• Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        There’s a crazy phenomena since the invention of social media. People learn about things and pretend they knew about them all along.

        Schrodinger’s Cat

        Dunning-Kruger effect

        Blackface

        This is in poor taste, but it is not blackface. Blackface is a specific type of makeup where the lips are made ridiculously red as well.

        This happened sometime before 2005.

        Blackface was not a part of the “social conversation” or whatever at the time. Basically nobody knew about it. Jimmy learned about it and decided to stop doing so it.

        Today he is using his platform to speak out against fascism. Drop it. Screaming to death about imperfect advocates only helps the fascists win.

        • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          Blackface and other racial impersonation/minstrelry has been criticised for being more than the - forgive my use of the original term - “darky” iconography since the 1930s - see American Humor: a Study of the National Character. 1931, Constance Rouke

          • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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            1 day ago

            Yes, but was everyone everywhere talking about it prior to around 2010?

            No.

            This was around the same time as the Chappelle show with Chappelle wearing white make-up and impersonating a generic white person.

            Kimmel wasn’t doing a generic black person stereotype, he was imitating a specific person and put on the make-up to look more like that person. Tasteless? Corny? Dumb? definitely. Racist? …. I guess when you’re looking at it through the lens of today’s social discourse, sure.

            Anyway, he stopped doing it prior to blackface becoming everyone’s favourite topic, and apologized when the keyboard warriors went after him years later.

            Times changed and the masses decided this was unacceptable. The message was received and acted upon. People change. Give it a rest.

            • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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              1 day ago

              My ex in the early 2000s was at the time a member of an Eurasian alliance to campaign for proper representation of Asian people in the entertainment industry as there was a habit of casting white or racially ambiguous but not Asian persons in roles that were specifically written as Asian characters, and if their particular ethnicity (e.g. Malaysian) was specified, to cast someone of that ethnicity and not just generic Asian (e.g. Chinese).

              So maybe not everyone - but from personal experience, it was very much a concern to many people before that time, yes.

              • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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                15 hours ago

                That’s great, but it doesn’t change that the masses didn’t care at the time.

                Personally, I’d call an edge-lord comedian turned social advocate using his massive platform to speak up against fascism a win for progressives.

      • nthavoc
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        2 days ago

        Nobody had a problem with that skit or this Tropic Thunder role:

        In fact, people had more of a problem with Ben Stiller’s role playing the “never go full retard” part. Look up actual black face and you see the clear difference.

        • Noite_Etion@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          You base your understanding of racism on this? It’s like trying to say that being a sexual predator is fine because people like Dennis Reynolds.

          Go out in black face if you’re that confident, see how long it takes for you to get called out for it (im sure you can explain to them that it’s ok because Robert Downey did it). Black face didn’t stop being a hate crime because of tropic thunder lol.

          • nthavoc
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            20 hours ago

            Well I tried. Someone getting all uppity because they can’t tell the difference what blackface was in the 1900’s to a 2008 comedy that was received pretty well by everyone.

            • Noite_Etion@lemmy.world
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              17 hours ago

              Lol you brought up tropic thunder as a justification, while I was talking about Jimmy Kimmels use of black face which was not received well. One doesn’t cancel out the other.

              Nobody was seriously offended by RDJ’s role, because it’s making fun of white washing during casting rather than a direct depiction of black face. This kind of context is important and clearly missed by most people who use this movie as a justification for racism… Why do you think Brandon Jackson’s character was upset about it the whole movie?

                • Noite_Etion@lemmy.world
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                  16 hours ago

                  Lol.

                  You completely missed the point of that movie and tried to use it to justify blackface hahaha.

                  • nthavoc
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                    9 hours ago

                    With dumbass logic comparing rape and racism to pass as an argument and essentially saying I was ok with rape too, let me translate the otherwise polite “you do you” in a language you are accustomed to: Go fuck yourself.

            • Noite_Etion@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              Says a lot about a person when insulting an entire race for laughs is just meh.

              Glad you googled it yourself tho.

              • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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                3 days ago

                What I saw is a person that made shitty jokes twenty years ago and apologized for it 5 years ago.

                He hasn’t done it in literal decades and while his statement here is admirable, it isn’t going to make me start watching his show, I don’t see a reason to waste energy hating him.

                • Noite_Etion@lemmy.world
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                  3 days ago

                  What I saw is a person that made shitty jokes twenty years ago and apologized for it 5 years ago.

                  He didn’t feel the need to apologise for over 15 years? He only did it because he was getting called out for it.

                  He hasn’t done it in literal decades and while his statement here is admirable, it isn’t going to make me start watching his show, I don’t see a reason to waste energy hating him.

                  I agree his take was fantastic, but just because I agree with him doesn’t suddenly make him a good person or anything.

                  Also he has done many questionable things since then, people have connected him to the Epstein list, laughing at Megan Fox describing herself getting sexually harassed when she was 15, and his holiday album where he used the n-word multiple times whilst impersonating Snoop Dogg.

                  Dude is an asshole.

                  • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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                    2 days ago

                    You put a lot of effort in to writing that and like I said, that energy would be better spent elsewhere.

                  • Breezy@lemmy.world
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                    3 days ago

                    I just dont understand why this upsets you. Blackface? Im sorry there’s real life problems that need to be dealt with rather than a comedian being a dick.

              • abysmalpoptart@lemmy.world
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                3 days ago

                I saw the bit when he did it twenty years ago. I’ll agree that it was in poor taste, but he was specifically mocking a single person, karl malone, who is a terrible person.

                He wasn’t mocking an entire race of people. Black face is a different concept where it uses white actors to poorly portray generic black americans, not specific people. It’s a different thing than what kimmel did in these sketches, though again, it was in poor taste.