rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

Wow that Pete & Pete interview went downhill rather quickly.

Blah blah blah pure, fervent nostalgia blah blah blah ren and stimpy melissa joan hart blah blah blah whitewashed suburbs blah blah blah SPEAKING OF WHICH….

In for a dime, in for a dollar.

Holy shit, wow did that interview go downhill

Like he just keeps digging the hole for himself
At least he's being more openly racist in his nostalgia. WHITE PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE TOO, YA KNOW

Imagining this full grown guy watching kiddie shows all day and getting mad that they have Indian characters.

Admit I got a good chuckle out of the little spiteful footnote that confirms the obvious that yes, Clarissa Explains It All was immensely popular

I'm gonna spend the rest of my day going up to Indian people and asking them if there's a reason they're Indian

Love the concern trolling about "sure, the character and voice actor are Indian, but why can't the producers be Indian too? Otherwise it's just racist." GREAT IDEA I'M SURE THEY'LL BE HIRING LOTS OF MINORITY DIRECTORS/PRODUCERS ANY SECOND NOW.

he is definitely rarin' to share his opinions

They’re doing it just for that reason: “Hey, here is the Jewish character” or “Hey, here’s the Indian character” or “Hey, here’s the token black,” which I think South Park does so amazingly well. For example, I’ve worked very closely with people with disabilities, volunteering, sometimes paid, and I love what South Park does. They show those characters as quote-unquote real people. They fight, they cuss, they take drugs. They do everything all the rest of the kids do. That’s great.

I don't know anything about this Clarissa show, but I don't understand why the lead had to be a girl. Couldn't it have been written by men and star a boy? Seems kind of contrived.

People WIth Disabilities: They Fight, They Cuss, They Take Drugs.
That's Great.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1493227/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

this guy made a docu about Kids of Whidney High
I am sure in the kindest of spirits

I am feeling personally vindicated that a lot of my dating red flags (grownup obsessed with childhood entertainments, enjoys Kids of Whidney High) coincide with him being an odious bigot when given the chance to reveal it

Admit I got a good chuckle out of the little spiteful footnote that confirms the obvious that yes, Clarissa Explains It All was immensely popular

yes this was amazing

I love how dude sets the stage by pretending that massive hit "Clarissa Explains It All" was only retroactively appreciated due to Melissa Joan Hart's star turn on "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch" and then jumps whole hog into "oh btw I'm a virulent racist too, let me show you all the ways I suck" with zero prompting

YESSSSS But anyway, back to Pete & Pete, the best show on television.

Why was it the best? I can't really tell you that, it was just genius, better than anything else. It had a certain...ineffable quality (of whiteness and maleness). But definitely the best show ever created.

how the hell did you have cable tv as a kid?!?

I stopped pay attention as soon as he used the word "ineffable" tbh. IT'S YOUR JOB TO MAKE IT EFFABLE, THIS IS NOT MAGIC.

I have this weird image of people around my age who have all these nickelodeon memories, sorry

Who, me? Was Nickelodeon a cable channel? I can't remember.

haha mh otm
the only kid on my block who had nickelodeon was the same kid who would try to end playground disputes with "well my dad's a lawyer and he'll sue you"

mh yea me too xp. felt like an outsider for many reasons growing up but honestly not having cable and everybody in school talking about this nickelodeon bullshit and all these weird-ass shows was not an insubstantial one

I don't know what you all are talking about, the article clearly states that "There is no era of television that inspires such a pure, fervent nostalgia as the Golden Age of Nickelodeon. "

we had illegal cable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7iSILfWm2Y

Yes!

I remember when I was a kid being completely mystified by the girl down the street saying her family didn't have cable, and I was like... yeah, you do. Apparently she was under the impression only premium channels were cable.

