The success of “Fat Actress,” which debuted last Monday, depends entirely upon whether you like Kirstie Alley’s somewhat scene chewing acting style. In half hour doses, I do, which is why she’s perfect for sitcoms.
But what infuriataes me is that the National Eating Disorders Associations out of Seattle are bìŧçhìņg about the show in a way that questions whether they watched it at all.
At one point in the show, a supposed LA weight loss expert (played by John Travolta’s real life wife) gives the stunned Alley all manner of insane weight-loss suggestions, including eating a cigarette and binging and purging with a feather so as not to ruin her manicure. Alley reacts with incredulity at these suggestions (which you have a feeling there are women in LA who are actually doing it.) Later on she smokes a cigarette, tastes it and kind of goes “blaaah” and at another point stares at a feather, then shakes her head and puts the feather down.
But the NEDA is claiming she actually followed all the horrific advice she was given. Newsday even claimed she was shown sticking a feather down her throat to vomit when she clearly didn’t.
What next? I’m wondering if the NAACP is going to lodge a protest because a horny Alley goes on the prowl for a black lover since black men ostensibly, as the song goes, like women “with back,” prompting an annoyed black woman in a soul food restaurant to lament all these dámņëd white women prowling around for black men.
PAD
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“Luigi Novi: And Jews. And Southerners. And Italians. And people who live in trailer parks. And Native Americans…” *snip*
True, but when have you ever seen someone rush to the defense of fat people? I’ve seen Italians protest the Sopranos, and the Jews have an anti-defamation league.
“It’s just one of the things I don’t get. To me it’s like gay people refering to themselves as fágš.
I don’t know of any Asians referring to themselves as japs…”
Why would an Asian person refer to him or herself as a Jewish American Princess?
As for the great way the gay community seems to have co-opted and de-demonized ALL of the anti-gay epithets, I can’t help but recall The Simpsons episode “Homer-phobia” when Homer told John Waters “But you can’t call yourselves “queer”, that’s OUR word for you.”
And later when Homer called him “Fruit – no, queer, You want to be called queer, right?” and Waters replied “Well, I’d prefer John.”
**one of my favorite kids was an Asian girl who was totally punked out–leopard designed hair. . . .**
You have a picture someplace of that style of hair coloring? It sounds like something I’d like to try sometime on my own hair, though it would probably have to be in ’employer-acceptable’ colors rather than ‘punk’ colors so my employer doesn’t get too upset about it. 🙂
Chris
Elf,
Boy, it’s been almost 10 years now…I think she had dyed sections of her hair a light brown and used her natural dark color for the spots (which, as I recall, are not a solid black but rather a kind of mottled hollow circle with a color in the middle that is somewhere between the light and dark extremes). It wasn’t “punk” in any sense other than, well, leopard hair.
Like I said, great kid, very artistic natch. This was a magnet school for arts and science, attracting a wide variety of smart creative kids. It was my student teaching assignment and though I’ve forgotten their names their faces are still fresh with me. I wonder how they’re doing now?
Okay, Bill, now you’re even quoting “Love and Death”, bar none my favorite Woody Allen film. (“I’m trying to burn all the food so the French don’t get it, but it’s tough to light borscht.”)
Once I’m back on the east coast, we’ve somehow GOT to arrange to be in the same place for at least one meal.
As for the main thread topic — while I agree that “Blazing Saddles” could never be made today (which is very sad), I think stereotyping can still be pretty rampant, and it’s not just gay people and fat people. How many sitcoms, for example, include a father figure who’s actually competent and not clueless?
Aside: at my last school a few years ago, during a long bus ride a colleague and I actually showed “Blazing Saddles” to a group of about 50 ninth-graders. We said in advance that “it was made in a different time and a few words get used that are considered way out of line these days … but that if you look at it, the people using those particular words are pretty much all villains and idiots.” Apart from a few squeals of disgust during the bean-eating scene, the movie came off without a hitch. I think they found it awfully funny.
[And no, the fact that I went to another school the following year isn’t related…]
TWL
Tim,
You showed “Blazing Saddles” to a bunch of 9th graders??? You must have balls the size of a Chinese gong.
I’ll bet they loved it. My tenth graders have been begging me to give them copies of “Battle Royale” after I told them the plot. But I like having a job.
