• PiraHxCx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    80
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    That flag episode the joke was that everything he was doing was taken the wrong way. He had accidentally set on fire a flag that was behind him and tried to put out the fire, then someone shouts “Hey, there’s a guy stomping the Puerto Rican flag!” and he is chased by a mob…

    It’s like that Monk episode where he has to shake hands with a lot of people from a group and the last one is black, and right after shaking hands with the black person he cleans his hands with rubbing alcohol, so everyone thinks he is racist and everything he does in the episode just makes him look even worse - because it was taken out of context (he is a germophobe, he cleans his hands with rubbing alcohol after touching anything and anyone).

    • frog@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      31
      ·
      2 days ago

      The episode where he was in black face was also Kramer having an “accident”. Kramer is a device the writers’ had to make racist jokes.

      If you want to do something racist just go backwards. For example, “Let’s have Kramer be in black face during a Martin Luther King walk! It’s okay becuse he didn’t do it on purpose!”

      The writers created the situation. You can’t just say anything was accidental. That’s like those comedians that just keep saying, “It’s just a joke.” I mean look at Michael Richards’ infamous standup. Perfect example.

      • PiraHxCx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        31
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        17 hours ago

        I don’t think I watched the blackface episode, but if it was an accident that caused a misunderstanding (basic comedy trope) the joke was on people being over sensitive and raging without knowing and/or purposely ignoring context of a situation (I could as easily say “if you want to do something racist, just claim it was a dark elf”). What was being criticized there became the norm, and the consequences are in this thread - people can’t say the name of that Agatha Christie’s work in the comments, nor you can have a dark elf in Community, because context doesn’t matter.

        editing a day later: This was a half-assed argument, the shows did it just because it was funny. In all the cases people jumped to conclusions that were completely fair, people should be shooed for doing what the main characters were doing, but it was funny because it wasn’t on purpose, they got in a bad situation by mistake. However, the critique on this kinda of humor, and also satires and parodies that humorously references problematic stuff, because “offensive” is absolute value, is what led to “people can’t say the name of that Agatha Christie’s work in the comments, nor you can have a dark elf in Community”.

        • nexguy@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          2 days ago

          If i remember Cramer accidentally had to much tanning spray on his face(and didn’t look in the mirror I think) or something like that then went to meet his girlfriends black family.