hold your convictions, but it's equally important to properly convey them to those you deride.
It's also curious how various movies and series warn viewers of 'depictions of violence and/or blood', or 'otherwise shocking to the viewer'. Should we introduce something similar for takes that have gone out of favour? And why aren't those shown in series depicting slavery?
And to the all-too-common response, "it's not my job to educate you" ... uh, yeah, actually it kind of _is._
Also, sometimes in such cases the majority of people whom it concerns may either not know or actually not give that much of a shit, but those who scream the loudest are rather representing them.
@@Celis.C this kind of runs into the problem of bad faith. ideally you would have a nuanced discussion but alot of the time the questions asked are rhetorical and the person asking was just looking for someone to commiserate about 'political correctness' or whatever.
That burp timing at 11:56 was 10/10 A+
Late into this video essay, the film Ladyballers was invoked. My problem with that film isn't that it is problematic, but far more basic - it is a bad movie. The jokes are lazy, predictable and stale. The direction of the movie, the edting, and the pacing are all poorly handled as well. A movie about a group men pretending to be women is offensive, but it also could be handled well and be funny. Ladyballers was not. It exists only to confirm the views of the converatives it targets.Views they _already_ had.
Good offensive humor makes the target audience uncomfortable, it confronts us. But with Ladyballers you have to agree with it to laugh. Cinematography wasn't important because it's more a long pamphlet than a proper movie.
Yeah, I agree; the issue is that it clearly intends to offend first, and actually being comedic comes second.
The movie _The Ringer_ comes to mind as a good example of doing an offensive topic well (imo)
I feel that the idea that some comedians have that they shouldn’t have to change their comedy, the audience is the problem, is all the way through our society. How many companies have said that the issue is millennials not liking their product, not that they have decided to move with the times?
Workers wanting healthcare: it's the free market, a company can decide to do what it wants!
When a company is failing: don't you guys know you HAVE to support businesses you don't like???
It still surprises me how an entire generation of millennials just can not let go of a single just okay wizard series. Like i get it, it was the biggest thing in the world for a minute, I was there, but come on
The idea that Community was a "different time" is wrong. Blackface and brownface were not acceptable at the time. They were also not shown as acceptable in the show. That was the point. Pierce is a boomer bigot. When he uses stereotypes he is criticized. Chang is not dressed in blackface, either. As pointed out, he is cosplaying a Dungeons and Dragons race of elves with black skin, not an African American. Nevertheless, the characters do object to his choice as at the very least potentially insensitive. If you are going to criticise media it should be done honestly and in context. There is a difference between situations like John Wayne playing Genghis Khan and a character who is racist doing racist things and being hated in universe for doing it.
The same could he said of Always Sunny. The whole point of the show is the characters are reprehensible and unredeemable. And they know it. So they do horrible and insensitive things. We are not supposed to like them. We are supposed to judge them as horrible people for doing them. Again a big difference.
The gay character in Arrested Development. Again the intellectual dishonesty. His being gay is not at issue and none of the other characters have a problem with it. Things he does that make him seem gay aren't the joke. The joke is his repression. The fact he is obviously gay but even though everyone else would accept it and has, he will not.
As for the Hogwarts game one of the more important justifications was that buying the game did not support Rowling. She got no money from sales. The developers of the game not only disavowed her anti trans views, but included pro trans storylines and trans representation in the game. That is why people felt justified in buying it. The attempted boycott was wrongheaded and actually did more to hurt the LGBT cause than it would have helped. Quite apart from the fact it wouldn't make a dent. You should be honest in your descriptions here.
frist video i have seen and i love it already, this is a hard topic to tackle and you do a great job of deconstructing it, I feel like I have leanred something from this video
i 100% am on board with death of the author as an idea but in practice, at least for me personally, i just dont enjoy much if any of the stuff i used to. i think only some musicians/bands that were problematic are all i still engage with and even then i have different feelings
18:43 - I don't get the editor's comment. The same things you say about The Office apply to Sunny. It is obvious to the audience that the Gang is a bunch of horrible people. But this comment makes the creators of Sunny more culpable than the creators of The Office?
0:44 literally sat down with a can of pepsi to watch this and felt called out LOL I also used to work for Apple so... hmm.
I think the danger of removing past episodes is the old "those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it". You need to have records of the bad as well as the good. I think it's better for new generations to be able to see that we once did things and know they are wrong now. The way we can see things done before us.
