Dick

TJ/ This week’s Mad Men.

One of the telling differences between Canada City Culture and US American is how non-whites are “played” by whites. In some of our comedy shows (Kids In the Hall for example) non whites are played by whites in makeup. It has never bothered me because they weren’t done in an unflattering racist manner. However, seeing Roger Sterling singing the authentic (?) lyrics to “My Old Kentucky Home” in blackface. Yikes, even I started to feel real uncomfortable and glad when Don bailed out, too.

@ManchuCandidate: Of course, the blackface was quite deliberate — there’s politically incorrect, and then there’s that. The Yikes is how recent blackface was casually accepted.

But hey, I’m impressed by the drink Jon Hamm made at the bar. I’m sure he practiced like hell beforehand.

@ManchuCandidate: Here’s something on actors of the majority persuasion playing Indians in teh movies here in US America.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Pasatiempo/Killing-the-white-man-s-red-man

So did you ever see that World Air Guitar Championship movie with that U.S. Korean cat who could shred like a sumbitch?

Yes but, People, you’re forgetting an important cultural signifier: when you see actors in stuff they’re not really who they’re supposed to be. They are acting (some of them) and the whole thing is not really true! I know this because I lost two and and a half hours to Inglorious Bastards (suc) yesterday and now I know that when I go to the movies I am watching a movie!!!! I did not know that before. And what happens on the screen isn’t really happening. It’s all like make-believe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Color me fucking flabbergasted. And sometimes, sometimes, we can more truly comprehend our humanity through those fictional events and even though it’s fiction it’s more really real than real. Which is all so fucking meta and deep I was like “oh wow”! To say nothing of genre movies, which is where truth lies. To say nothing of pastiche, because I have never seen cheesy Italian movie before and love nothing better than to have the schlock of yesteryear paraded before my eyes at excruciating length. (Ennio Morricone excepted) So next time I go to the movies I can be so kewl because I will remember that it’s only a MOVIE, people.

But I just had such an OMFG idea! What if… work with me here… what if you wrote a novel and it was like about WRITING A NOVEL!!!!!!!!!! I know. Awesome, right? Or a play. Oh my FG. I could write a play about 6 characters looking for what kind of a play they were in but it would really be about life and shit and I could call it Six Characters in Search of an Author. That would be so innovative and shit and and kewl!!!!!!

@Benedick:
True. Canada City’s dramatic traditions are the same as Mother Britain’s. On a Canada City comedy show, Barack is played by a white guy in make up (similar to SNL.)

The problem is that in the not so distant past of US American cinema, white actors in black/red/brown/yellow face have been used to keep black/red/brown/yellow actors out.

I didn’t like Tropical Thunder, but I didn’t see why some folks got upset with Robert Downey Jr’s character.

I think the real problem is when it goes beyond acting to caricature.

@ManchuCandidate: Oh, I think there’s no case to be made these day for blacking up, in whatever guise. Unless one is making a point, which satire can do. I remember seeing A Passage to India and being appalled that the saintly Indian philosopher of the novel was played by Alec Guinness in black face. (Tell the truth I feel the same about drag.)

@Benedick: I’m wit’chu on that. Mrs RML gets all bent out of shape over historical or cultural inaccuracies in the movies (“film” is what you shoot movies on) to which I say, “it’s not a documentary. Chill.”

@redmanlaw: How about Mel Brooks at the Indian chief in “Blazing Saddles”? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsj4s9z-EAE (note, the beadwork on his headband says “Kosher for Passover” in Hebrew.

@Dodgerblue: Then there’s the Gopher Indians in the “Go Go Gophers” cartoon that ran with Underdog. That’s the source of some Native pride right there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH7TXnFJNeE

I wanted to use the Gopher tribe in one of my hypotheticals for my tribal employment law seminar on Saturday but couldn’t fit it in.

@Benedick: *gulp* Hope you didn’t go see it based on the recommendation of whoever it was that hijacked my stinque profile and my fooboo account on the same friggin day. Because I he really enjoyed the flick.

@The Nabisco Quiver: No, I was excited to see it. I even went to the movies and bought a ticket. Which was good because then I learned that I was watching a movie which was not real life but watching a movie. I have so much trouble telling them apart.

@redmanlaw: Every week Ma Nabisco and I settle in to watch “Rescue Me”. And every week she exclaims “these people are so messed up! How can anyone fight/screw/drink/have such messed up lives?” And every week I respond ‘it’s television’. Damn good television, I might add.

OBTW, to those who spoiled at least one scene of last night’s Mad Men, I just want to say thanks! Although to be fair, I did let slip that Hitler gits it at the end of Inglorious….whoops!

@The Nabisco Quiver: I laughed and gasped the whole way through. Five stars.

@mellbell: That Mr. Jolie can sure make ya laugh, eh wot? Although Ma Nabisco had to point out early on that his southern was more SNL Bush than anything else…