Pete's Candy Store 4EVA
In the aftermath of that Kramer guy from Seinfeld shouting like a big racist and then defending himself by claiming to be Jewish when he isn't, Elayne Boosler weighs in on the Huffington Post.
Her piece is a little unfocused, like the new SAT assigned her an essay on the Kramer guy and she kind of got off topic, but hey, it has the right number of paragraphs and it's a timed assignment and time is running out, so maybe no one will notice? Here's the lovable part:
Hey, anybody want to subject himself to a two-drink minimum ... in South Dakota?
Her piece is a little unfocused, like the new SAT assigned her an essay on the Kramer guy and she kind of got off topic, but hey, it has the right number of paragraphs and it's a timed assignment and time is running out, so maybe no one will notice? Here's the lovable part:
When I started doing standup in 1973 the women working in comedy were the caricatures of their time; housewives who hated sex, loved jewelry, hated their husbands, hated themselves, etc. My oath to myself was that I would do nothing, no humor, no matter how easy it would have been, that propagated any of those images of women. I had to work harder, write better, face resistance, lose opportunity, to present a funny woman who was a worthwhile human being deserving of respect and dignity, and who could entertain not just a niche audience, but people. I don't see too many comics striving for that on cable. You can't legislate the end of the "n" word. Nobody can ever tell a comic not to say something, it runs against a comics soul. Don't take the "n" word out of your act because someone wants to ban it. Take it out because you are replacing it with actual comedy.Don't you just want to put her in Bust magazine? Here's the "other" part:
The rule about heckling is this: you fire at a cop, get ready to die. Yelling "you're not funny" at a comic is firing with an AK. Hurt your feelings? Tough. Anything goes for hecklers, including excessive force. I lay myself bare up here, at my most vulnerable you shoot me in the chest, I will kill you if I can. You know why Richards looked so shell shocked at his own outburst? Because he's not a racist, he was simply in the zone. Comedy clubs are like Indian reservations. They are their own country. I don't think he should have apologized. You pay your money and you take your chances, step right up.Leaving aside the very idea that being "in the zone" makes you say racist things when you're not racist (uh-huh...) ... I think this is why many people I know go to comedy clubs exactly as often as they go to, well, Indian reservations.
Hey, anybody want to subject himself to a two-drink minimum ... in South Dakota?
posted by JenIsFamous at 12/21/2006 10:36:00 AM
4 Comments:
BOOK CRITICAL OF AFRICAN AMERICANS WHO USE THE N-WORD
Los Angeles, CA., - Author H. Lewis Smith has written a thought provoking, culturally divided book that will not only spark heated conversation, but can also bring about real change. The N-word is often used in the African American community amongst each other and is generally not a problem when spoken by another African American. However, once the word is used by a Caucasian person, it brings on other effects. The question is "who can use the word and why?" Smith believes it is a word that should be BURIED!!!!
The book is written in a manner that all can understand. The points are well-taken and the wording is easy to follow. There are quotes from great people in our history including Martin Luther King, Jr., Harriet Tubman, James Baldwin and many, many others. Smith has mixed history with honesty, love with life, education with effects. This is a great book for educators, parents, managers, professionals, newsmen, and anyone else wanting an in-depth look at the N-word, the effects and the solutions. A MUST READ!!!!
To learn more about Bury that Sucka, please visit http://www.burythatsucka.com
I happen to love Elayne Boosler and think she is a funny, smart, creative, sexy. . .[your positive adjective here]. . .woman deserving of my respect for exactly the reasons she enumerates in the first paragraph of what Jen calls her S.A.T. essay. That said, the second part is complete nonsense. Very simply, heckling someone is NOT the same as shooting him or her in the chest. Is it rude? Yes. Do I appreciate it as a performer when someone shouts "You suck!" or "Get off the stage, asshole!"? Of course not. But if the best I can come up with by way of retort is to use an epithet that (unfairly) implicates an entire racial or ethnic group for the actions of one miscreant (or even, in the case of Mr. Richards, several), I am demonstrating that I am not quite so clever as I may think I am. In addition to being guilty as charged and lacking comic timing or any depth of insight as to what is humorous, I would belie as well my recogition, as a human being and otherwise civilized inhabitant of this planet we share, that what IS called for is a proportional response.
Which is why I think that asking if a heckler would kindly shut the fuck up, lest he or she be asked even less politely by management to leave, is perfectly adequate.
Of course, that's just my opinion. But as per usual, I know that I'm right.
It seems like every time a celeb says something racist (or otherwise stupid), everyone chimes in saying that they must really mean it in their heart of hearts, because you never say something you don't mean deep down when you're drunk or angry.
