A new 30 Rock thread because I can't find the old one

x-post.

We discussed this in the Scrubs thread. Parnell was brilliant...I hope he becomes like a Dratch character...playing different roles in every episode. He's like Phil Hartman was on the Simpsons. Use him for any weirdo white guy character.

also awesome: Rachel Dratch's Barbra Walters.

Ha this was my favorite line

My other favorite Parnell moment...when Alec asks him to sponsor a product, he just says "sure" THEN asks what it does.

Grizz sadly saying, "WorldCom, man. WorldCom."

And later Tracy: "What is it with you and telecommunications?"

Tracy Morgan: (with mouthful of foodball) "Dr. Spaceman, is it true that bread eats away at your brain?" (POINTING TO HEAD GENIUS!)
Chris Parnell: "We have no way of knowing, because the powerful bread lobby won't let me complete my research"
(audience gasps)
TM: "Well, folks...(etc.)

Did Whoopi selling the machine in a foreign country remind anyone of Arrested Developements Corn Baller?

xpost

when i saw him do standup a couple years ago he bombed, entirely, and spent about 10 minutes talking about wiping (anal sex) blood off of his dick with the window curtains before leaving.

actually that sounds sort of funny, but it was a lot less funny at the time.

The what?

...

...

Maybe All in the Family, but I'm thinking along the lines of stuff like "Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23" where they're unapologetically self-centered assholes and that's like the fusion engine for every joke on the show.

I think a case that extreme is pretty rare even today. Archie Bunker surely no less terrible/unsympathetic than the characters in Seinfeld.

"I am not convinced this is a reasonable description of black actors doing blackface and/or mammy/coon roles."

To be clear I'm definitely asking and not trying to convince or challenge. But yeah I realized the at vs. with distinction doesn't make as much sense if we're talking about a real person doing blackface for an audience they're aware of.

xps

I'm very interested in what people on this thread think of Bamboozled

― shout-out to his family (DJP), Tuesday, June 23, 2020 10:55 AM (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

great movie

It was. And it was nixed pretty quickly afterward

― I hear that sometimes Satan wants to defund police (Neanderthal), Tuesday, June 23, 2020 9:36 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

nope, incorrect.

― Rik Waller-Bridge (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, June 23, 2020 12:38 PM bookmarkflaglink

My mistake, I was talking about the scenario DJP was. I don't remember the Lynn Swann ep

Sometimes I wonder if that show-about-jerks pretext arose as a response to comedy writers being told there were some jokes that weren't funny anymore... I watch and love a lot of those shows, but at some point (especially when the showrunners continue to be mostly white, mostly men) it starts to feel like a hack so they don't have to make more of an effort.

(although there were moments in the director's commentary that made me wonder for a split second if I was overestimating Lee. e.g. "one of the main reasons I did this scene was the name, 'Tommy Hilfiger'") xxp

The weird thing is there WERE things I found possibly offensive about 30 Rock that this does nothing about. The recurring joke about Toofer being a "two-fer: black and a Harvard grad" seemed more questionable to me, or iirc an affirmative action joke about a djsabled minority early on.

I think a case that extreme is pretty rare even today

It's Always Sunny?

I'm very interested in what people on this thread think of Bamboozled

oh man I just rewatched a couple weeks back. extremely rough around the edges and badly in need of an edit but undeniably powerful

This "controversy" is dumb. The use of blackface in these sketches was specifically pointed AGAINST the people appearing in blackface; it was never held up as a good or funny thing in and of itself.

Same goes for the With Bob & David sketch that Netflix pulled last week (in that case, Cross and Odenkirk objected, rather than instigating). One can see a case for, say, the Black Swan joke being trimmed, but pulling the entire live episode when the explicit text of those segments is that the Tracy Morgan character is demeaned and dehumanised to his face by this aspect of the entertainment industry is bonkers.

If I were writing a sitcom and came up with sketch along these lines, yeah, I would as a white dude very much ask myself

tbf it's more than possible that these jokes and sketches were generated by or developed with staff writers like Hannibal Buress, Donald Glover, Nina Pedra or Vali Chandrasekaran.

not sure what the difference is between this and, say, the joke that got shane gillis pre-fir3d from snl (the punchline in both is 'a character being racist')

no it isn't. HTH!

tbf it's more than possible that these jokes and sketches were generated by or developed with staff writers like Hannibal Buress, Donald Glover, Nina Pedra or Vali Chandrasekaran.

hannibal buress (1 "written by" credit) wrote for 30 rock for 6 months, Donald glover (2 "written by" credits) didn't write on the 5th or 6th seasons of 30 rock as he was starring on community (3 of the 4 blackface jokes are in those seasons), Nina pedrad (2 "written by" credits) didn't write on 30 rock when 2 of the 4 blackface episodes were written, neither did vali chandrakesan (6 "written by" credits).

the episodes with blackface jokes were either co-written by Tina fey (29 "written by" credits) with other white writers or "written by" white writers. all of these writers have more "written by" credits than all of the POC writers you mentioned, 2 of them have more "written by" credits than the POC writers you mentioned put together.

