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Big Mean Jerk posted:Nah, that’s Harry Crane. Pete is a piece of poo poo, but the show makes it clear that it’s almost entirely because of his hosed up WASPy parents and the way he was raised. I don’t think Ken did anything lovely. I did like Pete’s arc of slowly redeeming himself, but man, early season Pete was the worst. When Pryce got into that fistfight with him and decked him it was so satisfying.
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Jun 27, 2020 15:52
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Ken sexually assaulted a bunch of secretaries in S1 and generally was a huge scumbag. But like the show gradually showed him improving his behavior and maturing into one of the relatively most decent people in the office especially through his friendship with Peggy and differences from Pete. The flip side to him is Harry who seemed like a decent guy at the start and then just became a huge scumbag. Pete was always a deeply broken and selfish rear end in a top hat. He has these moments where he's shown to be forward thinking but they're not really character things. Like he can recognize the value of advertising to black people and doesn't understand why you'd choose not to capitalize on that, but he still has his personal racisms. Every time you think Pete is improving as a person he does something that just undermines that entirely and reminds you he loving sucks. Although I haven't seen the last 2 seasons because Netflix removed it. So maybe he eventually has real change. Where I left off he was still the worst. Really, no one on Mad Men is a super great person. Peggy is shown to have internal racist ideas and says how excited she'd be to work on Goldwater's campaign because she puts business over politics or morals. They're all just shades of good and bad. Like Freddy is a sexist pig but he's also clearly one of the people who respects Peggy the most. People are complicated. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Jun 27, 2020 |
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Jun 27, 2020 16:05
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Trudy is free of sin  But yeah, watch those final two seasons for the conclusion of Pete's arc. And to see Harry become even more of a scumbag.
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Jun 27, 2020 16:42
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Was “Kinsey shows up again and he’s a Hare Krishna” in the last two seasons? Because if it is that episode alone makes it worth it.
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Jun 27, 2020 16:43
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Was “Kinsey shows up again and he’s a Hare Krishna” in the last two seasons? Because if it is that episode alone makes it worth it. It's season 5. "It's called the Negron complex" "What's it about?" "It's about Negrons, who harvest katon under the rule of their masters, the Kakazons" "Is that the twist?" "No the twist is the Negrons are white"
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Jun 27, 2020 16:53
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Mad Men is tied with Downton Abbey as peak middle class white person entertainment in the drama category. In my opinion at least.
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Jun 27, 2020 17:02
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It's kinda funny that both the 30 Rock and Community full series blu ray sets are now completely sold out on Amazon as a result.
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Jun 27, 2020 17:20
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In my opinion Mad Men is probably the best television show of all time. But, hey, opinions vary.
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Jun 27, 2020 17:23
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A few years ago Bill Maher (I recognize that his name alone will make some people tune out the rest) did a monologue about people going back and finding "problematic" things in old shows and movies (Friends and Sixteen Candles) and the unfairness of holding people to rules that didn't exist at the time. This is a by-product of our ability to evolve. There are better things to focus energy on.
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Jun 27, 2020 17:40
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I disagree, as I often do with Bill Maher. Going back and identifying your mistakes is a healthy, productive way to live. It helps you recognize flaws in your character and grow as a person and avoid making the same kind of mistakes in the future. And in the same way its good for us to look back as a society or an entertainment business or whatever and ask questions like "Why the gently caress are there so many slurs in The Hangover and why didn't that bother me less than 10 years ago?" You don't have to "cancel" everyone over it. It doesn't have to and shouldn't be the end of the story. What we're seeing with this blackface stuff or the white voice actors walking away from voicing poc characters feels like the right thing. Its us saying "Whoops, maybe that was wrong. I'm sorry. Lets do better." And its funny Mad Men is being talked about since so much of the core of that show, both as a real dramatic character piece and a goofy comedy at times, is looking back at the common ideas and beliefs of society and going "What the gently caress?" to them.
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Jun 27, 2020 17:50
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Gaunab posted:Mad Men is tied with Downton Abbey as peak middle class white person entertainment in the drama category. In my opinion at least. I think the big difference is Mad Men using the popular retro aesthetics to showcase how people in the 60s were lovely. Downton Abbey on the other hand is all about how Edwardian hierarchies were the best and everyone got along and lords and ladies were best friends with their maids. I never watched the final season of Downtown Abbey but really anything of genuine interest faded after season 1. Though I did laugh a lot when they couldn't resist incorporating Young Hitler into the show. Actually this sounds like I'm joking but I'm completely serious: Another Period does a better job of showing the genuine class and race and gender issues among the early twentieth century mega-elite, even with it being done in a completely screwball way. Not only because Downton Abbey doesn't really address those, but because the Another Period creators actually did their job.
