Threaded Order Chronological Order
| Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: Billhaven 07:09 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| In an interview with The Advocate Randy Rainbow made this statement: “Twitter has recently reminded me about 10 years ago, in my maiden quest to be funny, I tweeted some jokes that were completely offensive and insensitive to look back on them now, especially with no context or nuance and through the prism of where we are in 2020 with racial inequality and the fight for social justice, which I'm proudly a part of,” he begins. “In light of issues that are now at the forefront, which I'm passionate about and have spoken up about over the years, these tweets just sound racist and awful. I'm embarrassed by them. They make me sick to my stomach, in fact, and I deeply apologize to anyone I offended.” |
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| Who's the realtor for his recently displayed swank UWS apartment? | |
| Last Edit: TheOtherOne 10:34 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
| Posted by: TheOtherOne 10:33 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Billhaven 07:09 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| This is one cultural expulsion I don't think anyone saw coming. | |
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| Ugh... | |
| Posted by: IvyLeagueDropout 11:00 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Billhaven 07:09 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| I know this is an unpopular sentiment these days, but I think he should not have apologized. But everyone is terrorized by the everyone's-both-an-oppressor-and-a-victim mentality. I think everyone spends entirely too much time apologizing. We are allowed to insult people, especially when it wasn't intentional. We are allowed to make mistakes and have a past. I don't know a heckuva lot about Mr. Rainbow, but I think everyone should get back to living their own life. And damn, I wish people would start teaching the old "sticks and stones" rhyme again. There are real problems and injustice in the world; let's save the drama for that stuff. PS The Advocate became insufferable and I cancelled my subscription 10 years ago. I can be proudly gay without being taught how to think properly. |
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| re: Ugh... | |
| Posted by: ryhog 11:22 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: Ugh... - IvyLeagueDropout 11:00 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| "There are real problems and injustice in the world" What are you saying here? That racist words are not an injustice and do not cause real problems? |
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| re: Ugh... | |
| Last Edit: Chromolume 11:48 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 11:42 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Ugh... - ryhog 11:22 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| What are you saying here? That racist words are not an injustice and do not cause real problems? In this context, of course, we mean both racist words and gender slurs like "tranny." The rest of my message didn't go through somehow. Probably just as well, because it wasn't very cheery. I'll try again later. Or maybe I'll just go have a drink or 10. The ugliness coming from this group right now is very disturbing. |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 10:44 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 10:33 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Billhaven 07:09 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| What's wrong with this is that he seems to feel that these tweets are really only an issue (i.e. being racist (black, hispanic, asian peoples alike), transphobic, anti-semitic, etc) in the context of current day. He should be apologizing for them being what they were then, and apologizing that he didn't know that at the time (or didn't care or care to understand), and apologizing that he left them up knowing as a social media influencer that his tweeting history is fully accessible to fans who would be offended or hurt and enemies who would delight in trying to cancel him. What context or nuance does he want us to read them in, if we could go back to 2010-2012? Also, very few of the issues now at the forefront weren't unknown then, especially the ones that would apply. It's not like he said "cops are the best", he said cliche insults about many peoples that were well known to be offensive and bad then there just wasn't much consequence for using them in jokes. So is the new context actually just consequence? As I've said before, I don't think he needs to be "cancelled", but I don't think this is the best apology statement he could have made. |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Last Edit: Singapore/Fling 03:29 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 03:14 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Chazwaza 10:33 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| 100. This apology is the worst kind of word vomit, endlessly looping back on itself in his attempt to simultaneously semi-apologize for the tweets, minimize their nakedly racist and transphobic content, and declare his bonafides as an important member of the movement. He can't take responsibility for his actions, and so he can't truly recognize his wrongdoing. Better he had said nothing. And sadly, his defenders - well, semi-defenders, in that they boldly stood up for his right to denigrate trans people, but completely stayed silent on his racism - applaud this not-quite-apology, or insist that it wasn't necessary to begin with. And I can't help but notice how the conversation decrying the very concept of Cancel Culture when it applies to Randy Rainbow was flipped last week when many people called for Leslie Odom, Jr. to never work again for using the words "that white boy". If this isn't an example of low-key racism and white privilege in action, I don't know what is. As Chromolume writes, it's all very ugly. |
