This is another occasion in which the response to the offensive material is actually as shocking (if not more than) as the material itself. I mean, a blackface skit? In 2009? It almost defies belief, but now we have the well educated people of the popular news sites expressing their outrage that anyone point out their stunning racism to them.
7. Americans are so sensitive.
“Wow, an American is being the voice of cultural sensitivity? Australia must be really messed up.” - Gawker.
6. Australians have a sense of humour.
A good one too, right up there with Sam Newman’s constant sexist jokes and the Chasers mocking kids who are terminally ill.
5. Bloody Harry Connick Jnr ruined it. What he said wasn’t in the spirit of the thing.
Television was much better when you could just be as racist as you liked. Also, going to work was way more fun when you could feel up the female employees. Now they’re all uppity with their harassment and political correctness. I’m not sure about all these immigrants, I mean I like curry and all but does it have to be cooked by Muslims? And don’t even get me started on the gays.
4. Who invited the Septic Tank?
Did we tell you we really want to be part of an international community?
3. I wouldn’t be offended if a bunch of black blokes painted their faces white.
*jaw drops*
2. In Australia we make fun of people equally.
As long as they’re people of colour, people with disabilities, LGBTI people, women or some other oppressed group. We pretty egalitarian so long as our hilarious joke perpetuates the power balance inherent in the status quo. Also, we’re just as likely to make that joke while physically attacking you. But it’s all in good fun.
And the classic refrain that I honestly thought was a laughable cliche. [Not to mention ableist as several of my dear tweeps pointed out.] Today I had the misfortune to hear it in seriousness way too many times:
1. It’s political correctness gone mad.
Yeah, respect for other human beings. What a fucking radical idea. Have at it in comments readers, what other pathetic excuses have you heard?
[While you're at it, read Crikey’s wrap of the international responses. If you still need a cluebat, read their 101 piece “What’s all the fuss about blackface?”.
Update: A blogosphere round-up:
Crimitism: The point is that it’s an actual, no-holds-barred minstrel act performed on national television in prime time in 2009, and the audience think it’s hilarious. Right now I hate the world and everything in it.
Blue Milk: Actually that is fucking offensive in our country too.
Fuck Politeness: But here where we did our best to wipe out the Indigenous population and still continue to ignore the policies that are fucking things up, that sort of racism is a-o-fucking-kay. Cos it’s *funny* right? Like golliwogs! (I need a flashing ’sarcasm’ sign).
Larvatus Prodeo: Pretending to be black isn’t offensive because it’s pretending. But this kind of illogical weirdness happens because the “offense” is all that matters. Intentions are good? Can’t be racist then, can you? Because only bad people are.
28 Comments
October 8 at 1:36 pm
What amazes me is how willing so many people are to reveal their own cultural ignorance by saying “why isn’t it like dressing up like a pirate’. I don’t know, maybe because of its history of connections with slavery and racial oppression? And Channel 9 – have a clue! Perhaps so much Footy Show has innured them to the fact that all “humour” isn’t funny!
October 8 at 1:55 pm
I am really shocked by ‘progressive’ people that influence the now via tv/radio/print/media that think its appropriate to further marginalize already marginalized minorities… Is it ironic that Sam Newman/Hey Hey/Kyle Sandilands are all the priviledged white male group that think its okay to make fun of minorities? Apparently -they- get to decide what is offensive to a group/s they are no part of. Is Hey Hey replacing the FootyShow gap now football season is over?
October 8 at 2:01 pm
I agree with you but I think it’s a bit of a stretch of the imagination to describe the powers that be behind shows like this as “progressive”. They’re just after profit, aren’t they?
October 8 at 2:02 pm
HA! my favourite excuse has to be “I cant be responsible for what happened before i was born/why these people feel this ism – i didnt do nothing wrong- just because im from the same place/race/type/socialstanding etc”
October 8 at 2:11 pm
That one’s also trotted out on crimes against Aboriginal Australians: “I didn’t do it, but I’m happy to sit here laughing while it continues to happen”.
