OMG I WANT THIS AMAZING RONALDINHO BOTTLE OPENER

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Prove it.

― aimurchie, Friday, 23 March 2007 23:13 (seventeen years ago) link

i used to be able to. then i chipped one of my molars.

haven't looked at the rest of this thread. did i miss much?

[ducks]

― grimly fiendish, Friday, 23 March 2007 23:35 (seventeen years ago) link

Dan, I know what it means, thanks, which is why I was able to point out you're completely wrong.

― Mark C, Friday, 23 March 2007 23:40 (seventeen years ago) link

fwiw, I thought Nabisco said something rather illuminating in the Asian Representations thread:

I think the big US/UK difference in representation is not only that the UK has a much more significant subcontinental population, but also that you guys are well past the point where lots and lots of those people are British-born and integrated into society and really very well maybe "just like white British people, with only skin color setting them apart" or whatever was said up there. Whereas I think the US is just getting to that transition over the past years. Up until some point in the 80s, the image of people from the subcontinent would definitely be as an immigrant population, including lots of urban clusters in "stereotypical" new-immigrant jobs (like cab driving or whatever) -- but very shortly after that, for TONS of younger people, the main face of, say, Indians mostly involves the children of middle-class immigrants dotted around suburbs and totally integrated into America. Which is more the Harold and Kumar vision, and most anyone that age that goes to college is going to be completely used to seeing Indians that way. (Cf the same transition in thinking/expectations/stereotypes of East Asians happening a lot earlier.)

(In fact even way pre-Kumar teen movies integrated that kind of role into them, though often in kind of a goofy way -- like it's not a coincidence that Harold is the uptight one and Kumar's depicted as the weirdo instigator -- or often in terms of kids of immigrants being wealthy/fancy, like the "Persian mafia" in Clueless. Anyway point being young Americans have totally grown up for a while now not feeling TOO much difference between themselves and the children of immigrants their parents would think of as distinctly foreign.)

nabisco on Friday, 23 March 2007 20:40

Though I sit firmly in the camp that the bottle opener's place in a lineage of racist imagery makes it a terrible move on the part of the manufacturer, and that there is a certain level of disingenuousness coming from certain posters here, I think Nabisco makes an interesting point that might put this discussion in new light.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 23 March 2007 23:46 (seventeen years ago) link

But ha, Hoos, it's not like you're claiming SPAIN or the UK have so fully integrated a large Afro-Brazilian population that they don't think about these things anymore. (And P.S. on that other thread it's precisely BECAUSE the British feel they've integrated Hindus into society that they're sensitive about convenience-store cliches and comedy accents!)

― nabisco, Friday, 23 March 2007 23:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Does the handsome football player get to have an opinion?

― aimurchie, Friday, 23 March 2007 23:56 (seventeen years ago) link

Hoos, who is being disingenuous here? The people who seem to have been responsible for the outrage genuinely believe what they're saying - they're expressing surprise and astonishment at the strength of the racist reading of the bottle opener, not because they're racists themselves but because in our culture there's a lot less tangible expression of blackness in terms of history, identity, conflict etc etc. It exists, of course, but outside a couple of concrete examples which have existed within our lifetimes - the Black and White Minstrel Show, say, and Robinson's Golliwogs - we're less programmed to recognise these things.

So it's naive, definitely, ignorant, possibly, but most of all symbolic of a different culture. It's pretty much the definition of ingenuous, which is why I'm baffled that Dan throws around what is actually a pretty insulting word, all the more because he couldn't be more wrong.

― Mark C, Saturday, 24 March 2007 00:06 (seventeen years ago) link

they're expressing surprise and astonishment at the strength of the racist reading of the bottle opener, not because they're racists themselves but because in our culture there's a lot less tangible expression of blackness in terms of history, identity, conflict etc etc. It exists, of course, but outside a couple of concrete examples which have existed within our lifetimes - the Black and White Minstrel Show, say, and Robinson's Golliwogs - we're less programmed to recognise these things.

