There's an 800-page thread on another messageboard I frequent consisting of mugshots taken from the local county jail. Definitely a casual indictment of the human race, from drunk frat boys to drunk sorority girls (who aren't aware of Facebook privacy settings) to dudes who lift TVs who happen to be black to parole violators who happen to have swastikas tattooed in their ears.
Makes me slightly queasy, but I have to say it makes me laugh a lot more. Bet you all didn't know I was frogbs in real life.
― pplains, Saturday, 5 May 2012 22:11 (eleven years ago) link
An acquaintance of mine runs a tattoo parlor and offers a $50 coupon for anyone who's featured in that week's issue.
lol that guy rules
― cosi fan whitford (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, 5 May 2012 22:12 (eleven years ago) link
dudes who lift TVs who happen to be black
― (Name Withheld to Avoid Hassle) (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 6 May 2012 16:31 (eleven years ago) link
your tv is a who?
― Aimless, Sunday, 6 May 2012 17:11 (eleven years ago) link
DJP's "I read that modifier intentionally wrong" punchlines aren't for everyone
― suidavyvan eht nioj (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, 6 May 2012 17:22 (eleven years ago) link
TVs aren't who.
― pplains, Sunday, 6 May 2012 18:24 (eleven years ago) link
tv never her
― l0u1s j0rdan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 7 May 2012 15:46 (eleven years ago) link
"Is This Racist?" Chronicle of Higher Ed blog bullshit update!
http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/a-note-to-readers/46608
hack overboard!
― goole, Tuesday, 8 May 2012 04:50 (eleven years ago) link
http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptusnhlexperts/ArrchVZCIAIJOjX.jpg
― Godzilla vs. Rodan Rodannadanna (The Yellow Kid), Tuesday, 8 May 2012 04:55 (eleven years ago) link
Godzilla vs. Rodan Rodannadanna vs. The Black Guy vs. The Yellow Kid
― listicular fortitude (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, 8 May 2012 07:23 (eleven years ago) link
tv never her --l0u1s j0rdan (upper mississippi sh@kedown)
Ty
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 8 May 2012 17:39 (eleven years ago) link
Also whiney otm re djp
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 8 May 2012 17:40 (eleven years ago) link
― goole, Tuesday, May 8, 2012 12:50 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Kind of vindicates whoever said (iatee?) that posting this stuff can help serve as a suggest-ban engine.
― Scott, bass player for Tenth Avenue North (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 8 May 2012 17:47 (eleven years ago) link
national review and nypost are all crying martyr as we speak
― goole, Tuesday, 8 May 2012 17:48 (eleven years ago) link
of course they are. nypost especially are the ultimate troll.
http://www.cryptomundo.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Troll-Hunter-feature-massive-trolls-in-Norway.jpeg
^^^nypost
― a la bouquet marmoset (Austerity Ponies), Tuesday, 8 May 2012 17:53 (eleven years ago) link
is that from trollhunter?
― the late great, Tuesday, 8 May 2012 17:56 (eleven years ago) link
oh man that just made me think about abiyoyo, which I haven't thought about since approx 4th grade
― dayo, Tuesday, 8 May 2012 17:56 (eleven years ago) link
totally troll hunter
― a la bouquet marmoset (Austerity Ponies), Tuesday, 8 May 2012 18:04 (eleven years ago) link
The headline for the nypost is an attempt at being more inflamatory than whatsherface's blog entry on brainstorm.com.whatever. But that's the whole idea. They're like a two-year-old banging pots together.
― a la bouquet marmoset (Austerity Ponies), Tuesday, 8 May 2012 18:05 (eleven years ago) link
So I have actually been meaning to ask this on ILX for a while, and I think it makes a genuinely good discussion topic, not just "ew look at these racists" -- Is 30 Rock racist? Has their been discussion of this in 30 Rock threads?
― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Monday, 14 May 2012 18:40 (eleven years ago) link
idk. Donald Glover called Tina Fey "the most not-racist person ever" on WTF.
― raw feel vegan (silby), Monday, 14 May 2012 18:41 (eleven years ago) link
Liz Lemon as a character is pretty racist, yes
― Roger Barfing (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 14 May 2012 18:42 (eleven years ago) link
30 Rock has probably amassed the smartest collection of racial humor in the past 10 years besides like The Chappelle's Show, they've pretty much zinged everyone including themselves/their network already on any angle you could come at them with
― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, 14 May 2012 18:45 (eleven years ago) link
A few things that spring to mind:
1) Running jokes about Twofer's Harvard ed and implied AA (both, iirc, in Harvard acceptance AND his job. "It's a joke" seems to mask the fact that the implication is, in fact, that there would be no black writers on the staff but for AA (although I guess you could argue that this is a critique of the system and not of black people?). It's not as though he's presented as less intelligent than the rest of the staff, but I also get a faint whiff of "uppity" in his characterization maybe?
2) Tracy Morgan -- I mean there's just a pretty fine line to walk with a character like this and I think maybe it crosses into minstrelsy sometimes, especially in the context of no other black performers on TGS
3) Dotcom -- I'm on the fence about this. The show definitely plays the "turns out to be smart" for humor, but the humor may stem from him being the big tough entourage bouncer type who turns out to be articulate and sensitive moreso than just his being black I guess?
I also feel like I catch other somewhat racially off jokes on the show a lot but nothing springs to mind atm.
― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Monday, 14 May 2012 18:48 (eleven years ago) link
i dunno where to even begin with that kind of selective memory and spectacular point-missing and humorlessness
― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, 14 May 2012 18:51 (eleven years ago) link
i believe Hurting is sincere but honestly questioning if 30 Rock is racist is kinda quintessentially what is fucked up about ilx in 2012
― Mordy, Monday, 14 May 2012 18:53 (eleven years ago) link
i think twofer is based on an actual white guy writer.
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 14 May 2012 18:54 (eleven years ago) link
mordy otm
― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, 14 May 2012 18:54 (eleven years ago) link
Hurting 2 otm. Tho yeah you could say Tracy is a meta example of the role of black comedians in modern American media.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:05 (eleven years ago) link
"you could say"? the character has been used exactly that way, explicity and implicity, a hundred times over the course of the show.
― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:07 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2VG53RIJ50
― (Name Withheld to Avoid Hassle) (forksclovetofu), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:13 (eleven years ago) link
xpost, Of course he is. But sometimes I think the laughs push past the boundaries of "meta" and into just laugh at the crazy dumb black guy territory.
― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:15 (eleven years ago) link
Sort of in the same way that "I'm Rick James bitch!" became the hallmark of the Chappelle show for a lot of the white audience (not that I think this is Chappelle's fault).
but what does that make Tracy Morgan? complicit tool of The Man making jokes about his race, or too dumb to even get that the joke is on him?
― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:19 (eleven years ago) link
Um, why would it have to be either? I'm not alleging that 30 Rock is some kind of evil plot to make black people look bad, I'm just saying that underneath all the "racial commentary" I sometimes get a sense of actual subtly racist attitudes.
― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:20 (eleven years ago) link
well the show is exec produced by Lorne Michaels, who doesn't have an especially great track record with black comedy/comedians on SNL, so it's not like the show is impervious to criticism. i just think of most of 30 Rock's race humor as more suggesting a dialogue or an awareness of those issues than simply playing them for laughs or being unaware of them entirely.
― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:23 (eleven years ago) link
can you give a specific examples? awful lot of generalities here
― judas, a homo (elmo argonaut), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:24 (eleven years ago) link
the recent live episode, which featured a whole insane flashback to '50s TV with Jon Hamm in blackface, explained by Kenneth: "NBC felt it would be too alarming to the audience to have more than one black man appear on the show at a time, a policy they continue to use today!"
granted, four black male cast members were in this segment so it can be seen as a bit of patting-themselves-on-the-back move, but it was still a pretty brutally hilarious moment imo
― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:29 (eleven years ago) link
Hurting 2 otm. Tho yeah you could say Tracy is a meta example of the role of black comedians in modern American media.― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Monday, May 14, 2012 12:05 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"you could say"? the character has been used exactly that way, explicity and implicity, a hundred times over the course of the show.― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, May 14, 2012 12:07 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Monday, May 14, 2012 12:05 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, May 14, 2012 12:07 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
using racist humor ostensibly to critique racism isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card though, right? family guy couches its blatant racism & misogyny in mockery of the idiocy of its characters, american culture and the human race in general. nevertheless, it's use of satire often comes off more as a cheap excuse than a legitimate justification. it often seems to use the protective cover afforded by "satirical intent" to get away with "lol dumb lazy mexicans" jokes.
not saying that 30 rock doing anything similar, but it seems like a fair question to ask. personally, i see tracy's buffoonishness as more absurd than mocking, and the ways they've addressed race wr2 twofer's character are so many-edged as resist any easy reduction to "racism".
but this is The Thread In Which I Am Often Wrong, so...
― The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to (contenderizer), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:32 (eleven years ago) link
I think most of the jokes around the Tracey Jordan character have to do with the fact that he is a crazy megalomaniac than with being black.
― He's sick of the Swiss. He don't like em. (Austerity Ponies), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:33 (eleven years ago) link
i dunno i just feel like i'm the only person in this convo who has seen more than a handful of episodes of the show and can recall many scenes in detail, pardon me if that makes me act a little overly confident in my side of the argument
― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:34 (eleven years ago) link
xpost well ok at least AP is here now
missing a "more" in that sentence
― He's sick of the Swiss. He don't like em. (Austerity Ponies), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:34 (eleven years ago) link
middle easterners seem to figure on 30 rock mostly as "sheiks" from whose sexual slavery jenna has escaped
― The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to (contenderizer), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:36 (eleven years ago) link
^ trolling
they did calibrate the hamm blackface to be suggestive rather than over-the-top like they did with the jenna blackface episode, which puts forth the idea that there is a tasteful amount of blackface, which I don't agree with. this really ties into a larger complaint about 30 rock that they've settled into a comfort zone.
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 14 May 2012 19:37 (eleven years ago) link
fwiw, i had questions about the episode in which it was at least implied that twofer was too "white" to get away with using the n-word. the idea that goofy "whiteness" might be the product of education and class seemed more a straight-up punchline in that episode than something that was being critiqued.
― The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to (contenderizer), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:39 (eleven years ago) link
which puts forth the idea that there is a tasteful amount of blackface
― Mordy, Monday, 14 May 2012 19:40 (eleven years ago) link
xp to my last: not that it wasn't funny. part of the joke was that twofer was trapped and damned by the unfair expectations and prejudices around him.
― The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to (contenderizer), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:41 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i mean that episode to me is a classic example of the show demonstrating an awareness of the dialogue surrounding that kind of plot rather than just tossing it out there for the crudest possible joke
― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, 14 May 2012 19:42 (eleven years ago) link