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"Black face" skit on Australian variety show

Legend said:
You cannot transform culture to adhere to a culture an entire hemisphere away.
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True enough.

But so many people like to try....

I am thinking of terrorists and then military retaliation against a country for the actions of terrorists from another, different, country, here.

Which kind of puts five guys doing a bad Jackson family impersonation into perspective, doesn't it.

(ETA: How could you do a Jackson 5 impersonation without colouring your skin, or wearing wigs, or putting on the clothes - at least a little bit? It'd be like doing an Osmonds impersonation without putting in giant novelty teeth. Actually, on the same show, many years ago, I seem to recall there was a Bee Gee impersonation number - and the singers used helium balloons to get the voices right.)
 
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BTMO said:
(ETA: How could you do a Jackson 5 impersonation without colouring your skin, or wearing wigs, or putting on the clothes - at least a little bit? It'd be like doing an Osmonds impersonation without putting in giant novelty teeth. Actually, on the same show, many years ago, I seem to recall there was a Bee Gee impersonation number - and the singers used helium balloons to get the voices right.)
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You hire 5 black guys. Or you do the wigs and the clothes but not the skin color. That's how it would be handled in America, though even then it would probably raise eyebrows. The skin color, though? The big fake lips? Red lipstick? Gloves? That is a big no no, in any situation.

It might be given a pass if a Latino, Native American, Southwest Asian, Arabic or multiracial person did an impersonation of a black singer without the paint but with the frizzy hair and so on. A white person is a big no no though.
 
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BTMO said:
True enough.

But so many people like to try....

I am thinking of terrorists and then military retaliation against a country for the actions of terrorists from another, different, country, here.

Which kind of puts five guys doing a bad Jackson family impersonation into perspective, doesn't it.

(ETA: How could you do a Jackson 5 impersonation without colouring your skin, or wearing wigs, or putting on the clothes - at least a little bit? It'd be like doing an Osmonds impersonation without putting in giant novelty teeth. Actually, on the same show, many years ago, I seem to recall there was a Bee Gee impersonation number - and the singers used helium balloons to get the voices right.)
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It's possible to do any imitation of anyone without turning them into a stereotypical cartoon character. If white Australians had been (historically) segregated, attacked, beaten, lynched for their ability to sing falsetto, you might have a legitimate comparison.
Of course with the Osmonds, I would've supported a movement to deny the vote to people with too many perfect teeth and icky saccharine sweet dispositions but it never happened. :spjimlad:
 
EeneyMinnieMoe said:
You hire 5 black guys. Or you do the wigs and the clothes but not the skin color. That's how it would be handled in America, though even then it would probably raise eyebrows. The skin color, though? The big fake lips? Red lipstick? Gloves? That is a big no no, in any situation.

It might be given a pass if a Latino, Native American, Southwest Asian, Arabic or multiracial person did an impersonation of a black singer without the paint but with the frizzy hair and so on. A white person is a big no no though.
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"Hire"???

The segment is called "Red Faces" - a cheap rip off of the Gong Show. It is amateur comedy.
 
To Everyone,
Volume 2

One of the best things about this forum is its ability to make you a better person.

Perhaps that seems like an exaggeration, but I don't think it was. I've always been fascinated with challenging one's beliefs to arrive at what is the best solution. I've always related it to an analogy I came up with:

If you look at one side of a coin and appreciate it for its unparalleled beauty every day, but never turn it over, you are running an honest risk without reward. If you do turn it over, one of three outcomes will result. It can be more beautiful than the original side, resulting in a new appreciation by you towards this new side, over the original side. It could be ugly, in which case you'd appreciate the original side even more, now fully comprehending just how beautiful a side it is. Or, it could be the same as the opposite side, in which case you appreciate the coin as a whole.

While I strive to turn all of my "coins" over constantly, to ensure I'm on the right side, I know I cannot possibly turn them all over all that well. Be it my youth, be it my inexperience or be it my ignorance, despite my earnest efforts to get rid of it. This forum and its members helps me turn many a coin over. Perhaps the more neglected ones, and will reinforce or reform my opinion on the coin.

I maintain some of my points here were valid, and I certainly could keep arguing with that point of view and hold up respectable premises, including the fact that the sextet wore the "afro wigs" because that is the image that the Jackson 5 are famous for.

For the most part, however, the argument I was trying to uphold fell victim to what many would regard, and fairly so, stubborness. Ignorance, even. I promise you that it is not the case. I pride myself as a very open person and someone who will accept change not for the sake of it, only for the better.

For me to change, it takes a certain amount, that being said, it's not a lot, just what I would consider an apt amount. I think I've seen that.