I think you are absolutely correct here, Mark. What I'm referring to, and perhaps disingenousness is the wrong word here, is an attitude of incredulity (mostly displayed early in the thread) that this product has racist undertones. I'm inclined to believe that anyone who doesn't recognize this product's place in a racist lineage and that it thereby has racist undertones is either (as you say)

A) naive
B) ignorant
C) unable to comprehend because of cultural background
D) disingenous

I tend to give ILXors enough credit that I wouldn't consider anyone on this thread naive or ignorant, so obviously we're dealing with C or D here. Though Ethan, for example, might be playing at implying racism because he seems to enjoy that kind of thing, I don't think anyone here is seriously suggesting that the British on this thread are latently racist because of their inability to recognize the egregious racism in the product.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 24 March 2007 00:20 (seventeen years ago) link

Although to clarify, I don't think you're absolutely right that "they're expressing surprise and astonishment at the strength of the racist reading of the bottle opener," a good portion of the British here are expressing disagreement with the idea that there are racist undertones to the bottle opener. That's the rub. If it was simply "wow, i hadn't considered that (for whatever reason)" (which I heard from a measly two posters) I'd be silent. But from a good portion of posters we're getting IT'S JUST A BOTTLE OPENER OMG GET OVER IT. I donh't think that should stand.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 24 March 2007 00:33 (seventeen years ago) link

I agree with you but I'm not sure who you're referring to (I have read the whole thread, but only once). The people who have been the primary movers on the "what's the fuss" side, like LJ and Ailsa, HAVE recognised the inherent racism.

You have to understand that when a British follower of football (who's not, for the sake of argument, a racist) is asked to consider the things they notice about Ronaldinho's appearance, the importance of various facets goes something like this:

(our of 100)
Big teeth: 98
Happy smile: 10
Long hair: 5
Sleepy eyes: 4
Muscular physique: 3
Blackness: 1

We know he's black; but in the context we know him - which is as one of the most talented footballers ever, whose games and goals we've seen countless times, who we've read about, admired, laughed at - the fact he's black is a virtual non-issue (this isn't disingenuous - it's true, though I can well understand why it's hard to imagine this). It really, honestly, truly is.

There are some Americans on this thread - and not all, as many do know well the footballer Ronaldinho - for whom the thread subject is first and foremost a black man whose most obvious physical feature is one uncomfortably reminiscent of a feature that has been caricatured in an overtly racist way for centuries. So of course they read it differently.

― Mark C, Saturday, 24 March 2007 00:51 (seventeen years ago) link

from what i understand, i am white. but that's just what people tell me. i don't see colors.

― modestmickey, Saturday, 24 March 2007 01:11 (seventeen years ago) link

The people who have been the primary movers on the "what's the fuss" side, like LJ and Ailsa, HAVE recognised the inherent racism.

I'm finding it nearly impossible to square "what's the fuss?" with 'recognising the inherent racism'.

― Matt DC, Saturday, 24 March 2007 01:28 (seventeen years ago) link

No.
He's gorgeous, whether or not he plays a sport.

I'm sorry, how is he black? He's brown.
His most obvious physical feature is probably his leg(s,) since that's what keeps the fans cheering.
It's a virtual non-issue that he is of multi racial ethnic descent?

I can't believe I'm engaging in this debate, but...
MarkC you are claiming him as if the UK owns him!
That's kind of creepy!

― aimurchie, Saturday, 24 March 2007 01:33 (seventeen years ago) link

It's a virtual non-issue that he is of multi racial ethnic descent?

uh ethnicity != race

― Curt1s Stephens, Saturday, 24 March 2007 01:36 (seventeen years ago) link

a black man whose most obvious physical feature is one uncomfortably reminiscent of a feature that has been caricatured in an overtly racist way for centuries

Clarification: it's not that big-teeth caricatures alone have a racist history, it's that grotesque little "comical" figurines of exaggerated non-white people (including, yes, certain mouth things) designed as decorative knick-knacks or to do household work have that history.