October 8 at 2:22 pm
O! I have heard the best one “Get over it, i didnt mean to offend anyone, thats not my intent”…
October 8 at 5:59 pm
None of the press appear to have noticed a far less ambiguous “is this racist or not?” moment from the show.
I just posted on this here….
http://notesfromthebartender.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/hey-hey-whats-racist/
Look at the last video from those three…. in all the subsequent furore, that line of Somers appears to have been forgotten
October 8 at 6:03 pm
I just checked Facebook to see if there were any groups for people who were angry about it, and the first hit was “The Hey Hey sketch WAS NOT RACIST”, which already has 193 members.
October 8 at 6:13 pm
The news.com.au poll came out with a resounding Not Racist result too. I don’t know how to interpret this. There seems to be a general unwillingness to acknowledge that although blackface did not originate in Australia, the racist connotations are well known worldwide. It’s the Aussies that come off looking not only racist but stupid to boot.
The thing is, we don’t decide what is racist by what the majority says. We decide what’s racist by what the people it belittles or harms say. As Meggy said earlier, the intention doesn’t matter.
October 8 at 6:39 pm
Excellent post Rach. I’m still at the jaw-dropping stage.
October 8 at 6:47 pm
Thanks darlin’! Good to see you, it’s been a while
October 8 at 8:11 pm
Don’t forget:
8. But Robert Downey Jr did it!
["The skit was no different than Robert Downey Jr doing the Blackface in the film “Tropic Thunder” - for which he received an Oscar nomination! No scream of “racist” there..."]
9. Well I’M a person of colour and I’M not offended.
["I am an Indian, and five of the six of us are from multicultural backgrounds and to be called a racist ... I don't think I have ever been called that ever in my life before..." - The frontman of the group]
10. I’M not racist, but… STFU everyone should be allowed to laugh at racist jokes!
["Anyone who knows me will tell you that I abhor racism but …. really!? Please stop this precious ‘cultural insensitivity’ nonsense!"]
October 9 at 6:27 am
I ended up in a “discussion” with someone on Facebook about this – they were using a number of these excuses – and then others came up with the full racism bingo “I’ve got cousins-in-law who are black” and “the doctors were indian” and “no one meant to be racist”. Trying to explain the history of cultural oppression to people who join Matty Johns support clubs is a bit of a challenge. It is amazing though – point them to racism bingo and the Crikey article and suddenly you are calling them racists (which I explicitly never did). And you’ve got to love it when the final contribution is semi literate and calls you a “knob” for going on about racism ….
October 9 at 7:47 am
Lindsay, I’m somewhere between the jaw-dropping stage and embarrassment. The rest of the world is aghast – and rightly so – while the vocal Aussie morons trot out all the reasons why they aren’t racist. Amazing. I was watching comments on News.com.au, the Herald Sun and SBS sites yesterday and no one seems to get it, for all the reasons Shiny has listed. I particularly liked the one that said “I remember the black and white minstrels on tv, so it can’t be racist”. WTF? No, seriously, WTF?
October 9 at 8:13 am
I’m confused. Obviously, as an American, I didn’t see this, but I’m amazed that everyone isn’t condemning it.
Just bizarre.
October 9 at 10:41 am
Lincoln, we all find it as bizarre as you. Everything about it from the number of people who okayd the skit before it went on, to the response to HCJ calling it out, to the people defending – none of it makes any sense.
The strangest thing is this notion that there are cultural differences that mean what is racist in one country isn’t in another. To a point I can sympathise with that view – certain words and phrases can have different implications as you’ll learn by reading a few American blogs. But this just isn’t one of those occasions. Blackface is right up there with the N word as being recognisably offensive around the world for 50 years or so. The fact that this even went to air is bad enough, but that people are justifying it is really what gets me.
October 10 at 5:36 pm
This skit was taken totally out of context as the performers were not having a go at African Americans or any other race per se and now they the performers and Australia have been branded racist by the over sensitive, self righteous and often hypocritical individuals portraying themselves on the moral high ground – I could stand in a garage, tell everyone that I met that I am a car, make all sorts of car noises however it doesn’t make me a car – Americans may have ousted the blackface as a routine and may have elected Obama as their president however that doesn’t truly mean that they have taken any true steps forward to address their inherit culture of racism.