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Jun 27, 2020 17:52
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What energy is being focused on this last round of cuts? No one's been out on the streets protesting against Community or 30 Rock. Unless I'm mistaken, all of these actions are from media companies (or creators, in the case of Tina Fey) try to cut off potential criticism at the pass.
fancy stats fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Jun 27, 2020 |
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Jun 27, 2020 18:01
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We lose NOTHING from evolving into better people, we gain EVERYTHING by recognizing our inappropriate past behavior and changing it. We need to be more empathetic, end of story.
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Jun 27, 2020 18:35
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Big Mean Jerk posted:The only “good” white male characters on the show are Ken Cosgrove and maybe Stan, although I can’t remember if Ken said any racist poo poo in the early seasons and Stan started off a huge sexist before he mellowed out and became Grizzly Adams. https://www.amazon.com/Punishment-X4-Ben-Hargrove-ebook/dp/B00AS10WRW Speaking of Ken Cosgrove, I just learned that Amazon is actually selling his SF story, "The Punishment of X-4". Does anyone who actually wrote this, and if it is worth reading?
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Jun 27, 2020 18:46
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STAC Goat posted:I disagree, as I often do with Bill Maher. Neither Maher, nor myself, are suggesting you shouldn't identify them. The question is do we need to erase them? I don't think we do. We can watch something and recognize the things we like about it, and that things that in retrospect weren't such a good idea.
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Jun 27, 2020 18:46
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:The question is do we need to erase them? That's a false choice though. An episode of Community or 30 Rock being pulled from streaming platforms isn't erasure. Netflix doesn't own Community, Hulu doesn't own 30 Rock (yes, I know NBC owns a stake in Hulu, but that's not the same thing). You can still obtain those episodes legally if you seek out the show. What you can't do is stumble upon episodes of a TV show with blackface in it when 'the algorithm' recommends you watch 30 Rock next. That's the big thing. It's already been shown that machine learning has inherited our own biases and nothing really drives that home than a black family being recommended a TV-14 show that tosses blackface in front of them in 2020.
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Jun 27, 2020 19:08
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I think with something as visual as blackface we lose next to nothing removing it, and I usually advocate to keep poo poo the way it is as an example of something to look back on as not acceptable any more. But it's not like blackface being uncool is some new rule we need to abide by. I'm 31 and I can't remember ever not knowing that blackface is offensive and wrong, and not something to be doing. Hell even Mr Popo and Jynx were uncomfortable to me from a North American perspective when I was a kid. It's not the same as cutting out an episode in which a purposefully offensive joke is portrayed only through dialogue, imho. Whether the intent is the same in both instances and meant to drag down the racist as the butt of the joke, they're wildly different things imho. Especially in sitcoms intended for mass consumption by a wide demographic. It's not like these are prestige dramas or movies intended for more mature/adult audiences.
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Jun 27, 2020 19:12
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Just watched the 30 Rock episode Generalissimo with Alec Baldwin in brownface and I am amazed they left that one in. That's not a joke about brownface, it's just straight up Alec Baldwin portraying a hispanic version of himself. I suppose the argument is that without the historical context of blackface, simply portraying another race through makeup isn't offensive enough to warrant it? AARD VARKMAN fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jun 27, 2020 |
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Jun 27, 2020 19:15
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I remember when they removed Speedy Gonzales saying it was offensive to Mexicans and a majority of Mexicans threw a fit saying they loved the character.
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Jun 27, 2020 19:21
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Big Mean Jerk posted:The only “good” white male characters on the show are Ken Cosgrove and maybe Stan, although I can’t remember if Ken said any racist poo poo in the early seasons and Stan started off a huge sexist before he mellowed out and became Grizzly Adams. Sal
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Jun 27, 2020 19:36
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TheAardvark posted:Just watched the 30 Rock episode Generalissimo with Alec Baldwin in brownface and I am amazed they left that one in. That's not a joke about brownface, it's just straight up Alec Baldwin portraying a hispanic version of himself. I guess the reasoning there would be that the joke is that it is Alec Baldwin identically so like you'd never use another actor. Still its probably entirely unnecessary to "brownface" him for the joke (and I admit I don't think I noticed it or at least don't remember it) so still problematic in that regard. And yeah, I'd guess the fact that "blackface" is a real, tangible specific historical thing. Its still like offensive historically when Fisher Stevens goes "yellowface" for Short Circuit, but its definitely got some different context in America for obvious reasons.