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| Addendum | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 03:53 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Singapore/Fling 03:14 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| After posting, I read the full Advocate article. It's too late to edit my original post, but I do think his longer explanation of the comedy he was emulating and playing with at the time does have more nuance and intelligence than the first quote suggested... though also digs an even deeper hole for him. He is sadly falling into a place where he lets himself off the hook for the fact that most of these jokes were insensitive and inflammatory at the time, and he goes out of his way to deny the racism and transphobia that he was displaying. These jokes may not be skeletons in his closet, but they are also not "crappy jokes in his shoe box" - they are things he said on a public forum that denigrate specific racial and gender groups. His defense also gets rather tortured when he attempts to say that somehow it was okay for comedy in 2010 to be racist because the government was... less racist than it is now? He seems to be saying that someone has to be racist and say terrible things, so it's better for it to be comedians than politicians, and that he's started punching up because Trump is punching down in the exact same way that he was punching down ten years ago. So if the President wasn't a big old bigot, Rainbow could still be trying that out? Ugh. It is time for comedians of all stripes to retire the defense that it was okay to be denigrating because it was just a joke, as we have all seen clearly what that leads to (after all, the President is always "just joking", and people are always being "too P.C." when they get upset at the suggestion that Mexicans are criminals, which is a joke Rainbow made repeatedly). And his suggestion that we "consider the source" is truly bizarre, because the source is him. These tweets may have come to light because of pro-Trump political agents, but every word was written by Rainbow. Take a breath and accept responsibility. I'm hopeful that as he sits with this, he will take the opportunity to truly learn and grow. |
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| Link to the article | |
| Last Edit: Ann 09:56 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| Posted by: Ann 09:56 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Billhaven 07:09 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| Link | At The Advocate |
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| Question about the Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 10:45 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: Link to the article - Ann 09:56 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| Hi, all. Having read the full article in THE ADVOCATE, with three of the Rainbow Rainbow tweets in question, I have some questions about two of them. The tweet I don't have any questions about is this one: “Why is it OK to call it a ‘white noise’ machine, yet offensive to say that I bought it to drown out all the ‘black noise’ in my building?” I have no trouble understanding why many people would find that offensive, regardless of the fact that I'm sure it was meant as "just a joke." But in the case of the other two tweets quoted in the article, I honestly don't understand what the specific problem is. Here's the first one: “My parents said that had I been a girl, my name would’ve been Randi with an ‘i.’ And had I been black, it would’ve been ‘MISS JENKINS!!!’ Looking at the first sentence above, are people upset because they find it offensive for someone to reference the fact that some first names which have been popular among both men and women have often been spelled differently depending on the person's gender? If so, would the changing of "Bobby" to "Bobbie" in the new version of Sondheim's COMPANY also be considered offensive for the same reason? As for the second part of the tweet, at first I didn't understand it at all, but then I asked a friend who explained that it must be a reference to the character Marla Gibbs played in 227 -- a show with which I'm unfamiliar. So, do people object to this quote because they find it offensive that Rainbow was trying to make a joke in reference to a black character played by a black actress on an old sitcom, even though -- as far as I can tell -- he said nothing negative (or positive) about the character or the actress? The other controversy I don't understand is the one over the following tweet: “Black & White cookies R a delicious metaphor for racial harmony :) But they taste better if U keep both halves segregated. I mean separated!” In this case, I think it's safe to assume that RR is not in favor of segregation. So, are people upset about this tweet for the fact that the very serious matter of black/white segregation would be used as fodder for attempted humor? That's the only guess I can come up with, but if there's something else I'm missing, please let me know. I'm being 100 percent sincere when I say that I'm asking these questions not rhetorically and not because I have already arrived at an opinion and am looking for an argument, but because I'm honestly not sure I fully understand exactly what people find offensive in those two quotes, and I would be very interested to read various people's thoughts about that. |
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| re: Question about the Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 02:32 pm EDT 08/23/20 | |
| In reply to: Question about the Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article - Michael_Portantiere 10:45 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| I think those two jokes are awkward and in poor taste, but I don't find either one particularly upsetting or offensive. These are the tweets where I feel Rainbow is giving himself access to "make Black jokes", and then falls on his face. But in the annals of what we're reading from him now, these are simply in poor taste, rather than aggressively racist and harmful. It's the Mexican/Asian jokes that Wayman posted about, as well as the "Black noise" joke, that I find reprehensible. |
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| re: Question about the Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article | |
