You’re watching a movie or TV show, two characters are talking, and one of them says something offensive. The other person tells them to not say that, and then winds up saying something even more offensive.
Here are just a few examples of what I’m talking about:
FROM THE BOONDOCKS:
“Don’t say that something’s gay. It’s offensive to fags.”
FROM CRASH:
“Don’t be ignorant. They’re probably Thai or Cambodian. Totally different kinds of Chinks.”
FROM THE BIG LEBOWSKI:
“Also, dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian American, please.”
“Walter, this isn’t a guy who built the railroads here. This is a guy—“
“What the f*** are you talking about?”
“Walter, he peed on my rug!”
“He peed on the Dude’s rug.”
“Donnie, you’re out of your element. Dude, the Chinaman is not the issue here!”
There are a million other examples I could bring up, but you get the idea. Having a character call out someone else for being offensive, and then doing something offensive himself or herself, is an oddly common joke in media. It’s so common that it got me thinking. What exactly is the punch line here?
It’s worth asking, since humor is meant to speak to some larger truth in society. People laugh at a joke because they recognize some element of reality in it. Sometimes the reality is so plain that multiple people wind up making the same observations. Like, when people called Donald Trump a racist for telling four Congresswomen of color to “go back to their countries,” and he responded with “I don’t have a racist bone in my body,” basically every Late Night Talk Show Host—Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Samantha Bee—made the same joke. “You don’t have any bones in your body.” They all made the same observation, because the reality—Trump’s obvious lying and his poor fitness—was unmistakable. Their humor spoke to some truth that everyone could recognize.
So, if humor is meant to speak to some larger truth, and numerous writers across numerous genres and forms of media have made the same joke about people calling others out on offensive statements being hypocrites, what is the message they’re trying to impart? What’s the truth they’re speaking to that they think everyone will recognize? That people calling for tolerance and sensitivity are hypocrites? That it’s okay to be offensive, because everyone’s doing it anyway? That we should never strive to be better, because a better world doesn’t exist? That’s a very bleak, very defeatist message to be imparting. And one that I personally don’t think is true. In fact, I believe that this type of humor is a concerted effort on the part of certain people, people who don’t want to change their ways, trying to convince us that they don’t need to, since everyone is just as bad as them.
Virtually all of the jokes I mentioned are written by White men, the very people who are most angered, and most threatened, by political correctness, though they’re not the only ones. Plenty of Black comedians, like Dave Chappelle, are guilty of saying that everyone’s too sensitive, and that it’s okay to be racist, because, come on. There’s truth in racism. In one stand up routine, for instance, he talks about an encounter he had with a Korean man. The man got offended when Dave called him Chinese, and asked “Do I look Chinese to you?” To which Dave responded, “Yes, Of course you do.” So, again, it’s not just White men refusing to change their behavior that employ this type of humor. It’s any person who doesn’t want to admit that they’re wrong. It’s an extension of the writing technique known as ironic lamp shading, wherein the writer will acknowledge that something is a trope, or unbelievable, or in this case, offensive, as a means of ducking criticism. It’s what happens in a horror movie when one character says, “we should split up,” and another character says, “that’s stupid.” They’re hoping that, by acknowledging the negative nature of the thing they’re doing, they can trick you into accepting that thing. But, here’s the truth. Simply acknowledging that something is a trope, or unbelievable, or offensive doesn’t make it any better. If anything, it makes it worse. You’re telling the audience that you know that what you’re doing is wrong, and doing it anyway. And, in some cases, writers’ aren’t even so “clever” as to use ironic lamp shading. Sometimes, as in Street Kings, Crank 2: High Voltage, or From Dusk Till Dawn the writers will have characters flat out say that expecting people to be tolerant or knowledgeable is simply unreasonable. In Street Kings, Keanu Reeve’s corrupt cop character insults two Korean gangsters by saying “Konnichiwa.” They tell him, “Konnichiwa’s Japanese. That’s offensive to Koreans,” to which he responds, “Hey, how am I supposed to tell if you can’t?” In Crank 2: High Voltage, a Latino gangster asks a Chinese guy, “You like sushi, Chinese man?” The Chinese guy says, “Sushi is Japanese.” And the gangster responds, “And just how am I supposed to tell you slant eyed f***s apart?” And in From Dusk Till Dawn, George Clooney makes fun of the fact that Harvey Keitel doesn’t look like his adopted son. “You don’t look like a Jap.” “Neither does he. He looks Chinese.” “Oh, well, ex-f**king-cuse me!” Sigh. (It’s also just occurred to me that the butt of nearly all these, “it’s okay to be racist” jokes is Asian people. Lovely).
Look, knowing all this, it becomes hard to look at these jokes as anything other than a concerted effort to convince audiences that they shouldn’t ever question the writers’ motives, or ask them to change. And while, yes, no artist should ever be censored, and I, as a Writer, don’t like having people tell me what I should or shouldn’t create, artists need to adapt and grow if they want to survive. Tastes change. What was popular or acceptable 40 years ago won’t necessarily be popular or acceptable now. So, Mr. Chappelle, Mr. Seinfeld, Mr. Maher, and the writers of all the aforementioned jokes, instead of simply yelling at audiences to “grow up,” and “not be snowflakes,” maybe consider that the people you’re talking to are your customers. They are paying you. They provide you with a livelihood. And if you want to continue to have a career in show business, you need to understand what your customers want, and adjust your output accordingly. Of course people will make mistakes. And it’s perfectly possible to offend others without intending to do so. But the proper response to someone saying, “Hey, that’s offensive. Don’t do that.” Should never be, “Shut up! You’re just being an unreasonable hypocrite. Everyone else is doing this, so I’m totally fine.” Just some food for thought.
liusviews 