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Jun 27, 2020 19:50
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bull3964 posted:That's a false choice though. An episode of Community or 30 Rock being pulled from streaming platforms isn't erasure. Netflix doesn't own Community, Hulu doesn't own 30 Rock (yes, I know NBC owns a stake in Hulu, but that's not the same thing). You can still obtain those episodes legally if you seek out the show. What you can't do is stumble upon episodes of a TV show with blackface in it when 'the algorithm' recommends you watch 30 Rock next. That's the big thing. It's already been shown that machine learning has inherited our own biases and nothing really drives that home than a black family being recommended a TV-14 show that tosses blackface in front of them in 2020. Why not just have a warning at the beginning of the episode and let people decide if they want to watch it or not?
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Jun 27, 2020 20:00
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:Why not just have a warning at the beginning of the episode and let people decide if they want to watch it or not? It's possible that could happen in the future, but Netflix can't exactly do that. They don't own the content and their contract likely forbids them altering the content in any way (including some sort of pre-roll). NBC may come back to them and say "hey, if we add a disclaimer on to this, can it go back in the rotation?", but that assumes it's something that NBC would want to pursue.
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Jun 27, 2020 20:08
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Because if something is offensive then it doesn't just matter to those who find it offensive. Letting people just go be racist if they want to be racist is a garbage worldview that actively harms us by normalizing it and radicalizing it. A bunch of people ignore the warning, watch the episode, laugh at the blackface, and think blackface is funny and fair game for a joke. But by removing it a bunch of people who are like "but it was such a funny episode!" are forced to take a step back and question it. Like you could flash a message across the screen saying "this is wrong and a bad call and offensive" during the scenes but a bunch of edgelords and racists would say "if blackface is so bad why are you still airing it?" And you know what? They'd have a point. But in this case, yeah, Netflix and Hulu are probably just doing the most practical thing in their power to remove the episodes entirely and avoid the problem. Same as HBO pulling down Gone With The Wind before adding some kind of disclaimer.
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Jun 27, 2020 20:09
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loud voice from New Jersey: "ITALIANS AREN'T WHITE" STAC Goat posted:Because if something is offensive then it doesn't just matter to those who find it offensive. Letting people just go be racist if they want to be racist is a garbage worldview that actively harms us by normalizing it and radicalizing it. A bunch of people ignore the warning, watch the episode, laugh at the blackface, and think blackface is funny and fair game for a joke. But by removing it a bunch of people who are like "but it was such a funny episode!" are forced to take a step back and question it. This is just one of many problems with The Boondocks. Having a black character be a mega racist towards black people is supposed to be satirical but racist white people are going to see it and laugh at the racism not the satire, and just share clips of the racist stuff on social media. pentyne fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jun 27, 2020 |
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Jun 27, 2020 20:18
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bull3964 posted:It's possible that could happen in the future, but Netflix can't exactly do that. They don't own the content and their contract likely forbids them altering the content in any way (including some sort of pre-roll). NBC may come back to them and say "hey, if we add a disclaimer on to this, can it go back in the rotation?", but that assumes it's something that NBC would want to pursue. Good point, it would be helpful to know exactly what the contract says. Could they put a banner on the thumbnail, would be another contract question. NBC may well decide not to pursue those options and that pulling the episodes is just safer, which I think is a shame.
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Jun 27, 2020 20:25
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STAC Goat posted:I guess the reasoning there would be that the joke is that it is Alec Baldwin identically so like you'd never use another actor. Still its probably entirely unnecessary to "brownface" him for the joke (and I admit I don't think I noticed it or at least don't remember it) so still problematic in that regard. It always just looked like the telenovela lighting to me tbh Also, Netflix does have content warnings at the beginning, albeit rather unobtrusively in the corner iirc.
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Jun 27, 2020 20:26
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STAC Goat posted:Because if something is offensive then it doesn't just matter to those who find it offensive. Letting people just go be racist if they want to be racist is a garbage worldview that actively harms us by normalizing it and radicalizing it. A bunch of people ignore the warning, watch the episode, laugh at the blackface, and think blackface is funny and fair game for a joke. But by removing it a bunch of people who are like "but it was such a funny episode!" are forced to take a step back and question it. If you go down this rabbit hole, eventually you'd just have to remove everything from Netflix. I despise slippery slope arguments, but I think they are appropriate when it comes to issues of censorship, especially retroactive censorship.
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Jun 27, 2020 20:28
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Someone somewhere said that the answer to "where do you draw the line" is simply "somewhere." We're not talking about some nebulous idea. We're talking about literal blackface. That's a pretty easy line and saying "well where does it stop?" doesn't make any sense to me. If someone else has an issue with something else we can talk about it then.