Thanks for checking the timelines (seriously), but I was just going off the obviously non-white names I remembered as being on the show (okay, I had to google to get Chandrakesan's name right), and my wording referred specifically to the fact that it was a heavily room-written series - just saying that I wouldn't automatically assume that no writers of melanin contributed to any given 30 Rock joke or premise.

(On the other hand, I have a vague memory that Buress may have been clued into the extent of Bill Cosby's crimes from Tina Fey when he worked on the show, rather than bringing the jokes about it in himself? Either way, as real-actual-idea-and-typing-writer or boss, her intentions were clearly to say "blackface is racist and bad.")

except there's one blackface gag where there is no reference to it being racist and bad, it's just a punchline

One can see a case for, say, the Black Swan joke being trimmed, but pulling the entire live episode when the explicit text of those segments is that the Tracy Morgan character is demeaned and dehumanised to his face by this aspect of the entertainment industry is bonkers.

I'd guess it's more a question of spending the money to re-edit the episodes to take out the questionable material (leaving in most of them at best a weird, disjointed episode) vs just removing them entirely.

xp. she was also head writer on snl for the aforementioned jimmy Fallon Chris rock blackface skit

when are they going to cancel this show?

Right, the easiest thing is to just pull the episode. No streaming service is going to pony up to pay someone for even the laziest editing, when they can just yank the whole thing.

is there a reason the "Jimmy Fallon as Chris Rock" bit is being brought up and not the multiple "Darrell Hammond as Jesse Jackson" ones?

did Tina Fey write the Darrell Hammond sketches?

she was also head writer on snl for the aforementioned jimmy Fallon Chris rock blackface skit

I have no desire to see this, but "approved Jimmy Fallon in blackface sketch" -> "wrote several jokes that were explicitly about blackface being shitty" -> "pulled entire episodes rather than have those jokes be misinterpreted" seems like the progression to note, rather than stopping at the step that happened two decades ago.


when are they going to cancel this show?

There's a new episode next month tbh, which could be part of her reason for getting the eps out of rotation right now.

When I heard about that journalist who got fired recently when it came out that she went to a party in blackface a few years ago as some kind of anti-Megyn Kelly joke, I thought that 30 Rock could done some good Jenna as resistance lib material.

The weird thing is there WERE things I found possibly offensive about 30 Rock that this does nothing about. The recurring joke about Toofer being a "two-fer: black and a Harvard grad" seemed more questionable to me, or iirc an affirmative action joke about a djsabled minority early on.

Found it: https://youtu.be/_K_gBjKqBLg

Unless there's a wrinkle I'm missing?

I receive that joke as a) a critique of the Old Boy network that elevates mediocre White men at the expense of others, b) a critique of how niche you need to be to advance to even be granted an interview for certain positions if you aren't a mediocre White man with connections, and c) lampooning the perceptions mediocre White men with connections have of their competition. I don't see the Black man in the wheelchair as the target of the joke.

Re: Toofer, that is explicit mocking of a real phenomenon I've experienced and I didn't find the joke offensive.

The joke is on Donaghy’s attitude, expectations and bubble of privilege

Luckily this was the only example of 30 Rock creating humorous bathos from the generation of audience sympathy for shitty people, and every episode for the remaining six and a half seasons just had Kenneth doing nice things for old ladies while the rest of the cast smiled gently at him

xp

Hm, OK, so there's a second level where the joke is actually on the person making the offensive comment. I'll try to watch from that pov. xp to DJP, whatever to sic

damn, the white man gets overlooked again!

really thought the joke was p straightforwardly 'that man meets two corporate diversity check marks and will definitely be the hire' but interesting to hear other perspectives

i loved 30 rock. prolly still do tho I haven't seen it in a while now. but I remember thinking 'wow they really want to have their cake and eat it too, huh' w/the blackface parts. also I remember thinking that almost every joke regarding black ppl played off white ppls inability to comprehend blackness or some other similar woke trickiness... while literally every joke about fat ppl was just 'lol, fat ppl (bad/gross)'

I also want to come back to the Lynn Swann/Black Swan joke because everyone else is processing that as "lol isn't it funny that the White woman is in blackface" and I'm processing it as "it isn't funny that these two deranged idiots are so in sync that they independently came up with this grossly inappropriate idea and are blithely following through on it as if it was normal"

Like, to me the entire thrust of the joke is that Jenna and Paul are both fucking insane, not that blackface is in and of itself funny.

totally agree w that.. but intent can excuse an awful lot in comedy, no? let's look again at Tina feys 'apology'

"As we strive to do the work and do better in regards to race in America, we believe that these episodes featuring actors in race-changing make-up are best taken out of circulation," wrote Fey.

