the neighborhood is like a parody of LA suburbs i.e. all the frozen yogurt, sunshine etc, but it's true it's neither here nor there as far as my discomfort around that character goes.
i like the show! i just wish it could be a little braver about race (and gender and sexual identity)
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 12:00 (six years ago) link
There are four main human characters on the show, only one of whom (and arguably the least moral of them) is white. Two of the others are an African philosophy professor and a British Asian millionaire philanthropist, neither of which seem like stereotypical or insulting portrayals. I don't think it's statistically unrealistic that all four would be predominantly heterosexual. What am I missing?
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 12:13 (six years ago) link
the fact that the only latino is a borderline-retarded criminal
but yes i take your point
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 12:17 (six years ago) link
He's not Latino!
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 12:20 (six years ago) link
ha okay well i guess i am dumm sorry everyone
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 12:21 (six years ago) link
i think its cool that they went with unknowns for jason, tahani, and chidi. i looked them up and chidi and jason have done almost nothing! and tahani would only be known by people who watch british music chart shows on t.v. completely unknown here.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 12:32 (six years ago) link
yeah, he's filipino on the show. and filipino/chinese in real life.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 12:33 (six years ago) link
and even jason thinks that heaven is racist. he says so on the show.
i know jameela! we used to work together. here's a picture i took of her once. v proud of how it came out
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/640x360/p01pqps9.jpg
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 12:40 (six years ago) link
I think it's that Jason's character might come close to being actually intellectually disabled at times but it is always played for laughs
That's a bit heavy! I thought the character was a parody of a lamebro Youtuber / Viner type
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 12:48 (six years ago) link
Tracer: whoa!
The Jason character seems more culturally dumb to me than mentally challenged? I’ve known people who were actually book smart who come off more naive. I think he’s just... from Florida.
― mh, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 12:52 (six years ago) link
jameela and kristin bell are two of the most beautiful people on television, but I kind of like that the show doesn't really play up their beauty
― akm, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 13:00 (six years ago) link
Chidi is a well known NY stage actor
― ein Sexmonster (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 13:53 (six years ago) link
as soon as I read that, my first thought was "so what L&O episode was he on?"
one way back in 2010, looks like
― mh, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 13:56 (six years ago) link
lol
― Marcus Hiles Remains Steadfast About Planting Trees.jpg (DJP), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 13:57 (six years ago) link
"Chidi is a well known NY stage actor"
which kinda means unknown. in t.v. terms.
i just think it's cool that they are not people who have been in 10 different awful people sitcoms.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 13:59 (six years ago) link
I get a little bit of cognitive dissonance watching this show and realizing that Eleanor and Chidi, or at least the actors playing them, are my age. At least I'm not in hell.... I think.
― mh, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 14:00 (six years ago) link
xp he was also in High Maintenance!
I have to agree that people who regularly do (or have done) stage work are better at actual acting. Or at least I hold to that bias.
― mh, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 14:02 (six years ago) link
I liked him in Paterson too.
― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 14:42 (six years ago) link
one more slightly dim filipino-american bro on a lighthearted-look-at-existential-dilemmas-focused primetime show and we'll officially have a trend (see also josh chan on CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND)
― maura, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 16:32 (six years ago) link
I like The Good Place a lot more as a show but tbf, at least in Crazy Ex-Gf, you also saw Josh's family (incl e.g. a doctor father iirc) and friends (incl a Filipino-American priest). But yeah, I was wondering if this is a Filipino-American stereotype I didn't really know about.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 17:36 (six years ago) link
jason's friends from the old days show up briefly in flashbacks. crazy ex girlfriend does have a season and double the episode length on the good place...
― maura, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 17:53 (six years ago) link
I remember Jason's friends being similarly dumb but I could be forgetting. Second point is totally fair and I do think Good Place is mostly really good on race.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 17:56 (six years ago) link
no one is arguing for unjust slandering of floridians I see
― mh, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 18:00 (six years ago) link
Yeah, it might be more of a Florida stereotype than anything.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 18:01 (six years ago) link
It is 100% a Florida stereotype
― Marcus Hiles Remains Steadfast About Planting Trees.jpg (DJP), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 18:02 (six years ago) link
you know you're in the bad place if your soulmate doesn't even know who blake bortles is
― bodak horseman (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 18:59 (six years ago) link
anti-Florida, anti-dj bigotry is acceptable
― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 19:01 (six years ago) link
that's not music...that's EDM!
― scott seward, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 19:16 (six years ago) link
jetskis, dance crew, djs, drugs, jetskis... imo Jason's life had it all
― mh, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 20:06 (six years ago) link
also his friend Pillboy, who is DOPE
― akm, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 21:49 (six years ago) link
I lol every time he talks about Pillboy
― mh, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 21:53 (six years ago) link
also: wings
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 21:54 (six years ago) link
I want to order wings now.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 22:18 (six years ago) link
wings are dope
― mh, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 23:49 (six years ago) link
It was a good call.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 23:51 (six years ago) link
i don't know about chidi, making him senegalese (?) but coming up with an in-world excuse for playing him as a culturally unmarked american (or i guess, culturally highbrow = cosmopolitan, conventional social identity left behind) plays exactly on the nose for his portrayal of a philosophy professor (seriously, pitch-perfect), but it also sets them up to not have any need to address black identity.
― j., Wednesday, 4 October 2017 01:36 (six years ago) link
everyone is equal in death
― ein Sexmonster (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Wednesday, 4 October 2017 02:05 (six years ago) link
- thomas hobbes
― j., Wednesday, 4 October 2017 02:07 (six years ago) link
Chidi should speak French in the flashbacks. Where was he supposed to live? It's hard to tell because you get his grown friend, the Australian professor, the English-speaking girlfriend in bed...
― scott seward, Wednesday, 4 October 2017 16:31 (six years ago) link
we binged the first season in like 2 days - i like it a lot
― Mordy, Wednesday, 4 October 2017 16:32 (six years ago) link
i think he moved around a lot doing post-docs and shit
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 4 October 2017 16:35 (six years ago) link
I demand more expository rigor from my NBC sitcoms.
― this is ridcolus (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 4 October 2017 16:40 (six years ago) link
yeah, i don't really care. SOME of the animals on earth on Z Nation turn into zombies. but apparently most don't.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 4 October 2017 16:43 (six years ago) link
Not that it's a life and death matter but I wondered that too about where Chidi was supposed to have actually lived and taught. It makes sense that it would be in an English-speaking First World country but then he could have just given that as his reason for speaking English in ep 1.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Wednesday, 4 October 2017 16:51 (six years ago) link
I mean, idk, maybe it was at a Senegalese uni where an Australian guy moved to teach and they just translated the flashbacks.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Wednesday, 4 October 2017 16:54 (six years ago) link
everyone can understand everyone else, in death
― ein Sexmonster (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Wednesday, 4 October 2017 17:20 (six years ago) link
like, it's an american TV show so it's finna be in english regardless of where the characters are actually supposed to be from. plus, y'know, they're all dead. so it would make some sort of sense that souls would be able to understand each other in the fantasy, imaginary universe of this afterlife.
― ein Sexmonster (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Wednesday, 4 October 2017 17:22 (six years ago) link
idk sounds like a cop-out to avoid addressing the armenian genocide
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 4 October 2017 17:26 (six years ago) link
if they r souls why do they not float thru doors and how do they drink chowder from chowder fountains and are the clams ghosts also, damn this shit is sloppy
― this is ridcolus (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 4 October 2017 17:26 (six years ago) link