Let me know when you folks move. I spend most summers in New York and Jersey is just a hop skip and a jump away (and I visit family who live just a half hour out of the City).
Peter David wrote:
> As for stereotyping, there’s two that are
> “acceptable” — gays, and fat people.
My suggestion for the third (and I know there have been several already) would be Star Trek fans: the famous SNL “Get a Life” sketch with William Shatner, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon, et al. is typical, not exceptional.
Personally, I’d love to do a global search-and-replace on the script of the make-fun-of-the-Trekkies episode of My Wife and Kids, substituting “Nìggër” or “Nìggërš” for “Trekkie” or “Trekkies”, and then see if Damon Wayons still thought it was funny. (It was one of the nastiest, vicious, most mean-spirited “comedy” scripts I’ve ever seen.)
And before anybody starts screaming about the N-word, I’m just using it to make most clearly my point that if any racial term, not just that one, were substituted, the script would have been regarded as utterly racist. I never heard Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker say anything as nasty as Damon Wayon’s character did in that episode.
Jeff In NC: There’s a HUGE difference between a comedian using a stereotype as a punchline in a joke, and an employer using this to prevent someone from getting a job they are qualified for.
Luigi Novi: Yeah, the one is stereotyping, which is what we
“Wasn’t there some school in the midwest that had an intramural team called the “fighting whities”? I remember there being lots of news reports and merchandising around them. Now that’s funny! Stick it to the man! (says the middle aged, middle income white guy!)”
Isn’t “fighting whities” kind of redundant?
Luigi Novi: “Have you ever seen anyone rush to the defense of comic book fans? Or conservatives? Southerners? Trailer park residents? The point is not whether there are organizations who advocate for those groups. The point is whether stereotyping them is considered acceptable, which was Peter
I caught about 3 minutes of this last night, I was kind of drunk at the time so it didn’t register all that much. However, I did laugh when Kristie Alley was lookin for some brother lovin’ and this black chick was like “Gøddámņ white woman tryin to steal our brothers”. The bit I saw was her talking about finding a man (and saying she’s not into chicks) and the intro to the next scene. I did notice it had that improv./ conversational tone, and I’m not really a fan of that type of comedy or show. I like it more when people aren’t talking over each other, set dailouge & the like.
Conor E: Perhaps I could have been clearer. My point was that there’s a basic recognition by at least a few people that mocking the Jews might be a bad idea.
Luigi Novi: A few people voicing this idea doesn
“My suggestion for the third (and I know there have been several already) would be Star Trek fans: the famous SNL “Get a Life” sketch with William Shatner, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon, et al. is typical, not exceptional.
Personally, I’d love to do a global search-and-replace on the script of the make-fun-of-the-Trekkies episode of My Wife and Kids, substituting “Nìggër” or “Nìggërš” for “Trekkie” or “Trekkies”, and then see if Damon Wayons still thought it was funny”
You’re drawing comparisons between being born black,jewish or some other race and being a trekkie????Are ya fricking kidding me???
Newsflash slick, when i walk down the street little old ladies cross the street and grab their pocketbooks in broad stinking daylight!!For no other reason then i am large black guy with a shaved head.Last time I checked “trekkies “were not racial profiled ,marked for genocide,etc.
Besides ,you CHOOSE to be a trekkie,given an option you can choose not to be .
The various racial epithets are much more insulting and harsh than any trekkie oppression could possibly be.
**Boy, it’s been almost 10 years now…I think she had dyed sections of her hair a light brown and used her natural dark color for the spots (which, as I recall, are not a solid black but rather a kind of mottled hollow circle with a color in the middle that is somewhere between the light and dark extremes). It wasn’t “punk” in any sense other than, well, leopard hair.**
Thanks. Bill. That sounds like a cool hairdye style. I may have to try it sometime. Assuming I can find someone around here who could do two-tone ‘spots’ well, that is.
Chris
Whether you’re a Trekkie tends to be a matter of taste, Deano, which isn’t something you choose. I suppose you could say whether you indulge in that interest in a hardcore manner (going to conventions, wearing Starfleet uniforms in the street, speaking Klingon, etc.) is a choice, but that’s different.
Luigi Novi:
“Whether you’re a Trekkie tends to be a matter of taste, Deano, which isn’t something you choose. I suppose you could say whether you indulge in that interest in a hardcore manner (going to conventions, wearing Starfleet uniforms in the street, speaking Klingon, etc.) is a choice, but that’s different.”