"I understand now that 'intent' is not a free pass for white people to use these images. I apologise for pain they have caused. Going forward, no comedy-loving kid needs to stumble on these tropes and be stung by their ugliness.

what is the intent of comedy? there are a whole lot of things one can say and do with the undeniable intention of making somebody laugh, and clearly there is a line that gets set. I think of the newsworthy 'jokes'/ugly outbursts from tosh + Michael richards, etc... the intention is to use ugly shocking imagery to create laughter... if you're on stage at a comedy club there is at least some obvious establishment of your intent. those 'jokes' may have been massively unsuccessful, and/ or their context may have been stripped by encountering them from a headline rather than in the environment of a comedy club... so really, what's the difference here? we assume that someone on the writers room knows better, so it's ok?

This is wholly disingenuous.

If you legitimately can’t tell the difference between “I am using an offensive practice to showcase my character’s depravity” and “I am going to threaten to rape a heckler because they heckled me” I don’t really know what to tell you.

this has been a bizarre conversation and I don't feel compelled to give my white guy opinion apart from noting that there are plenty of black people who have brought their own experiences to bear on the topic and thought this through and have come to different conclusions than those given on this thread, and they should be respected

I think having been an extremely online person on twitter and seeing so much "Tina fey is problematic" Tina fey is the encapsulation of everything that is wrong with white liberal feminism etc." content over and over throughout the last 10 years or so it's quite odd to see virtually no-one on this thread think that having 4 blackface jokes in your sitcom in the 21st century is sus. I suppose it's a generational thing.

Netflix just needs a filter that turns actors in blackface into gun sounds

on a lighter note I rewatched some of the first couple of seasons the other day and it was v good. show holds up. best sitcom of recent times imo

I think having been an extremely online person on twitter and seeing so much "Tina fey is problematic" Tina fey is the encapsulation of everything that is wrong with white liberal feminism etc." content

lol yeah I was scrolling the thread waiting for someone to bring up Jane Krakowski playing a "Lakota" woman in Kimmy Schmidt

YES.

The synchronicity of the first season of Kimmy Schmidt with the reveal of Rachel Dolezal still amazes me

If you legitimately can’t tell the difference between “I am using an offensive practice to showcase my character’s depravity” and “I am going to threaten to rape a heckler because they heckled me” I don’t really know what to tell you.

― shout-out to his family (DJP), Monday, June 29, 2020 11:26 AM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

well no you don't know what to tell me because you elided or ignored my point about context and intent. tosh was clearly by intent not 'threatening' anyone, he was standing on stage at a comedy club performing comedy. characterizing what he said that way is more disingenuous than anything i said.

i get that in the mind of ilxors comedy clubs are places where men go to talk about how rape is sweet and lets go do some raping, but in reality they are places where people voluntarily go to hear outrageous things with the intention of being made to laugh. it's actually a very similar context to making a joke on a tv show, only there's not another character to appear on screen and recite morality to the audience - the context is more implied from the act of comeding in the first place.

so yeah, i think defending 30 rock is easy because there is constant woke messaging throughout the show, they literally say 'we are making a joke! blackface is wrong!'... where in the examples i cited they are harder to defend because that context isn't said, only implied. BUT, regardless of the success of each 'joke', it really is the same context, and i think a defense of one warrants a defense of the other.

in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors
in the mind of ilxors

esby: ilxors are woke hive-mind
nearly every ilxor on this thread: actually the blackface in 30 rock is cool
real woke people: tina fey must be killed

The context of the Tosh outburst wasn't "this statement is wrong", it was "stfu and stop interrupting my show", which is why comedians engage hecklers.

Esby is more like, "if you defend 30 rock, you must also defend my right to laugh at blackface, regardless of context."

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/peep-show-blackface-netflix-scene-removed-dance-class-a9591021.html

Was joking about this being removed and now it is.
It's a punchline as to how batshit Nancy is as she gets Jez to 'break more and more taboos' and iirc the reveal is he's in blackface going 'Are you sure this isn’t racist?' and she says 'f*** me and pretend I'm your mother'. So obviously meant to be all kinds of wrong.

People's taste for shock humor over the years seems to come in and out like the tide... it's either all the rage or causing it.

really thought the joke was p straightforwardly 'that man meets two corporate diversity check marks and will definitely be the hire' but interesting to hear other perspectives

This is what I and my partner got originally as well - it's not that we missed the lampooning of the old boys' club but it also seemed to be making this joke at the same time. I'm not sure it did critique the idea of the 'advantages' someone gains by 'ticking these boxes', esp since it is implied that Garkel might be faking his disability (whereas the irl response of the old boys' network would probably be closer to "ah, but then we'd have to install push buttons at the doors, which goes far beyond reasonable accommodations; sorry, guess my boy Floyd is the only practical choice" than "no way Floyd can compete with that"). And I'm not sure Tina Fey would have made this joke with a middle-aged white woman as the prop, in a wheelchair or otherwise.

And I mean, Garkel got the job. I don't recall any suggestion that it was because of his qualifications - if anything, the larger joke was that merit doesn't enter into it one way or the other.

https://i.chzbgr.com/original/6991674880/hB5A468F0/fake-criterion-the-rural-juror