On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 10:39 AM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 10:18 AM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I thought the pilot/concept held promise, inasmuch as I felt there was >> humor to be had in a fish-out-of-water story of an American expat >> living and working abroad. Comedy used to be able to poke fun at >> differences in cultures, genders, ages, but observation-based humor is >> hard to do now without somebody being offended on behalf of the rest >> of humanity. From my own experiences overseas, I know it to be a >> goldmine of humor, but I can't just share my stories with everyone or >> I run the risk of being labeled a culturally insensitive bastard (or >> Borat). I think this concept could have been executed more >> successfully in the 1980s (imagine a young Eddie Murphy or even >> someone like Tony Randall being shipped to India -- imagine if the >> creators of "Taxi" had tackled this concept instead of focusing on a >> Boston bar). > > Again - can you refer to one joke or observation that was substantive enough > to actually be offensive? I am having a hard time buying the narrative that > "Outsourced" was too edgy for commercial television.
No, but then very little offends me. I recall there was a vocal group of Indians (dots not feathers) who objected to the cow wandering around out the window of the office in the pilot. Again, to me, an innocuous joke, but some objected to it. Slightly off-topic, but of the 150+ students I teach this term, probably 80% of them are black and at the most 5% are white. I have to teach basic industry concepts like marketing in the hip-hop community and minorities using new media, but I don't pretend to relate to these things -- I've seen teachers try to do that and it just looks sad. Instead, I poke fun at myself; I bring up my awkward experience working on Source magazine's dance show, and that Kid from Kid 'N' Play gave me the nickname "Special K" because he felt I needed "street cred" and it didn't work -- at all. Once we've all shared a laugh at my whiteness, the ice is broken and we can get down to business. Their assignment this week was to edit a short scene we shot wherein four students get mad at a teacher and storm out of the room. I served as cameraman but they decided what angles to use and what coverage to capture. Throughout the process I didn't have anybody pose as the teacher, so at the last minute I handed the camera to a student then took suggestions on what I could say -- as a teacher -- that would cause offense. I told them I'd say anything that wasn't racist or sexist. I did my own surreal edit of it, but you can click on it and see what they ultimately had me say. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLG1Y-jGz80 >> I missed a lot of the episodes because, ironically, I was working >> overseas, but I thought the cast was talented and found it more >> entertaining than Parks & Rec. P&R generally draws from the comedy of >> the ineptness of mostly white, small town, middle America. And nobody >> ever got into trouble poking fun at whitey. > > Your right - those Tea Partiers have a hell of a sense of humor about > themselves... Considering they called themselves teabaggers before anyone else... Seriously, listen to Bill Maher and the bulk of his humor is aimed at religious white men. Oh he'll refer to Obama as "Black Jesus" and condemn the acts of Muslim extremists, but in terms of who he'll act politically incorrect towards, he is not the equal opportunity offender he gets made out to be. > White people are actually the one group that can almost never really be made > fun of in this country. Really? I can't think of a recent example of a sitcom where a black man or minority woman was made the butt of a joke. > I think you are missing the source of most of the humor in P&R these days. That's possible, if for no other reason than I do not find Poehler to be funny. -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