I both agee but at the same time i got an ad for "am i racist" and all i can think, maybe we have bigger fish to fry in terms of racist media than a decade old media. Like the very harmful stuff that is current. But i think you should be critical about the media consume and nothing is above reproach. So conflicted but its fair criticism.
I enjoy your videos always. Thank you for making them.
A great video on an important (and annoying lol) topic. As there are a bunch of things that would be good/bad even if capitalism and bigotry wasn’t around, personally I try to place a lot of my focus there, rather than quibbling over the other stuff. For example, overconsumption is bad in any society, it’s a good idea not to keep on buying iPhones vs just buying one and trying to repair and maintain it as long as possible. Things like veganism come into this as well-animal cruelty is cruel no matter the economic system etc.
Sketchy media from the past can be contextualized and used as a teaching moment and still enjoyed. It is history as well as entertainment. You can't fix the past, but you can make progress in the present and future, and the stuff that you make better will still reflect the flaws in the present as we progress in the future. Do what you can to subvert capitalism and consumerism in your life and don't beat yourself up for enjoying a Coke or an old movie every once in a while. If you're miserable and neurotic about smashing capitalism, nobody else will think it's a good idea. Do your best and enjoy your life.
Don't think I didn't notice 『FRIDAY NIGHT』playing there, Salari
(≡・x・≡)
Wonderful video as usual!
I think the Veep argument also applies to Always Sunny and Jimmy Carr. In both cases they''re playing characters who are explicitly wrong. The AS cast are self-absorbed to the point of solipsism and the best that can be said of any of them is that sometimes they only do bad things through ignorance rather than malice, and Jimmy Carr's whole thing is portraying a bad person who does bad things; the joke is how he justifies his behaviour, drawing parallels to the ways real people justify the real harm that they do.
Legends heard about this video on the recent stream and some legends have already watched.
Such a fun topic honestly because it’s quite the conundrum.
P.S. I love the thumbnail. Steve Buscemi, the icon that you are.
My first thought upon clicking this video was "Kevin Spacey". I still like a number of movies he's starred in despite the sexual assault cases brought against him. I've come to separate the art from the artist, while still bearing in mind that I now better see things that are and were problematic. So in regards to what media I'll consume in this vein, it's highly dependable on the content. Like I'll watch Baby Driver again if I feel inclined, or even The Usual Suspects. But probably not American Beauty.
Wtf? Learning? That's un-American.
YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A COCA-COLA
would if I could
Half black man here. I feel like trying to erase racist humor and trying to pretend it was never there is like trying to pretend racism has never existed which would in itself be an insult to those who suffered from it. It’s a part of history and should be discussed. We also have to simply accept just because you enjoy a comedy movie/series, you’re not going to approve of everything it does. I grew up on old Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry cartoons so I’m probably a bit more used to… questionable humor to a point. Keep moving forward and doing better, but you can’t really appreciate where you are if you can’t see where you’ve been
Damn I think I'm gonna go get a coke lmao
Can confirm, I am here to see the kitty.
Creator Lily Simpson made a 10 hours video essay breaking down why the Harry Potter books and movies are terrible. I agreed with everything she said. I won't give the franchise any money or participate with the fandom but I still get a comfy cozy happiness from the movies and books.
I think interacting with media you already own is fine, especially when you're willing to acknowledge the problems. The issues come in imho when people refuse to think critically about what they're consuming. And when people continue to throw money at highly problematic, awful people.
I decided that if I am going to interact with new HP stuff I'm doing it second hand. If I can't do it second hand then I won't.
Okay I am usually a big fan of your videos, but this one was kind of a miss. It felt like you maybe didn't consult many other perspectives for this, which is essential if you're looking at media that's potentially problematic.
First, I think you've grossly misrepresented what the 'Death of the Author' theory was invented for: Yes, it's been heavily bastardised by modern iterations but you brought up Roland Barthes, I thought you might've tried to contextualise it a little? I normally wouldn't be so pedantic but this wasn't a one off mention, you based a significant argument on it.
