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Post by sf on Jun 15, 2020 11:26:27 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2020 13:53:48 GMT
I would also argue that we’ve seen the last of Avenue Q in its current form, or at least we should’ve done. If it does survive then some heavy rewrites will no doubt be needed, starting with cutting the obvious number.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jun 15, 2020 14:19:04 GMT
Everyone's a little bit racist should not be cut - the message behind it isn't celebrating racism, it is acknowledging that such attitudes exist and challenges them. It would be wrong for theatre to pretend that racism isn't an issue - humour can be a powerful tool in tackling hate.
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Post by sf on Jun 15, 2020 15:52:27 GMT
Everyone's a little bit racist should not be cut - the message behind it isn't celebrating racism, it is acknowledging that such attitudes exist and challenges them. It would be wrong for theatre to pretend that racism isn't an issue - humour can be a powerful tool in tackling hate.
Right.
'The More You Ruv Someone', on the other hand, does nothing more than poke fun at a stereotype, and the fact that it's an accurate stereotype - there's plenty of bad English signage in Japan that substitutes R for L or vice versa - doesn't entirely get it a free pass.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jun 15, 2020 15:53:48 GMT
That number is made a lot worse when the performer is white... (which happens far more often than it should, as does the casting of a white Gary)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2020 15:55:47 GMT
Everyone's a little bit racist should not be cut - the message behind it isn't celebrating racism, it is acknowledging that such attitudes exist and challenges them. It would be wrong for theatre to pretend that racism isn't an issue - humour can be a powerful tool in tackling hate. I disagree that it challenges them. When you’re sat in a theatre and you’re surrounded by hundreds of people laughing at that song I’d argue that it’s less hilarious if you yourself have been the subject of racial discrimination. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2020 16:24:54 GMT
When I was at university - mid 00s - I did a project on changing attitudes and showed parts of Love Thy Neighbour to my seminar group (approved by the tutor) - and they were not happy with the content at all. There is a reason why it’s not available (and I had to try and find it pre YouTube etc) and it has to be one the BBC’s most embarrassing shows.
Basically I showed an episode about the main white character wanting to move because he was sick of his black neighbour. Anyway, a valuation took place and he was very happy with it, until the estate agent found out the neighbours were black - and he quickly dropped the valuation and said the house was now worth only a fraction... the punchline of course being they were stuck living next door to each other. But this was prime time BBC comedy.
Love Thy Neighbour should be shown and taught in school in my opinion - I actually think a lot of white people (especially kids) have never seen outright racism and this just highlights the absurdity of it. Plus it’s important to contextualise how far we have come and how far we still have to go. Of course it will never happen, but it would be a positive step for the BBC to reclaim ownership over their production (rather than pretend it doesn’t exist) and repurpose into something positive.
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Post by Jon on Jun 15, 2020 16:31:28 GMT
When I was at university - mid 00s - I did a project on changing attitudes and showed parts of Love Thy Neighbour to my seminar group (approved by the tutor) - and they were not happy with the content at all. There is a reason why it’s not available (and I had to try and find it pre YouTube etc) and it has to be one the BBC’s most embarrassing shows. Basically I showed an episode about the main white character wanting to move because he was sick of his black neighbour. Anyway, a valuation took place and he was very happy with it, until the estate agent found out the neighbours were black - and he quickly dropped the valuation and said the house was now worth only a fraction... the punchline of course being they were stuck living next door to each other. But this was prime time BBC comedy. Love Thy Neighbour should be shown and taught in school in my opinion - I actually think a lot of white people (especially kids) have never seen outright racism and this just highlights the absurdity of it. Plus it’s important to contextualise how far we have come and how far we still have to go. Of course it will never happen, but it would be a positive step for the BBC to reclaim ownership over their production (rather than pretend it doesn’t exist) and repurpose into something positive. The BBC won't do anything about it because Love Thy Neighbour was an ITV show. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2020 16:34:12 GMT
I would also argue that we’ve seen the last of Avenue Q in its current form, or at least we should’ve done. If it does survive then some heavy rewrites will no doubt be needed, starting with cutting the obvious number. Not at all. Avenue Q is a positive show and one designed for adults, not kids. EALBR is a great song and the intention is obvious - owning your racism, whether you’re actually racist or not. Which is surely what part of the BLM moment is about - recognising embedded, systematic racism. The song nor show does not glorify racism, but uses humour to make and deliver its points: that racism is stupid. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2020 16:37:17 GMT