If people acknowledge that tacky resemblance, then I'm not sure what they're arguing for on this thread. The reason Horseshoe made that "covering your ass" comment way upthread is that it seems like people's fear of being labeled racists for liking the figurine (which incidentally I don't think anyone has accused anyone of) have them scrambling to dismiss the idea that its contextual weirdness is even worth noting. If those people said "oh, I guess I can see why it's bothersome to some people, even though that wasn't really foremost in my mind," then I don't think there'd be any argument (and I don't think anyone would accuse them of anything at all over it, except just having a different experience and level of attention to these things).

― nabisco, Saturday, 24 March 2007 01:40 (seventeen years ago) link

otm

although if a friend of yours had this at home AND the michael jordan pestle it would be kind of fucked up

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 24 March 2007 01:52 (seventeen years ago) link

*sigh*

nabisco otm.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 24 March 2007 01:53 (seventeen years ago) link

what i find astonishing is the idea that britain is somehow "over" race in a way the US is not, given that britain continued to administrate and rule nations full of millions of people with different color skin well into the 20th century; ok britain managed to abolish slavery some 60 years before the US did, and never depended on slavery AT HOME the way the US did, but sheesh, to think that britain's colonial arrangements which in many ways dwarfed anything the US accomplished in terms of long-term institutions of control and droit de signeur, which retained a sort of revolting air of COZINESS to it that the US never bothered with, to think that britain has moved on from the fucked-upness of all this (which included and includes much the same boring litany of dehumanization, objectification and otherizing) just seems like wishful thinking to me; the willful protestations otherwise on this thread just back up this view of mine, i'm afraid

am i wrong in thinking that many of the migrants from india - and the west indies, and africa, you know, all those GOOD BUDDIES of britain - were from the upper classes of the colonized, i.e. members of the elite echelons of the civil service, partners with their british colonial rulers, who were making a trip to the colonial mothership in order to a) further their education b) make more money c) get the hell out of their messed-up neighborhoods? because those are pretty different seeds to sow for a migrant community - even if it was only 20% of colonial migration or whatever - than the US model of just shackling people up and sending them to mississippi and south carolina. and would have different consequences for the subsequent generations, both in how those migrants feel about their adopted homeland and how the people already there feel about them.

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 24 March 2007 01:53 (seventeen years ago) link

(and i mean that in a 'dammit why couldn't i have said it that way' sense)

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 24 March 2007 01:53 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah nabisco's posts are rough like that

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 24 March 2007 01:58 (seventeen years ago) link

it's a rough ol' thread, guys

― gbx, Saturday, 24 March 2007 02:03 (seventeen years ago) link

am i wrong in thinking that many of the migrants from india - and the west indies, and africa, you know, all those GOOD BUDDIES of britain - were from the upper classes of the colonized, i.e. members of the elite echelons of the civil service, partners with their british colonial rulers, who were making a trip to the colonial mothership in order to a) further their education b) make more money c) get the hell out of their messed-up neighborhoods?

Not really. The majority of British immigrants came over in the 40s and 50s after the British government put out a "we need workers" request in the colonies. This explains why areas of Britian that were bombed during WWII (London and the Midlands, mainly) have much higher immigration numbers than the north. These guys weren't the elite at all, they were just rank and file workers who ended up getting jobs as bus conductors, cleaners, dustmen... basically all the jobs the post-war English didn't want to do.

What you may be getting confused with is Britian's Indian population does have a lot of middle and upper class immigrants who came via Uganda, after Amin's antics in the 70s.

― Dom Passantino, Saturday, 24 March 2007 02:04 (seventeen years ago) link

View source to see the Tracer quote i inserted into a picture tag instead.

― Dom Passantino, Saturday, 24 March 2007 02:06 (seventeen years ago) link

And all I'm saying is that we should be celebrating Ronaldinho's legs and feet - since he is such a great football player - and pay less attention to his teeth -which is stupid because the guy is very handsome!
The bottle opener is stupid, and I hope people didn't buy it. It's racist and ugly - and, stupid!
Has Ronaldinho himself weighed in on the bottle opener? That's what I want to know. Also, he had great hair in a few of the photos posted above.