Hi Luigi,
I’ve often made a similar argument about some racists I used to work with. One in particular made constant use of the word ņìggër except in the company of black people. When I called him on this practice he said that he wasn’t a racist because one of his best friends is black, which is a factually accurate (I had met his friend. Helluva nice guy and funny as well).
I tried to explain to my co-worker that we don’t always choose who our friends are. That sometimes our friends simply… are, with no conscious decision on our part. He didn’t quite get that his best friend being black didn’t mean that he wasn’t a racist.
I think the same could apply to more than we realize. I find that people often like things or people regarless of themselves.
Does anyone consciously decide to like pizza before the first bite?
“You’re drawing comparisons between being born black,jewish or some other race “
Judaism is a religion, not a race!
It’s interesting that you bring up the idea of race and what defines “race”.
There was a great op-ed in the ny times today about race and what might it might consist of. If you think of race as an ethnic group (which many do) Judaism is a race. If you think of race as something determined via genetics that’s a bit more complicated. But as defined by genetics there are some diseases more common to jews than to gentiles, just as there are some diseases more common to blacks than to whites, and vice versa. i would like to direct your attention to the op-ed which is very intersting in regards to race and genetics by Armand Marie Leroi entitled “A Family Tree in Every Gene”. You should check it out.
I’m not sure if my link worked, i think I might have gotten the tags wrong. Just in case you can copy and paste the address. Here it is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/opinion/14leroi.html?th
happy reading.
Okay ,I know judaism is religion but have also heard some people refer to jewish people as an ethnic group.Walter Mosley the writer ,has a jewish mother and he referred to the jewish people as a separate race.If i am wrong or offended anyone ,apologies to all parties .
Luigi :when i was referring to trekkies ,i meant more in your second sense of the hardcore indulgence.
A_Greene: If you think of race as something determined via genetics that’s a bit more complicated.
Luigi Novi: Not really. Race doesn’t exist at the genetic level.
To Luigi,
I’m not a scientist, and until earlier today I would have agreed with you. I am by no means advocating any potential race better or worse than the next, I don’t think there is. There are some afflictions that are more apt to strike different sorts of people (blacks, jews, europeans, asians, ect), there are findings that differnt drugs work better (statistically of course) on different – for lack of a better word – races.
I’m not advocating either side since I don’t know enough, just read the article and if you can refute it with other facts, I’d be happy, even eager, to read them.
It is true that there are drugs that work better for some races than others. It is true that there are diseases that are more likely found in some races than others.
But this does not validate the concept of race. there are more redheads in Ireland than in Russia but both are “caucasions”. It only takes a single base pair change to make a person have sickle cell anemia–hardly a big enough difference to mean much in terms of racial classification. We were just very selective in wghat traits we used to decide what races were. Skin color, eye shape…might just as easily have used the long and short ears of the Eastern Islanders.
I’m not saying there should not be any research into the differences between what we classify as the different races–it may yield advances in treatments and such. But we should recognize the inherent silliness of a classification system that considers a Chinese person and an Pakistani to be from the same race. By what logic? I remember seeing a protest saying that the war in Afghanistan was racist…what exactly is the race of an Afghani? They looked white to me, if I had to pick a race. A pygmy, a Masai, a Hutu and an Australian aborigine are all the same race? Say what?
Never has so much trouble been based on so little foundation.
Aren’t we collectively known as the Human Race?
A blood transfusion from a chinese woman could allow me to live. However a blood transfusion from an irish setter could not, even though I’m part Irish. Moreover, I could mate with a green eyed, left-handed lithuanian female human and produce offspring while such attempts with a german shepard would meet with a wall of genetic imposibility.
I’ve never really been entirely comfortable with the word ‘racist’ because I know that we’re all human. I guess I’m technically a racist (by my definition) because I refuse to acknowledge that pets deserve equal rights under law.
For me the notion of humanity consisting of different races while we’re all genetically compatable is just ignorant. Sure, we humans might consist of different breeds just as canines and felines do, but even that distiction could eventually disappear.
Sort of a sidenote, but what the hëll…
I’ve always wanted to see a well spoken ‘racist’ on a talk show. I have yet to see someone come to the conclusion that one human breed is inherently better than another based on logic and be able to back up their position with solid relevant facts. Thus far I don’t believe such a person exists.