When I was a kid we had the local affiliates for ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and in the late 80s/early 90s, FOX. I think sometime after then some mostly-infomercial crap that barely came in was on some higher channel with occasional syndicated reruns.

every kid in my elementary school who had cable had divorced parents and conspicuously new backpacks or video games because their dads were overcompensating. also they were apparently raised by Nickelodeon reruns of the brady bunch or something

wow you've got some serious lingering resentments there

perhaps you should talk to flavorwire about it

I think you're confusing resentment with a superiority complex, which I probably do have on these things

Also, my parents managed to get satellite tv two months before I went to college. I think they figured they needed something to pass the time without me yammering all the time.

When I was a kid we had the local affiliates for ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and in the late 80s/early 90s, FOX. I think sometime after then some mostly-infomercial crap that barely came in was on some higher channel with occasional syndicated reruns.

― ⌘-B (mh), Tuesday, October 7, 2014 12:42 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea me too. my parents finally got cable/satellite maybe 5 years ago

there was a brief period when "much music" or something came in through lousy reception, but that didn't last long

It's a shame that this author seems like a tool, as his is a book I'd otherwise love to read (a la the MTV oral history from a couple years back).

I can't even envision an '80s childhood without Nickelodeon. Y'all have my deepest sympathies.

We didn't have much, but at least we had cable.

dunno what this tool is watching but in most of the Disney/Nick shows I've seen, whenever there's an Indian character his race is 90 percent of the punchlines

we had reagan and white flight

Last Saturday: http://gizmodo.com/this-is-the-first-weekend-in-america-with-no-saturday-m-1642441646

The one broadcast holdout all this time? CW.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1458788!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_970/nick22f-4-web.jpg

xp tbf, there's an entire 24 hour NETWORK for saturday morning cartoons in Boomerang

on cable tv

yeah i don't really get people freaking out about the lack of saturday morning cartoons. it's stopping because they're more accessible than ever elsewhere. it's like freaking out about there not being a Sunday Matinee on Fox or something.

Plus, she was a girl, and many of the people who are writing these blogs and editing these pieces are women — which is fine, it’s just the way that it is, and a lot of the publishing world is women...

You might not like this or care, but it’s very hard to be a man in the publishing world. No one talks about that. My agent: woman. My editor: woman. My publicist: woman. The most successful genre is young adult novels — 85% of which are written by women. That discussion doesn’t really come up when it’s the other way around. It is 2014 now. It’s not 1995. Political correctness needs to change.

There are worlds where white guys get shit, too. I’m starting to do stand-up comedy now and it’s hard to go up there and talk about how hard it is to be a guy. People don’t wanna hear it! A girl can go up there and talk all she wants about how hard it is to be a girl, and she gets applauded. These are obviously some of my own personal views and aren’t as important, but I’m bringing up this stuff because it’s all very malleable, it’s very flexible.

there's no context where this would be excusable, but i have a hard time imagining it being spoken in any other context than a crowded bar at night

My agent: woman. My editor: woman. My publicist: woman

This reminds me of some recent Doug Ford quote where he said he wasn't antisemitic because his doctor, dentist, and lawyer are all jews

it's just so "guy at a party you wish you hadn't started a conversation with"

this guy really does sound like a future failed standup comedian, just based on his topics of choice.

"My agent: dropping me today. My editor: dropping me today. My publicist: dropping me today."

yeah i don't really get people freaking out about the lack of saturday morning cartoons. it's stopping because they're more accessible than ever elsewhere. it's like freaking out about there not being a Sunday Matinee on Fox or something.

Oh, neither of my kids watch anything "live" - much less anything on a broadcast network. The news above to me was just something akin to finding out that there wasn't any broadcast network news at 5:30 anymore.

Bet that stand-up act is hilarious. Just let me know when he gets to The Comedy Store.

this was amazing to read, like this guy gets a book published and has a chance to talk about it and it was like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yizpWta-5Uw

Oh, neither of my kids watch anything "live" - much less anything on a broadcast network.

^^^

I don't know anything about this Clarissa show, but I don't understand why the lead had to be a girl. Couldn't it have been written by men and star a boy? Seems kind of contrived.

Clarissa Mansplains It All