In any society or nationality there is unfortunately an element of racism and that is why humans have independent thoughts, opinions and differences and luckily we are not clones, however Australians as a general rule are far less racist as a populace than America and some other nations.
America as a nation and culture are dysfunctional and bigotry, always trying to inflict their own twisted sense of morals on others – America you should be tried in The Hague for your continued practice of cultural genocide.
October 10 at 10:05 pm
You know there are no prizes for bingo, right?
[Are you offering me excuses you've heard or are you actually defending the skit? I haven't seen you here before so I just can't tell. If you're offering me excuses you've heard thanks for some new ones. If not please understand that the skit was racist, the context was racist and it isn't anyone else's fault other than the people who thought it would be a great idea. Also, not sure you're working with a very good definition of "hypocritical".]
October 11 at 2:30 pm
The skit was a group impersonatoring a musical band by changing their skin colour to look more like the original act is incidental to the impersonation; it doesn’t make race the joke.
The only possible ethnic commentary angle was that the person playing Michael Jackson – who is ethnically Indian – coloured his face white, a reference to the late entertainer’s fading skin colour.
If there hadn’t been a Red Faces judge from the old slave-holding, black-lynching American south and if they had of changed their skin colour, worn dreadlock and tea cosys on their heads, it’s unlikely there would have been any ‘race’ controversy.
So yes I am defending the skit and the performers.
October 11 at 3:14 pm
“Blackface” is racist.
They weren’t impersonating a musical band – they looked nothing like the Jackson 5.
There would have been race controversy if HCJ had not been on the show because the skit was racist.
HCJ did the right thing by calling it out because it was a racist skit.
Please actually read the post and the others I’ve linked to before you comment again. I will delete any more comments like this.
October 11 at 3:55 pm
Oh Carl, how thoughtful! You’re going out of your way to give us an excuse to call “Bingo!”
Well, ok, if you insist: BINGO!!!
October 13 at 2:38 am
I keep seeing people defend the skit by saying it was humorous. Can someone tell me what, exactly, was supposed to be humorous about it?
October 13 at 12:48 pm
I think the short answer to that Delux is: no. I’m not sure why it was supposed to be funny or entertaining and it certainly wasn’t cutting edge. This one might remain a mystery, I’m afraid.
October 13 at 2:52 pm
OK, I still cant see what was supposed to be such a laugh riot, but thanks for letting me know I’m not alone in that…
October 14 at 6:46 am
Oh Carl…cars are not human are they? If they *were* and if there’d been a long history of oppression, violence, murder and subjugation of cars for *being* cars, and if the oppressors (what, trucks?) had done routines about being ‘cars’ that involved silly voices, stupid ‘woo, look I’m a clown’ movements, along with toy ‘cars’ that charicatured alleged ‘car’ like qualities (like golliwogs for African Americans if we want to deal with REAL issues), if the oppressor-trucks ways of pretending to be a car exaggerated certain characteristics deemed to be car-like, inferior and therefore hilarious for the comic benefit of other trucks and the humiliation of cars, THEN perhaps your shitty analogy may have had some relevance. But in this world it has none.
Not one of the actual Jackson 5 looked to me as though they were wearing boot polish, or that I’d look more like them if *I* were to put on boot polish – in fact I can tell I’d look much more like a ‘golliwog’ or someone doing a ‘blackface’ routine – the joke was ‘Ha! We’re BLACK. Listen to our goofy ‘Black Man’ voices! See our ludicrous ‘Black Man’ dance moves! Now HAHA here comes our Black-turned-white dead brother! OH the hilarity!’
Sorry to feed the troll SNC – I just stopped by to say you’re an excellent blogger and I’ve been reading without commenting for a while.
October 14 at 11:13 am
No dramas AB, I was going to point out the vomit inducing comparison of an oppressed group to inanimate objects but my brain shut down while I was trying to figure out the comment. Thanks for dropping by and for the compliment.
October 20 at 2:36 pm
I thought that comment was great, Commenterwithnametoolongformetospell! Good analogy.
November 8 at 4:18 pm
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