When I was at university - mid 00s - I did a project on changing attitudes and showed parts of Love Thy Neighbour to my seminar group (approved by the tutor) - and they were not happy with the content at all. There is a reason why it’s not available (and I had to try and find it pre YouTube etc) and it has to be one the BBC’s most embarrassing shows. Basically I showed an episode about the main white character wanting to move because he was sick of his black neighbour. Anyway, a valuation took place and he was very happy with it, until the estate agent found out the neighbours were black - and he quickly dropped the valuation and said the house was now worth only a fraction... the punchline of course being they were stuck living next door to each other. But this was prime time BBC comedy. Love Thy Neighbour should be shown and taught in school in my opinion - I actually think a lot of white people (especially kids) have never seen outright racism and this just highlights the absurdity of it. Plus it’s important to contextualise how far we have come and how far we still have to go. Of course it will never happen, but it would be a positive step for the BBC to reclaim ownership over their production (rather than pretend it doesn’t exist) and repurpose into something positive. The BBC won't do anything about it because Love Thy Neighbour was an ITV show. Oh, maybe that’s why I failed! Joking obviously (I passed), but it’s 15 years since I saw it and I wasn’t born when it was out. My bad. Even so, repurposing it got educational purposes sounds like a good idea imo. |
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Post by intoanewlife on Jun 15, 2020 17:10:50 GMT
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Post by joem on Jun 25, 2020 12:55:07 GMT
Scrap all shows, everything is offensive to someone. Fear has killed the theatre anyway so censorship can finish it off.
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Post by basdfg on Jun 25, 2020 16:07:10 GMT
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jun 25, 2020 16:24:54 GMT
Removing overt references to The Song of the South is something that should have happened a long time ago. |
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Post by basdfg on Jun 25, 2020 16:52:59 GMT
Removing overt references to The Song of the South is something that should have happened a long time ago. It's only been 15 years or so since it was on BBC2 but it was always daft to have a ride based on a banned film. |
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Post by talkingheads on Jun 27, 2020 13:40:35 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2020 1:11:07 GMT
Everyone's a little bit racist should not be cut - the message behind it isn't celebrating racism, it is acknowledging that such attitudes exist and challenges them. It would be wrong for theatre to pretend that racism isn't an issue - humour can be a powerful tool in tackling hate.
Right.
'The More You Ruv Someone', on the other hand, does nothing more than poke fun at a stereotype, and the fact that it's an accurate stereotype - there's plenty of bad English signage in Japan that substitutes R for L or vice versa - doesn't entirely get it a free pass.
The Rs as Ls in some Cantonese countries is a legit speech pattern and I'd treat that the same as Rs as Ws or a lisp. Do we stop things like that now. Is mimicking an accent even allowed. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2020 1:15:49 GMT
When I was at university - mid 00s - I did a project on changing attitudes and showed parts of Love Thy Neighbour to my seminar group (approved by the tutor) - and they were not happy with the content at all. There is a reason why it’s not available (and I had to try and find it pre YouTube etc) and it has to be one the BBC’s most embarrassing shows. Basically I showed an episode about the main white character wanting to move because he was sick of his black neighbour. Anyway, a valuation took place and he was very happy with it, until the estate agent found out the neighbours were black - and he quickly dropped the valuation and said the house was now worth only a fraction... the punchline of course being they were stuck living next door to each other. But this was prime time BBC comedy. Love Thy Neighbour should be shown and taught in school in my opinion - I actually think a lot of white people (especially kids) have never seen outright racism and this just highlights the absurdity of it. Plus it’s important to contextualise how far we have come and how far we still have to go. Of course it will never happen, but it would be a positive step for the BBC to reclaim ownership over their production (rather than pretend it doesn’t exist) and repurpose into something positive. Love Thy Neighbour was a piece of it's time. I can recall it vaguely but didn't "Snowflake" get his comeuppance most times from Rudolph Walker's character. I don't know if the writing was done to highlight bigotry as Till Death Us Do Part did so brilliantly and if so it was a rather clumsy but well meaning idea at best. |
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Post by sf on Jul 3, 2020 1:27:15 GMT
Right.