"Ronaldinho sits at a baccarat table in St. Moritz while studying the ILX thread about him. Hmmm, he says - perhaps I SHOULD take that offer in the Los Angeles. But perhaps not.I llick my teeth with anticipation."

― aimurchie, Saturday, 24 March 2007 02:13 (seventeen years ago) link

<em>what i find astonishing is the idea that britain is somehow "over" race in a way the US is not</em>

FWIW, I don't think this is something any Briton with any sense would suggest.

― caek, Saturday, 24 March 2007 02:37 (seventeen years ago) link

damn this thread!

so late no one will read this but: i think it's obvious the bottle opener is racist (im not only american, but a southerner--that's my context).

on the other hand, we can agree probably that there are NO representations that are in-and-of-themselves racist. it's impossible for a representation to be racist without some cultural or historical context which makes it so. there is no a priori racist iconography.

what seems to be the crux here, then, is that some people are shocked at other people for not sharing or being blithely ignorant of the contexts which make the bottle opener racist, and those who choose to ignore or remain ignorant of this context are aghast that they might be expected to be aware of it.

what makes it difficult for me in judging cases like this is that i am often honestly not sure sometimes if something is racist or not (when in doubt, it probably is!) and if pressed on something like the bottle opener (which issues from a cultural context i dont know much about) i could only answer: "it depends".

― ryan, Saturday, 24 March 2007 02:40 (seventeen years ago) link

ha but every time i scroll to the top of this thread i think "damn that's racist!"

― ryan, Saturday, 24 March 2007 02:42 (seventeen years ago) link

dom yeah that makes more sense, i don't know why i thought that.

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 24 March 2007 02:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Wittgenstein takes it!

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 24 March 2007 02:52 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost that is

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 24 March 2007 02:52 (seventeen years ago) link

also id just like to throw out my opinion that the idea of "latent" racism doesn't make a lick of sense and should pretty much go away forever!

― ryan, Saturday, 24 March 2007 03:08 (seventeen years ago) link

the idea of "latent" racism doesn't make a lick of sense

How are you defining latent racism?

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 24 March 2007 03:42 (seventeen years ago) link

lol this thread. i've never been so consistently entertained by reading five or so randomly chosen posts since dave matthews band, why are they so bad and hated.

― strgn, Saturday, 24 March 2007 03:53 (seventeen years ago) link

HOOSten, we have a problem!

― Wrinklepaws, Saturday, 24 March 2007 03:54 (seventeen years ago) link

how to google-trap football hooligans?

― strgn, Saturday, 24 March 2007 03:56 (seventeen years ago) link

omg hi-five strongo

― Wrinklepaws, Saturday, 24 March 2007 03:58 (seventeen years ago) link

Can't see how this is rascist...as i doubt the people who sat down to design the bottle opener were thinking to continue the stereotypes from the Darkie toothpaste etc. upthread, rather it's Ronaldinho they were looking to represent. it would be hard to over estimate how much of a big deal this guy is in football around the world, if this isn't your frame of reference then i geuss it sets off rascism warning bells.

Does anyone actually have anything like this? I mean i had a pair of John Barnes shin pads, but a bottle opener, well that's a different league!

― optimus, Saturday, 24 March 2007 05:05 (seventeen years ago) link

what i find astonishing is the idea that britain is somehow "over" race in a way the US is not, given that britain continued to administrate and rule nations full of millions of people with different color skin well into the 20th century

Tracer otm; I will admit that this notion gives me the wig and it's probably why I kept posting basically the same thing in this thread repeatedly. I'd wager that there are plenty of nonwhite Britons with ancestral connections to former British colonies that don't think Britain is over race.

― horseshoe, Saturday, 24 March 2007 05:12 (seventeen years ago) link

i dont think anyone is suggesting britain is over race. i think people are suggesting that britain and america have different histories in regard to race, which means that different images and representations will have different contexts, and that some will seem much worse and more powerful in one setting than another, and vice versa

cf, for example, there are many such representations that neither brits or americans would recognise (how familiar are we with turkish representations of armenians?)