Yes, it can be summarised as 'judge a work on its own merit, not the author's intent' but Barthes did not form his theory on the context of whether something ia problematic or not, the original theory is better contextualised as being against the notion of 'author as god', and instead posits the idea that authors may be more like sculptors or scriptors. The JK debacle actually doesn't clash against death of the author at all, in fact, it actually supports death of the author: Death of the author would say that if you're a queer reader who felt Harry's story was allegorical for a queer experience, that's a valid reading and JK can't do shit about it. An anti death of the author take would be "Well JK never intended it to be a queer allegory, therefore your interpretation is wrong and holds no merit". The idea that we knew less about authors historically is a bit of a fallacy- sure, Austen never had twitter, but author's lives and beliefs were actually pretty well known, and that was actually a huge problem. Respected authors were seen as Gods of their works, not only did what they said go, but if they deemed your opinion incorrect, that was that. God had spoken.
Death of the author was not penned as some way to enjoy slurs guilt free, it is actually integral to queer media analysis as a medium. You ever get told your gay reading of Great Gatbsy is wrong because Fitzegerald didn't intend it that way? That's when you use death of the author!!
Secondly, I believe you mischaractersed Its Always Sunny. I personally am not a fan of Its Always Sunny, the jokes arent for me, but I think it's irresponsible how you described Carmen's appearance in the show. I highly recommend Lily Simpson's video on this very topic- she is a trans woman who literally dissects trans rep in 90s-2000s media for a living, and her points were very enlightening for me personally.
I fully believe we can debate if IASIP should've been executed the way it was, but it's honestly deceptive how you framed the Carmen situation as you did. I don't believe you had any ill intent as I am a long time subscriber, but the creators didn't 'accidentally write a transphobic character then grow as people', those transphobic jokes you irresponsibly skimmed are missing key context: the gang are framed as in the wrong for making them. There's a whole joke where he tries to justify his violence against Carmen because "she's not a real girl" and bystanders point out that makes it a hate crime and chase him with the intent of beating his ass. We can argue whether this joke was executed well, for sure, but to frame these episodes as you did skips over very important context. What the creators were apologising for wasn't the jokes- it was the use of the t-slur in them. They were apologising because they thought the slur wasn't harmful if it was being used by the villains, but learned that just as any other slur, its very spoken nature is harmful, even when you're portraying it at bad.
Sorry if this comes across as hostile, it really isn't meant to be, again I've been subscribed for years at this point, but I'm really confused why so many of these points seemed half-baked or poorly researched?
I tested some dated problematic humor.
Father Ted is still damn funny.
Married with Children is more rellenpvant than ever, at least the 90s half is.
Ranma 1/2 aged like milk, mostly because it was a badly written adaptation with 70% filler. Thank god it's getting a remake.
Lupin III manga from the 70d is hilarious, but American Gen Z fans who love the animes pretend it doesn't exist.
There was a time when the band "Foghat" was really cool in the 1970s. The time passed, tastes and thoughts about the world changed too. Foghat kept playing their hits. They are still around playing bars and there are actual fans of them that will pay a cover charge to see them, but they are smart enough to realize, "hey, it was a good run and we are still playing, but the cultural zeitgeist is no longer ours." I don't know what is up the asses of some of these folks.
Short answer: yes. Long answer: If it's Birth of a Nation take it with a huge grain of salt, but otherwise still yes.
That tweet in the thumbnail is horrifying. We're fighting for our lives, and she's having _fun._
I had someone call me out for buying from Amazon once bc they exploit their workers. I quietly replied, "how's your coffee?"
yeah, I take quippy youtube comments like this with a grain of salt. lots of truly loathsome interactions could look like this if sanitized of context, and it gives some people a license to act like the worst possible versions of it, as long as they can wedge it with a feeling of self-righteousness.
I am not talking poorly against you in particular. it's probably a cathartic thing to relay. I just see a risk to it, when said in the mixed company of strangers, despite how much social media is optimized for that kind of quip.
I mean sure, but that isn't really the gotcha you might think it is, it's just another way of replying with "no eethical consumption under capitalism", which as Salari poiints out, is a way for people to excuse all poor practices.
Why use amazon when there are other ways to purchase? Is the other company you purchase from also exploiting workers? Probably, but it's a choice you can make to seek the lesser of evils. You can still use amazon, as said it's basically impossible to live without contributing to exploitation, but there are- at times- other options out there. Same as how you can make the deccision to purchase coffee from more ethical providers.
This is a Reddit ass comment
@@Spamhard Personally I don't find this type of thinking useful. I don't believe people should be morally impinged for anything they buy. It's not their choice to put that stuff on the shelves. The reason we have such an exploitative system is not because people buy stuff, it's because capitalists have carefully engineered an economy wherein well trained consumers buy loads of products they don't really need so the capitalists can reap exorbitant profits with no regard for the environmental or human cost. Everything about the US economy is psychologically manipulative and exploitative. Corporations invest a lot of time and money into studying how best to manipulate human psychology so as to squeeze more profit out of people.