'The More You Ruv Someone', on the other hand, does nothing more than poke fun at a stereotype, and the fact that it's an accurate stereotype - there's plenty of bad English signage in Japan that substitutes R for L or vice versa - doesn't entirely get it a free pass.
The Rs as Ls in some Cantonese countries is a legit speech pattern and I'd treat that the same as Rs as Ws or a lisp. Do we stop things like that now. Is mimicking an accent even allowed.
It's a legitimate speech pattern in Japan - the character is Japanese - even on some written signs (I saw a sign in a restaurant in Tokyo in January saying "this door is rocked", for example). The issue with that song is that the humour in it comes entirely from white writers poking fun at an Asian speech pattern; they just about get away with it when the role is played by someone like Ann Harada or Naoko Mori, but it's seriously dodgy when Christmas Eve is played by a Caucasian actress.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2020 11:08:53 GMT
The Rs as Ls in some Cantonese countries is a legit speech pattern and I'd treat that the same as Rs as Ws or a lisp. Do we stop things like that now. Is mimicking an accent even allowed.
It's a legitimate speech pattern in Japan - the character is Japanese - even on some written signs (I saw a sign in a restaurant in Tokyo in January saying "this door is rocked", for example). The issue with that song is that the humour in it comes entirely from white writers poking fun at an Asian speech pattern; they just about get away with it when the role is played by someone like Ann Harada or Naoko Mori, but it's seriously dodgy when Christmas Eve is played by a Caucasian actress.
Ideally a role like Christmas Eve should be played by an actress of Cantonese/South Asian background or someone who could pass for that ethnicity. If it is say a blonde haired white actress then it just looks stupid and could seem more offensive.
The Rs and Ls turning one word into another to create social misunderstanding is very funny IMO if written well.
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Post by sf on Jul 3, 2020 12:23:45 GMT
It's a legitimate speech pattern in Japan - the character is Japanese - even on some written signs (I saw a sign in a restaurant in Tokyo in January saying "this door is rocked", for example). The issue with that song is that the humour in it comes entirely from white writers poking fun at an Asian speech pattern; they just about get away with it when the role is played by someone like Ann Harada or Naoko Mori, but it's seriously dodgy when Christmas Eve is played by a Caucasian actress.
Ideally a role like Christmas Eve should be played by an actress of Cantonese/South Asian background or someone who could pass for that ethnicity. If it is say a blonde haired white actress then it just looks stupid and could seem more offensive.
The Rs and Ls turning one word into another to create social misunderstanding is very funny IMO if written well.
Not entirely sure why a Japanese woman should be played by a Cantonese actress. The issue isn't whether the song is funny. It's that the humour in it comes entirely from making fun of a racist stereotype. That is, it's a fact that there is no direct translation of the letter L in Japanese and that the range of sounds employed in the Japanese language is such that the line between L and R is very, very blurred, which means Japanese people often inadvertently substitute R for L when trying to speak or write English - but it's also a stereotype, and a stereotype that has historically been used by white people, and particularly by white Americans, to make fun of the Japanese. (And that's without getting into the history of white American racism against Japanese immigrants, which predates World War 2.) There's a big difference, in Avenue Q, between 'The More You Ruv Someone' and 'Everyone's A Little Bit Racist': both songs contain racist jokes, but the racist jokes in 'Everyone's A Little Bit Racist' are there specifically to make the point that everybody, whether they admit it or not, makes judgements based on subconscious race-based bias. 'The More You Ruv Someone', on the other hand, is basically just a racist joke. It's white writers making fun of a Japanese woman for pronouncing something differently from most western people, and there's no purpose to the joke other than to make a joke based on the character's ethnicity. As I said, when an actress of Japanese heritage is playing the role the writers just about get away with it; when it's a white woman with a dark wig, as it has been in at least one touring cast, it's wince-inducing.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2020 19:47:46 GMT
Ideally a role like Christmas Eve should be played by an actress of Cantonese/South Asian background or someone who could pass for that ethnicity. If it is say a blonde haired white actress then it just looks stupid and could seem more offensive.
The Rs and Ls turning one word into another to create social misunderstanding is very funny IMO if written well.