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Jun 27, 2020 20:30
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pentyne posted:This is just one of many problems with The Boondocks. Having a black character be a mega racist towards black people is supposed to be satirical but racist white people are going to see it and laugh at the racism not the satire, and just share clips of the racist stuff on social media. tbf with Uncle Ruckus specifically, you have to be astoundingly bad at reading media to think the show is supporting him at all. even outside the racism, he's an obese, staggeringly ugly rear end in a top hat who is almost always a direct antagonist to the characters you're supposed to like, the one episode where he's the protagonist that I can think of (Jimmy Rebel) is about his views blowing up in his face, and the only emotion his music could possibly evoke is "jesus christ look at this motherfucker." like, clearly this didn't work, because white racists still do love him, but... I can't actually hold that against the show, because the show does everything in its power to yell out "THIS GUY IS BAD, DO NOT BE LIKE HIM, HE SUCKS rear end."
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Jun 27, 2020 20:33
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Fun game, consider how much time these people are spending trotting out the same rhetoric the supporters of Confederate statues and lawn jockeys use to protest it being mildly more inconvenient to watch roughly an hour of television from two decades ago versus how much time they spend talking about anything made by black people.Gaunab posted:Mad Men is tied with Downton Abbey as peak middle class white person entertainment in the drama category. In my opinion at least. I have no idea what this means, please elaborate. Bulky Bartokomous posted:A few years ago Bill Maher (I recognize that his name alone will make some people tune out the rest) did a monologue about people going back and finding "problematic" things in old shows and movies (Friends and Sixteen Candles) and the unfairness of holding people to rules that didn't exist at the time. Bill Maher has an ulterior motive in dissuading people in digging up poo poo from the past, namely that he's a garbage person with an entire career of lovely takes and he really doesn't want people to remember that he's an anti-vaxxer who believes in healing crystals or that he openly and proudly uses the n word with a hard r.
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Jun 27, 2020 20:33
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Watermelon Daiquiri posted:It always just looked like the telenovela lighting to me tbh  my guy got makeup lines like the president
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Jun 27, 2020 20:36
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TheAardvark posted:
oh dear yeah. that is very trump. given the character its hard to imagine that its meant to rag on him.
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Jun 27, 2020 20:38
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I looked up images and saw ones that looked like just Baldwin, some that looked like a tan, and some that looked real bad. And I thought "maybe that was the joke" but again it goes back to "is that a joke we really should be making?"
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Jun 27, 2020 20:39
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WeedlordGoku69 posted:because white racists still do love him, but... this is kind of a serious problem with media and not just "oh, let them have this its still a great show/movie" Like American History X is pretty clear what it is trying to do, but white racists still repeatedly watch the curb stomp scene and laugh about how much they want to do it themselves.
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Jun 27, 2020 20:45
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That's basically what caused Chappelle to have his quasi-breakdown, no? That people were just taking his jokes and skits and using them to be racist and offensive? To some extent if the purpose is unquestionably clear and its still being interpreted in bad faith you just have to ask if its worth it. That seems to be core of the blackface issue. Is that episode of Community good? Yes. Is it worth a blackface joke? That's another question.
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Jun 27, 2020 20:50
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Watermelon Daiquiri posted:Also, Netflix does have content warnings at the beginning, albeit rather unobtrusively in the corner iirc. They display the TV rating information when it comes to licensed shows, no more than what would show up on broadcast TV.
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Jun 27, 2020 20:56
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Sleeveless posted:Fun game, consider how much time these people are spending trotting out the same rhetoric the supporters of Confederate statues and lawn jockeys use to protest it being mildly more inconvenient to watch roughly an hour of television from two decades ago versus how much time they spend talking about anything made by black people. Sure, we can play that game. I would submit that it is much easier for someone to skip in an episode of an NBC sitcom that they are watching on a streaming service than it is for someone who might have business near a city hall or park under the shadow of a statute to confederate soldiers. Also, you have to look at intent. The statutes were put up to glorify men who fought for the right to keep slaves and intimidate former slaves. What was the intent we are talking about with these TV episodes? So yeah, I don't see a ton overlap between confederate statues and poor attempts at humor made 10 years ago. I think Maher is entertaining and I agree with his outlook on speech issues. But hey, to each their own.
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Jun 27, 2020 21:05
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On top of the people doing it intentionally (and there are plenty who do it intentionally while swearing up and down they didn't mean it) there's also the issue when making punchlines out of terrible things that humor-impaired folks will just reference the horrible thing and think that's the same as telling a joke. South Park's probably the biggest example since Cartman was overtly racist and horrible in every way but that didn't stop people from saying "shut up Jew" in a squeaky voice.
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Jun 27, 2020 21:11
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pentyne posted:this is kind of a serious problem with media and not just "oh, let them have this its still a great show/movie" American History X loving sucks poo poo
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Jun 27, 2020 21:29
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