Pretty much every brand available in US stores is owned by a handful of gargantuan multinational umbrella corporations, so in my opinion asking people to choose the lesser evil is basically a moot point. Encouraging people to make more ethical choices is what corporations want you to do, because it lays the blame at the feet of consumers and distracts from the true culprits- billionaires. Oil companies have done this same thing by convincing people they have a "carbon footprint" and they should do their best to reduce their consumption, all this while said oil companies are responsible for 75-80% of all human carbon emissions by themselves.
@@Spamhard the point was the hypocrisy. You can't criticize someone's buys very easily when you also buy bad stuff
I had checked out the novel The Queen's Gambit at the library, but had to quit reading after encountering one character who was created as being an oversexualized caricature of a Black teenaged girl. It just felt icky to read this. I haven't watched the Netflix series based on it, so I have no idea if they changed this character or was "true to the source."
great vid, also, ur cat looks so sweet.
As someone who openly says their life was saved by Rocky Horror in the late 70s, I really do try to take everything in the context within which it was made.
A good pair of shoes to address this are the twin British series Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes which involves a bit of time traveling. Even then, the trans episode from the POV of the character from the "present" (early 2000s) is a bit wobbly. But... Still my favorite series of all time.
As a Zelda fan I definitely feel this. As much as I love the games and characters I also recognize the disgusting racism and other problematic themes woven throughout the franchise. I’m trying to let myself enjoy this media while still being critical of it and changing some character designs and stuff when I do art. It’s hard to reconcile my love for these games with their gross betrayals of others, but I think being critical and avoiding giving Nintendo money is a good start.
We need to bring back the idea of "guilty pleasures" and the literal meaning of that guilt, as in, yes, you _should_ feel guilty for enjoying said thing, and maybe keep it to yourself, while also acknowledging that, yes, it is pleasurable.
There's a particular comedy series from a couple decades ago that is extremely nostalgic for me. But in the series, there are some terrible representations of certain minorities, and even one whole episode that would get pulled today for it's B plot, even while the A plot remains hilariously relevant. The creator of this show has never recognized the harm they've done; in fact, they've doubled down on it. For my own reasons, I still rewatch this show once in two blue moons, but I never tell anyone what it is, and I watch under the Jolly Roger specifically so as not to benefit the original creator in any way. (I do skip past the B plot in that particular episode though.)
10:27 Removing these episodes isn’t a band-aid at all, even, since a band-aid can genuinely assist in healing.
Removing these episodes is more like putting a mask over a wound as if to say it was never there at all. It’s an insulting revision of the past. What’s done is done. If you mean to be more sensitive in the future, then do so, but don’t try to make it look like you were sensitive all along.
in light of your last video I just want to say: get a job, lmao
Vanity Fair just published an article about how Cormac McCarthy met his wife when she was borderline homeless when she was 15. He was 42. They pretty much instantly started dating. Pretty clearly an issue on very many levels. This was in 1976 or so but that doesn't excuse a thing for me personally. That wouldn't be a huge problem for me reading his books and stuff because he's passed on but it was revealed that his wife inspired a lot of important elements in his books. Now im afraid of reading his books again and seeing some sort of elements trying to justify certain relations that I'm very against. I'm not sure though. McCarthy's books are generally very emotional for me so it's been awhile since I've read them. Maybe the inspiration she brought him that he incorporated into his novels wasn't awful? Anyway, I loved The Road so much that when i finished it I cried so violently that I destroyed the book and went out and bought it again the next day lol
Idk we'll see what happens when I am ready to read them again. Any feedback welcome. I'd love other's takes whether you agree with my reticence or not
So long as I'm not contributing my money to the author I usually don't care but if he has things that advocate for relationships where consent is...skewed I guess I feel like I'm tacitly agreeing just by reading the book
I don't remember anything like that though in his books
I never thought the joke with Tobias was "haha, he gay" so much as "This guy lacks self awareness to the point that he 1) doesn't know he's gay despite everyone else knowing and 2) he says things that are overtly sexual without realizing he's done it."
I'm sure it still has some bits and jokes that are homophobic, but I don't think that was the entire point.