I dispute that claim.
As evidence, I will bring up the crazy washed-up artiste I was stuck living with for a few months when I was looking for a job in Washington in early 2005.
She'd moved down because she'd been working in New York and had run out of money, and was working temp jobs while painting and going to protest marches on the side.
Things started out OK, but she really wasn't happy that I was a Republican, and it went downhill when she Google-stalked me and found my blog, but she still thought she could get under my skin by pointing to my unemployment (which she couldn't, but I digress).
Then, one night in early March, she came in and asked, "so, you got a job yet?" and I answered in the affirmative.
She completely went off the handle and spent the next half hour screaming at me until I had to leave for dinner (it continued the next time I saw her).
At one point during this, she accused me of being gay. I would be absolutely stunned if she were, in her heart of hearts, a homophobe, considering that she goes to gay pride rallies, but she had this caricature of me as a homophobic conservative guy, and she thought she could get under my skin, which was not the case, but it didn't stop her from trying.
I suspect that Richards may have said what he did for similar reasons: he was trying to hurt the hecklers using whatever was immediately available, and he saw the color of their skin. In my estimation, it is somewhat less likely that Mel Gibson did what he did for similar reasons.
Dear Mr. Kalb,
At the risk of being accused once again of long-windedness, I will allow myself to retort.
It has been said that the father of civilization was that person who first thought to hurl an invective rather than a spear or a rock. Certainly, sticks and stones break bones. But name-calling does hurt. What's at issue, I think, is not whether all who use racist terminology are racists. What's at issue is whether what Mr. Richards said, given the context in which he said it, was racist. To those who insist that Michael Richards is not a racist, then, I ask, simply, "So what?"
You seem an intelligent guy, so let me ask you this: If the first thing a person would seize upon to wield as ammunition against another, is that other's affiliation with a particular ethnic or racial group, gender or sexual predilection, political affiliation, etc., doesn't that demonstrate that regardless of whether the person doing the taunting harbors sufficient venom to be at all times a racist (xenophobe, homophobe, what have you), certainly he or she is guilty of evincing a desire to implicate all members of a group based on the actions of a few of its select members? And isn't that the very definition of racism, sexism, etc.? I'll grant that what Mr. Richards did was not tantamount to hurling a spear or a rock, but nor is heckling the same thing as shooting someone in the chest.
What I sought to point out in my post, as well as in a letter I sent directly to Elayne Boosler--whose reply has not been forthcoming--is that while I take no issue with the assertion that political correctness is oppressive, and the desire to legislate speech absent recognition of context is foolhardy, so too is moral equivalency pernicious. What is relevant (to me, anyway), is not that Mr. Richards may be "a racist", but that what he said most certainly was. That's relevant because there are those who think that because "he didn't start it", or "he isn't really a racist"--and nor, I guess, does he just play one on t.v.--his actions somehow are excusable. I assure you that I have no desire to tell others what they may or may not say. I agree with Elayne Boosler (and Lenny Bruce and George Carlin before her) that words, in and of themselves, should not be proscribed from use; that their use alone, rather than the context in which they are used, is no shibboleth. But if what defines the civilized is a desire to wield language rather than weapons, so too does a sense of proportion differentiate civilization from barbarism, and the context in which words are used most certainly is a shibboleth.
We see this today in the West's struggle with religious fanatacism. Without getting into a debate about politics or religion, I think it's fair to characterize, say, the death sentence issued to Theo Van Gogh, or before him Salman Rushdie, as having been, um, somewhat disproportionate to the alleged offense of drawing a cartoon, or writing a novel. Similarly, I have no doubt that heckling is a form of blasphemy to Elayne Boosler. But whether she would go so far as to call for a fatwa against rude infidels, Ms. Boosler knows well enough that heckling someone simply is not the same thing as physical assault. Responding to heckling by resorting to hate speech is always racist, and never a proportional or therefore justifiable response.
Look, performers get heckled. Orators get shouted down. Fortunately, statistically few of these persons are shot. I know of a spoken word artist, however, who was shot.
Forty years ago, a masterful wielder of language said that we should judge each other on the basis of the content of our characters; not by the color of our skin. He was black man who said this. Before he could continue his mission and echo the words spoken by The Great Emancipator while consecrating a battlefield two hundred years earlier, those truths held to be self-evident. . .Martin Luther King, Jr., younger then than Elayne Boosler or I am now, was shot in the throat and his voice was heard no more.
I wish Elayne Boosler and Michael Richards' other defenders would think about that.
Peace,
Matt Penn
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home