Showing posts with label Racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Racism. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Next Week There's A Choice Between Blue Or Red Pill

Here's what really pisses me off about the new season of Heroes.

You know Usutu, the African Precog played by Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, who though his ability to paint the future helps set Matt Parkman and now it seems Hiro and Ando in the right direction? He's a total abuse of the mystical stock character known as the "Magical Negro".

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The white characters come to him looking for answers, and through his magical ability of precognitive painting (and headphones?) he shows them some special insight and sends them along on their way.

To quote wikipedia:
He has no past; he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist...He is patient and wise, often dispensing various words of wisdom, and is "closer to the earth"...Although from a certain perspective the character may seem to be showing African-Americans in a positive light, he is still ultimately subordinate to European-Americans. He is also regarded as an exception, allowing white America to like individual black people but not black culture.


Well, I guess if it's good enough for Grant Morrison's Batman...

Saturday, October 11, 2008

A Rose By Any Other Name

Carsi over at Saisosparkle found a very funny error on imdb's WENN updates.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Late Night Ramblings

It's late, I'm sick, fuck spell check, I just have some random opinions and thoughts.

You wanna know what's weird...I just had a conversation with my Dad about Borat. That wasn't the weird part...the weird part was that he was able to quote bits from him verbatim. I had no clue my Dad knew who Borat or Sascha Baron Cohen even was. I've never seen him watch Da Ali G Show...does HBO show episodes of it at like 4 in the morning? That's the only time that I'd think he'd watch it...I don’t know. It just surprises me.


Alright, I just watch Revenge of The Nerds again. The last time I saw the movie had to be like 5 years ago, and just like I remembered, it was stupid, yet entertaining and funny. Something else I realized about it though: While a stupid college-teen comedy, it possesses a genius concept: Have a social commentary on racism, but instead of white people discriminating against blacks, have it be Nerds. Look at all the tell-tale signs--The Alpha Beta bad guys are all pure white (as are their Sorority counterparts); the Nerds are a amalgamation of every group from society that has ever been called an outcast, an outsider, or different in any way; The Nerds join up with the Tri-Lams, which is an all-black Frat, and they accept them; The Alpha Betas burn the word "Nerds" in front of their house (ala a cross), and throw bricks though their windows telling them to go away; plus much more.

Now, I know I'm not making points that haven’t already been brought out before, but that's not the point...what I really wanted to say about the movie was what pissed me off about it--specifically that the hot girl, Betty, decides to dump her jock Alpha-Beta boyfriend for a Nerd, just because he's good in bed. Now, aren't the Nerds suppose to be smart? Doesn't Lewis realize that she's just using him for sex and that she feels no feelings toward him what-so-ever? Maybe he just doesn’t care? Anyway, that's one hell of a message to send: Girls like you only for sex. That's almost as bad as the end of Grease: If you want to get the guy, be a slut.
Now that I think about it, if they were making a race commentary with that scene as well, then it is both hilarious and ridiculously offensive. It's hilarious because the stereotype of black men having huge dicks is being saddled with Nerds are good at sex and that by just having sex with a black man/Nerd, the white girl will instantly regret any previous sex with someone of less quality. You know, "Once you go black, you never go back"? That thing. It's offensive though because basically the movie says that that's the only reason why a hot girl would fall for a Nerd or white girl fall for a black guy. Apparently they have no other redeeming qualities.

I just finished reading Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragones' Fanboy graphic novel. It was pretty damn good. If you're a comic book nerd, or a fan of DC comics or of most of the classic artists, then you need to pick it up. It's hilarious, and true (mostly).