We are, of course, one human species as all humans are capable of interbreeding with one another. The concept that we call “race” is simply the result of when various human populations were relatively isolated from one another and certain physical traits came to become more prevalent. Some of it has some several benefit, as people who trace their lineage closer to the equator tend to have darker skin. Beyond the obvious visible traits of skin, hair, and eye color, some less visible traits such as the genes for sickle cell anemia and tay sachs (sp?) are also prevalent in certain populations and did spread into others due to lack of interbreeding either due to geography (living on another continent) or choice (medieval stigmas against marriage between Christians and Jews).
You can actually see more differences in the various dog breeds. For example, there is a hëll of a lot more physical difference between a chihuahua and an akita than there is between any two different human populations, but both are canis familiaris. This applies not only to the visual differences, but also, there are certain congenital defects that are more prevalent in certain breeds than others. Yet you can breed a chihuahua with an akita to produce (probably a very funky-looking) litter of dogs.
So, the idea that certain racial groups are statistically more likely to develop certain diseases or react differently to certain drugs is meaningless in the larger context humanity. It’s just a symptom of the great genetic variety that can exist within a single species.
A_ Greene: To Luigi, I’m not a scientist, and until earlier today I would have agreed with you. I am by no means advocating any potential race better or worse than the next, I don’t think there is. There are some afflictions that are more apt to strike different sorts of people (blacks, jews, europeans, asians, ect), there are findings that differnt drugs work better (statistically of course) on different – for lack of a better word – races.
Luigi Novi: Which has nothing to do with genetics.
A_ Greene: I’m not advocating either side since I don’t know enough, just read the article and if you can refute it with other facts, I’d be happy, even eager, to read them.
Luigi Novi: I
“The fact remains that race is not accounted for at the genetic level, and is literally skin-deep”
Exactomundo!!!!
A_ Greene: To Luigi, I’m not a scientist, and until earlier today I would have agreed with you. I am by no means advocating any potential race better or worse than the next, I don’t think there is. There are some afflictions that are more apt to strike different sorts of people (blacks, jews, europeans, asians, ect), there are findings that differnt drugs work better (statistically of course) on different – for lack of a better word – races.
Luigi Novi: Which has nothing to do with genetics.
Actually, Luigi, I believe you’re wrong. Since skin color is an inherited trait, it is therefore genetic. So to is hair texture, specific facial features, even musculature. Race is a genetic trait, but one that is, or rather was, evolved due to environmental surroundings over a period of time.
Your “evidence” does not support your argument. It merely states that there is no clear majority of scientists that support the theory nor is there likely to be one forth coming. They even give the reasoning; that due to the fact that in the last few hundred years, global migration and interacial mating has so “blended” the genetic pool that finding a pure blood line to study is all but impossible.
It merely states that there is no clear majority of scientists that support the theory nor is there likely to be one forth coming.
Luigi Novi: It also states that skin color, hair color, and facial traits reflect superficial differences that are not confirmed by deeper analysis with more reliable genetic [traits] and whose origin dates from recent evolution mostly under the effect of climate and perhaps sexual selection.
For that matter, there’s the case of my wife. Based on her skin color and features, one might simply classify her as African. However, she is also on the Blackfoot tribal rolls, has a fair claim to tribal membership in the Cherokee, and can trace legitimate lineage to both the Davises of Wales and Clan Murray of Athol in Scotland. (Thankfully, she doesn’t hold grudges – my ancestors, members of another clan, sided with the English during the whole Charles the Stuart thing, and as a reward were given some of the Athol lands…) What “race” is she?
For that matter, what “race” is our daughter? 🙂
Luigi:
“And what about Tiger Woods? Mariah Carey? Halle Berry? Jennifer Beals? What are they? Or, you could just say that we
If race is genetic, then what race am I?
This is always fun.
Me? I’m plain ol’ Euro 57: Irish, English, German, Polish… who knows what else, but it’s all European.
My wife? Quarter German (only comes through in the temper), Filipino, and some Native American. Yet, too many dûmbáššëš would assume when she was growing up in California that she was Hispanic – it didn’t help that her maiden name is Gomez.
Yeah, saying somebody belongs to a certain ‘race’ really works…