No one was arguing this as a racist slur. No one was arguing this as Australian ignorance. You were arguing this as an insensitivity; an overlooking of what was an innocent mistake, but something that should've been given, at least, the benefit of the doubt by the performers and producers. That is undeniably fair and just.

Maybe this was a nice read, or a pathetic exaggeration, I don't know. But I do know that when I change my opinion for the better, it's a very beneficial day.

Alex.
 
And people like you make me a better person.

Thanks for your opinions and thanks for this discussion.

Alex.
 
Wow! All those centuries of hanging upside hasn't caused the blood to rush to your heads after all! There's hope for Australia, yet.

I'm going over to a pub full of Brits and defend George Gregan in your honour.
(Again, Rugby thread regs will recall that I actually like your senior citizen halfback - just please don't tell me he's holding on to get into the '12 World Cup - 39 is beyond loyal, it's insane.)



*oh, and don't make me drink one of his cappuccinos, either - worst coffee I ever had.

Seriously, guys... I've had to admit a couple of times that I had learned something about myself and my thinking, also. It's what makes this place awesome.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Wow! All those centuries of hanging upside hasn't caused the blood to rush to your heads after all! There's hope for Australia, yet.
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ExcuseMe.jpg



;)
 
Foolmewunz said:
Alex, as we say in Yiddish, you're a real mensch.

You reinstill my faith in the younger generation.
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Seconded.

You are a lovely and delightful boy. As condescending as this sounds, your parents ought to be very proud of you (they probably are already and very much so).

I'd like to take partial credit for having changed your mind but I'm sure it wasn't anything I said. :p
 
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Mariana Hyde says it pretty well


Certainly, the incidents have served as a reminder that no matter how blatant an instance of racism might appear, someone will mount a bemused defence of it. After Ron Atkinson used the N-word in his repulsive verdict on the footballer Marcel Desailly, fellow pundit Jimmy Hill asked "why should that be any more of an offence than someone calling me chinny?", and both the blackface Jackson 5 and Du Beke have inspired similarly thoughtful defenders.

Among the latter's is Bruce Forsyth, who delivered an address we might call Play Your Race Cards Right. "We used to have a sense of humour about this," he told Talksport, in a statement he has since been ordered to retract. "The Americans used to call us limeys." Yes … It is a shame that Bruce's idol and former collaborator Sammy Davis Jr is no longer around to explain why a racist epithet is different to a nickname derived from the Royal Navy's erstwhile scurvy-prevention programme. But were Brucie to revisit Sammy's autobiography, he would recall the legendary performer's anguished descriptions of being spat at, or forcibly painted white while similar epithets were shouted at him.
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The reactions of the "lighten up" brigade come down to that lazy inability to see that just because a word is spoken — or a sketch performed — in non-malicious jest, it can nonetheless cause deep hurt and offence. Perhaps in the mouth of Anton Du Beke, "Paki" is merely half the word Pakistan, as it is to many who have stormed the talkboards. But in the ear of others, "Paki" is something quite different. It is the word that once rained down in playgrounds or football terraces or streets, and frequently still does in our far-from-civilised society. The stubborn refusal to admit of those historic associations is a tacit perpetuation of them. This is how, long after legislation has addressed the wrongs of the past, one generation still manages to pass the discrimination furtively on to the next.
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I think the rest of the article says it pretty well too.

Lucy Mangan was a bit more flippant

Anton Du Beke

Isn't life just too complicated? One minute you are a professional hoofer on Strictly Come Dancing having a bit of banter with Laila Rouass, your partner of Moroccan and Indian descent, and the next everyone's up in arms over the fact you said, totally in jest because she'd come in with a spray tan, that she looked like a Paki.

Opinion was divided over whether Du Beke's utterance amounted to a racial slur. He evidently thought it didn't (ditto an expression of hope that she wasn't "a terrorist" when they first met). Bruce Forsyth, the host, urged us all to have a sense of humour. And, as he has been neither sacked nor disciplined, the BBC evidently agrees it was less racist than Carol Thatcher's reference to a black tennis player as a golliwog. And everyone else? Where do we all stand on laughing at someone's skin colour?
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EeneyMinnieMoe said:
Seconded.

You are a lovely and delightful boy. As condescending as this sounds, your parents ought to be very proud of you (they probably are already and very much so).

I'd like to take partial credit for having changed your mind but I'm sure it wasn't anything I said. :p
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You can absolutely take partial credit. :D

Alex.
 
I'd like to ask the panel's (lol) opinion on how these differ when compared to the black-face skit on Hey Hey. They are short:

From the US show Tracey Ullman's State of the Union:


Ditto above but for further comparison:


The same show but because EMM mentioned Indian people dressed up for Halloween:


And this one again:


From Little Britain towards an Asian man:


Similar to above:


One you should all watch (plus related to lionking's comment above):


Alex.
 
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