Not entirely sure why a Japanese woman should be played by a Cantonese actress. The issue isn't whether the song is funny. It's that the humour in it comes entirely from making fun of a racist stereotype. That is, it's a fact that there is no direct translation of the letter L in Japanese and that the range of sounds employed in the Japanese language is such that the line between L and R is very, very blurred, which means Japanese people often inadvertently substitute R for L when trying to speak or write English - but it's also a stereotype, and a stereotype that has historically been used by white people, and particularly by white Americans, to make fun of the Japanese. (And that's without getting into the history of white American racism against Japanese immigrants, which predates World War 2.) There's a big difference, in Avenue Q, between 'The More You Ruv Someone' and 'Everyone's A Little Bit Racist': both songs contain racist jokes, but the racist jokes in 'Everyone's A Little Bit Racist' are there specifically to make the point that everybody, whether they admit it or not, makes judgements based on subconscious race-based bias. 'The More You Ruv Someone', on the other hand, is basically just a racist joke. It's white writers making fun of a Japanese woman for pronouncing something differently from most western people, and there's no purpose to the joke other than to make a joke based on the character's ethnicity. As I said, when an actress of Japanese heritage is playing the role the writers just about get away with it; when it's a white woman with a dark wig, as it has been in at least one touring cast, it's wince-inducing.
Is mimicking or impersonating any pattern of speech or a regional accent now considered no go if you cannot joke about the way a country of nationaity may talk. Most countries will have some sort of stereotype some will be more offensive than others of course. |
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Post by sf on Jul 3, 2020 20:19:58 GMT
Is mimicking or impersonating any pattern of speech or a regional accent now considered no go if you cannot joke about the way a country of nationaity may talk. Most countries will have some sort of stereotype some will be more offensive than others of course.
Is this for real?!
Well, put it this way: as someone with a slight but identifiable northern accent, I do not find it amusing when theatre directors use some kind of northern accent as a shorthand for 'thick' or 'uneducated'.
NO, it's not OK to poke fun at a stereotyped speech pattern, which is one of the reasons Apu on The Simpsons has always been so cringeworthy (and that, actually, is an example of something that would be very nearly as awful voiced by an actor of the correct heritage as it has been when voices by Hank Azaria). It's also not OK to make fun of someone's skin colour, hair, other physical attributes including but not limited to height and weight. Can you still get away with humour based on race and stereotyping? Yes... carefully, depending on the intent behind the joke. There's a big difference between, say, Love Thy Neighbour and Goodness Gracious Me.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 4, 2020 13:24:19 GMT
Is mimicking or impersonating any pattern of speech or a regional accent now considered no go if you cannot joke about the way a country of nationaity may talk. Most countries will have some sort of stereotype some will be more offensive than others of course.
Is this for real?!
Well, put it this way: as someone with a slight but identifiable northern accent, I do not find it amusing when theatre directors use some kind of northern accent as a shorthand for 'thick' or 'uneducated'.
NO, it's not OK to poke fun at a stereotyped speech pattern, which is one of the reasons Apu on The Simpsons has always been so cringeworthy (and that, actually, is an example of something that would be very nearly as awful voiced by an actor of the correct heritage as it has been when voices by Hank Azaria). It's also not OK to make fun of someone's skin colour, hair, other physical attributes including but not limited to height and weight. Can you still get away with humour based on race and stereotyping? Yes... carefully, depending on the intent behind the joke. There's a big difference between, say, Love Thy Neighbour and Goodness Gracious Me.
Good point but how can we tell the difference between being offensive or doing an impression. Shows like Goodness Gracious Me and the Real McCoy were people sending up their own heritage races. So is this allowed like the famous self mocking Jewish comedians. Is an accent mocked on region okay but not on race. I'm from Birmingham and the Brummie/Black Country accent is mocked or impersonated a lot so to is the Scouse accent. What about TV impersonators would a white impressionist be able to do a vocal impression of Barack Obama or a black person doing Donald Trump for example is that now offensive? |
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Post by sf on Jul 4, 2020 13:48:43 GMT
What about TV impersonators would a white impressionist be able to do a vocal impression of Barack Obama or a black person doing Donald Trump for example is that now offensive? As I said, it depends on the intent behind the joke. Yes, absolutely a white impressionist can do Barack Obama - but not in blackface, and not if the point of the joke is simply to make a racial slur. You might think that's a point that shouldn't need making, but the depictions of Obama in political cartoons in the US's conservative media have often been thoroughly vile. |
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