Louie (Louis C.K.'s show on FX)

or queen's "bohemian rhapsody" for that matter

while i loved it, the scene seemed like it was written to get coverage on the various dailywh.at/greader dailies

the actress >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the nasty old witch she played

i had to google the phrase:

http://urbansemiotic.com/2007/10/09/hand-me-that-bowl-of-nigger-toes/

back when i was in a band, we used to keep a big bag of brazil nuts inside the van at all times. whenever someone saw it, invariably they would say "you know what my grandma calls them?" by the end of the tour, it p much became the way one white person in every city had a safe way to say the n-word

that phrase never made it into my family, thankfully. but i don't remember my grandparents ever keeping bowls of brazil nuts around.

my grandparents did, but i never heard them called that. maybe it wasn't a british thing?

i love the song, all of the versions

even this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPJrCYJ9UPk

Thought this episode was the weakest yet this season, but it still had some great moments. The whole racist great aunt thing could have been written and acted better imo. Didn't really care for the conclusion of it, either, I guess. Just kind of a not particularly witty "lol old ppl can be pretty racist" bit. The end where they were talking to the actress between scenes was my favorite part of the episode.

i think modern family (which i watch and like) is actually a funnier show than louis most of the time.
but louie isn't so much a comedy as it is an experiment and i really fucking savor each episode.
i know so little about the who that when he did the "who are you bit" i was sure it was cheesy production music for the first minute and was shocked he would pull so corny a gag.

I did love that the moment that Louie gave the okay to his daughters to interrogate their great aunt about her racism + history, she dies. As if to say that you can never really get close to this historically situated mindset -- you can never really understand it. It'll always be distant, incomprehensible, unaccessible. (Just like presumably one day there will be things we do that future generations will find incomprehensible and for us it may seem totally okay, or even at least understandable.)

xxpost

Just kind of a not particularly witty "lol old ppl can be pretty racist" bit

i think you're missing the point. I think the real action was him totally lost in how to quietly explain to his daughter that what Aunt Ellen was saying is wrong, but please just let it slide for now

the credit roll interview was great

Just kind of a not particularly witty "lol old ppl can be pretty racist" bit.

old people's antiquated perspectives aren't necessarily funny, but what is funny are younger generations being confused and repelled by them. and this episode used the daughters to demonstrate two such equally-powerful incidences of generation gap repulsion: one involving strange and confusing racism as a byproduct of cultures past, and one involving strange and confusing music as a byproduct of cultures past.

loved the Mark Twain bit - if I ever have kids I'll forever remember to read them Tom Sawyer but not Huckleberry Finn.

he's a racist filthy homeless boy

just realized gummo was totally based on hick finn

er, huck, but same diff

loved the tom sawyer bit but the english major in me was like tom sawyer is so much more of an asshole than huck finn could ever be! <3 u huck.

the kid who plays louie's younger daughter is so cute.

this episode used the daughters to demonstrate two such equally-powerful incidences of generation gap repulsion: one involving strange and confusing racism as a byproduct of cultures past, and one involving strange and confusing music as a byproduct of cultures past.

^well said

Seconded.

the who are louie's grand funk railroad.

The wild, shirtless lyrics of Pete Townshend! The bone-rattling bass of John Entwistle! The competent drumwork of Keith Moon!

hahaha

wouldve preferred a 30 min interview w/ the aunt actress like over the credits tbh

the kid who plays louie's younger daughter is so bored.

A girlfriend of mine once told me that her ex used that term for Brazil nuts. He was otherwise v. liberal but for some reason it never occurred to him that the term he learned from his family had racist implications; IIRC he wasn't even aware that there was another word for them.

but louie isn't so much a comedy as it is an experiment and i really fucking savor each episode.

p much. I can't recall any other show where I've tuned in to just ~see what happens~. not plot-wise (there isn't one), but just, like, in general.

I guess maybe stuff like wonder showzen or tim&eric but I've seen maybe two episodes of each, and neither is as rewarding as Louie

for some reason it never occurred to him that the term he learned from his family had racist implications; IIRC he wasn't even aware that there was another word for them.

o_O

Yeah, it boggles the mind. Maybe she misrepresented it to me?

am i the only american on the thread who had never heard that term before? i'm not saying that to brag about coming from an un-racist family (which isn't entirely true; my grandma would say well-meaning but clueless things like "the maid is a black lady, but she's very nice"), i'm just amazed that america is so vast that some of us have these shared experiences re cultural history and some don't.

which is to say, there is no *one* american history

this episode of Louis was the very first time I had heard of it

i've never heard it and also not a stranger to family members saying awkward racially insensitive things. might be a regional thing.

i've never heard it but I'm not white and my family isn't American so maybe that explains it...

fwiw I'm in texas but not a part of it that one would consider 'the south'

I've definitely heard it, though not from my own family.

The experience I shared is the only time I'd heard it.

i'm bible belt southern and had never heard that before

have lived all over the midwest and the first time I heard the term was in California

have only ever heard it ref'd as a dated term

same here, it was someone explaining that one of their parents said it

Grew up in Santa Cruz, so of course I've never ever heard that. Love the monologue about "If they brush their fucking teeth, and put on their goddamn pajamas, we get to read a book."

I heard it from my mom years ago when we were talking about the fact that what I believe are now called Licorice Bears (jelly black licorice candies) were called n babies when she was growing up. NB at 72 she's on "older" mom for someone my age but obv I was till shocked and it sparked a discussion about racist terms that were nbd when she was growing up during which she told me about the brazeil nuts thing.

err Brazil

brazil nuts sold by ron popeil

there's a slap chop joke in there somewhere but i'm gonna abstain

recent reddit thread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/ixbfg/til_that_brazil_nuts_were_also_called_nigger_toes/

looks like most of the people who use the n-toes phrase are 70+ years old.

Just to be clear - my mom doesn't actually use either that or the other thing for licorice bears I mentioned. She was just telling me about how when she was growing up those were "acceptable" terms.

my grandmother used n-toes without irony.

but then her racial politics made johnny rebel look like nelson mandella.

i need to ask my mom (in her mid 60s) if she ever heard it. she grew up in brooklyn and queens.