Being sick has allowed me to watch two classic cult shows that I never got the chance to really watch before hand. The Diana Rigg version of the Avengers and the original Star Trek. Now, I've seen both these shows before, but I guess I just never cared enough about either to really look at them and give them a chance. My Dad had a few VHS cassettes of the British spy show the Avengers, so I figured I might as well watch them while I'm sick (since Netflix suspended my account temporarily), since I can't really do anything else. I know that Patrick McNee's John Steed was a regular in the cast for almost the entirety of the show (a few first season episodes aside) and that he even came back for the short lived 1970s revival, but his (mostly) female counterparts changed quite a few times during the show’s 1961 to 1969 run. The most well known of his partners, and my favorite (and apparently my Dad's favorite too since he doesn't have an episode with anyone else) was the beautiful Diana Rigg as Emma Peel. The sexual tension between the two was the highlight of many episodes, especially the ones that boarder lined on plain silly in concept (super-intelligent robots taking over Parliament to make decisions for us? C'mon). Now while I have seen a few episodes with other female leads (Rigg's predecessor Honor Blackman being one), I really just can't imagine the show without the Steed/Peel chemistry. These two worked so well together; they acted like lovers but never got into bed (at least on camera)...that was the kind of mistake that ruined great shows like Moonlighting and the X-Files (well, bad writing and Robert Patrick ruined that). When the two leads finally do sleep together, you ruin all the sexual tension, and all the reasons for tuning in. Frankly, I could care less about Maddie and David after they fucked on Moonlighting. And Mulder and Scully...in that final episode when they kissed...no! For a show that's about the unexpected, that was the thing that everyone was expecting, but no one wanted! Anyway, check out some Emma Peel era Avengers.

Oh, I just realized Emma Peel is a pun. Emma Peel=M Appeal, or better known as MAN Appeal. Something Diana Rigg certainly had.

Now the original Star Trek. I like to thank TV Land for airing a marathon of the show, so I could finally watch some episodes. I have to say, I did enjoy them. I'm surprised how many episodes did not even take place in space, as well as how many actually had ironic morals for the real world (so many episodes were meant to make you think of the current situations and events of the 60s in a new light). The episode "City at the End of Time" was probably one of the best episodes I watched and made me laugh quite a few times. I was shocked. Now what does this make me. I'm certainly not a Trekkie. I'm also not running out to buy the show on DVD. I still say Star Wars is better too. It's a shame there's a stigma attached to Star Trek.


Michael Richards racist outbursts at the LA comedy club The Laugh Factory might have been the funniest things to come out of a LA Comics mouth ever.

Also since when does Michael Richards do stand up? I mean, I know his career was in the shitter, but stand up? Can't Weird Al make another movie or something?

Movies I still havent seen, but want to:
Casino Royal
Borat
The Fountain
The Departed

Maybe when I get money.

That new trailer for Spiderman 3 looks amazing. I can't wait for that movie. I hate Venom, and I never thought a movie with him would work, but Goddamn, it looks like Sam Raimi did it right. And friggen Sandman looks awesome!

Ok, that's it. I can hear my TV playing the theme song to Innuasha*, so I know I'm up too late. I can't breath through my nose, but I'm gonna try to sleep anyway.

*How the hell is it spelt anyway?

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

America becomes stupider every time it watches Carlos Mencia

America becomes stupider every time it watches Carlos Mencia.

Watching his show makes me sick…so I don't watch it. Instead I have to hear about it from everyone of my friends who watch it and think he's genius. I should expect just as much out of them…these are the same people who thought "Crash" was a comedy.

Forget about the obvious comments about Comedy Central just giving a show to every minority they can, because it is acceptable to be racist if you're a minority. Forget about that. The problem is that these shows are just making people more racist. I think it was on 'Inside the Actors Studio' where Dave Chappelle said he needs to tweak his comedy because all it's doing is allowing white frat boys to say 'nigga' all the time. What was suppose to make fun of the stereotypes has just become flat out racism.

Maybe it's just the audience like Chappelle was talking about. Who watched 'Chappelle's' Show'? It was mostly college students. White college students. White college students who came to school expecting to be like Will Ferrell's character in "Old School". Dave Chappelle is a really funny guy, but all Chappelle's show did was turn his comedy into something it wasn't. Remember that genius skit on his first show, the black KKK member? Well, the irony of that was of course the fact he was black and a Klan member. Now, transpose that into college life where every-other-word out of some peoples mouths is "I'm Rick James Bitch!". They idolize Chappelle and the Klan skit is like their "Duck Soup". They hold it up as the essence of comedy and try to imitate it in any way. The ironic racism of Chappelle has turned into the real racism of his followers.

But I've gotten off topic. I was saying how much I hate Carlos Mencia. I'll leave that for another time.