― 600, Saturday, 24 March 2007 07:14 (seventeen years ago) link

I can't believe I'm engaging in this debate, but...
MarkC you are claiming him as if the UK owns him!
That's kind of creepy!

No, I'm not claiming him for the UK at all. If you want to see my posts as making a claim at all, it's as a football fan - as you made clear, it's as a footballer that he's beloved.

― Mark C, Saturday, 24 March 2007 09:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Thank you, Mark C, for putting what I wanted to say better than I ever could!

― unfished business, Saturday, 24 March 2007 12:27 (seventeen years ago) link

i think my favorite strand of argument here is "ronaldinho is very famous and well-liked, so how could this be racist"

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 24 March 2007 12:33 (seventeen years ago) link

what i find astonishing is the idea that britain is somehow "over" race in a way the US is not

No-one's saying that. Some British people != Britain, neither do some US people = the US.

If those people said "oh, I guess I can see why it's bothersome to some people, even though that wasn't really foremost in my mind," then I don't think there'd be any argument (and I don't think anyone would accuse them of anything at all over it, except just having a different experience and level of attention to these things).

Will I look like I'm trying to defend myself too much if I say "of course I understand why people think this is racist even if I myself do not" (which I have done since way early in this thread, even though I haven't felt I needed to say it)? What would also be nice is if people who *do* see this as racist above anything else could perhaps give a little more credence to those of us who don't, and understand (especially when myself, Mark, Onimo, several others) have clearly explained our thought processes as to why we see it as a fairly effective parody of a well-known and easily-parodied figure and not as OMG RACIST.

His most obvious physical feature is probably his leg(s,) since that's what keeps the fans cheering.

Spot the person who doesn't watch football!

― ailsa, Saturday, 24 March 2007 12:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Er, misplaced parentheses and unended sentence there. I meant:

"...and understand (especially when myself, Mark, Onimo & several others have clearly explained our thought processes as to why we see it as a fairly effective parody of a well-known and easily-parodied figure and not as OMG RACIST) that it is not a signifier of any sort of racism inherent in any of us or in the UK as a whole".

Can some Australians or something please have an opinion so as to stop making this so UK vs US (even though some UK ILXors are disagreeing with some of the others, so it isn't anyway).

― ailsa, Saturday, 24 March 2007 12:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Muscular physique: 3

After taking over fellow Brazilian Ronaldo's mantle as best player in the world, then his buck tooth throne, he is now being accused of being too fat:

http://www.theoffside.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/ronaldinho-fat.jpg

― onimo, Saturday, 24 March 2007 12:52 (seventeen years ago) link

(if that's fat I wish I was)

― onimo, Saturday, 24 March 2007 12:53 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, as well as the US/UK divide there's been a second, complicating one, the soccer fan/non soccer fan schism. that the two have largely overlapped has caused no little confusion/anger.

I'm finding it nearly impossible to square "what's the fuss?" with 'recognising the inherent racism'.

Except we haven't 'recognised the inherent racism'. 'Inherent' racism would imply that the bottle-opener is in itself a racist artefact, an item designed to identify itself with racism. My argument throughout has been that it is not, but that its SIMILARITY to ACTUAL racist memorabilia has, understandably, caused consternation in more than a few people.

― unfished business, Saturday, 24 March 2007 12:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Though the before and after does suggest he's enjoying the good life.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/3421/dinhoam9.jpg

― onimo, Saturday, 24 March 2007 12:55 (seventeen years ago) link

haha you guys - ailsa, onimo, lj, barry - it makes no diff whether ronaldinho is good at soccer or not, or whether he is beloved or not

it also makes no diff whether you yourself personally thought "this bottle opener is weirdly suspect" when you saw it, or not, so there is nothing to "defend yourself" about

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 24 March 2007 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link

hes a tubby lad these days isnt he?

anyway, just as the mantle has gone from ronaldo to ronaldinho, so it goes to (cristiano) ronaldo?

― 600, Saturday, 24 March 2007 14:50 (seventeen years ago) link

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