| Posted by: mikem 02:47 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: Question about the Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article - Michael_Portantiere 10:45 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| "In this case, I think it's safe to assume that RR is not in favor of segregation." Black and white cookies are a metaphor for racial harmony because they taste better if you keep both halves segregated/separated? If a white supremacist sent the black & white cookie tweet, there is no question it would be horribly offensive. I'm not sure it's less horrible because we don't think RR "means it." And do we know for sure he doesn't mean it? He doesn't want "black noise" in his building... Going by his many racially-charged tweets, I think the jury is out on that one. I think his defense in the article that the world was different in 2010 is quite telling. He says, "In 2010, we weren't anywhere near where we are now. Right now, systemic racism is killing people..." He doesn't seem to realize, even now, that systemic racism was killing people in 2010, too. It didn't start in 2016 when Trump got elected, which is what RR seems to think. |
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| re: Question about the Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 03:55 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Question about the Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article - mikem 02:47 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| ***Black and white cookies are a metaphor for racial harmony because they taste better if you keep both halves segregated/separated? If a white supremacist sent the black & white cookie tweet, there is no question it would be horribly offensive. I'm not sure it's less horrible because we don't think RR "means it."*** Right, that's sort of what I was getting out. I'm guessing that people were offended at the very fact that RR attempted to make a light (and arguably lame) "joke" about a deadly serious subject like segregation, even if they don't think he's in favor of it. |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: Pokernight 09:26 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Billhaven 07:09 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| As for me, being honest, all I can say is "been there, done that". But what I haven't done is contributed so creatively to the current scene of political satire as brilliantly as Randy has. | |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: Ncassidine 06:39 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Pokernight 09:26 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| His songs aren't even funny. | |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Last Edit: Leon_W 09:52 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| Posted by: Leon_W 09:48 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Pokernight 09:26 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| I do wonder how he went from these terrible racist and frankly dumb and unsophisticated posts to the master of savage and accurate wit that he is these days in a few short years. It’s not like he posted ill advised things at 17 or 18 and now he is 30 and all grown up. I am a fan and have seen his live shows but, not that he or anyone else cares, I find the racial stuff a disappointment. These things make us consider our own history of potential wrong doing. I try to be funny sometimes but I have never called Mexicans lazy or mocked Lesbians as masculine or been cruel to black peoples in the way he did. I always felt I knew hiw discrimination felt because I suffered it as a young gay man and could empathize with other groups. However I did use Tranny before I knew better because many people did routinely including drag queens on the gay scene. | |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 10:24 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Leon_W 09:48 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| I gotta say, I think you are being a wee bit generous here. I like Randy's work a lot, but I would not call him a "master of savage and accurate wit"... i'm not even sure what "accurate wit" means. | |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: Will (tommyjonzie@yahoo.com) 04:40 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Chazwaza 10:24 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| From the little I forced myself to see of him it must mean "witless". | |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: Leon_W 01:52 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Chazwaza 10:24 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| Accurate - with reference to a weapon, missile, or shot) capable of or successful in reaching the intended target. | |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 08:37 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 08:34 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Leon_W 01:52 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| Is anything that can be described as "wit" not also "accurate" inherently? But I think Randy takes popular mainstream notions and criticisms that can be see on the twitter, instagram and comedy show of all liberals, especially gay liberals (of which I am proudly one) and puts it to song. What he does is clever (though a lot of the humor is reused and fairly basic in terms of mainstream satire and gay comedy) and usually very well done in terms of putting it into a lyric to an established and (usually) cleverly chosen song, and especially fun for musical theater people and fans of the sensibility he employees and also to people that don't watch political comedy or satire anywhere else. He does what basically everyone doing it does, he just does it to existing songs. And that is difficult and requires craft and wit. But I don't think he's deserving of words like "master", I don't think he's very savage considering the target and what else is out there in the world of mocking or criticizing this president (well done and correct yes, but I don't think quite "savage", unless calling Trump "girl" and making reference to scandals and widely discussed failings or scandals or faux pas is savage). I mean with Trump and this administration, it's not easy to come up with something original and cutting and decimating etc because it's all SO insane and extreme and every liberal with a social media account, let alone a tv show, makes similar observations and comic jabs. |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: BruceinIthaca 09:28 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Pokernight 09:26 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| And, without opening another can of worms, I found the apology intelligent, well-articulated, and persuasive--I believe that he believes what he says. I'm glad he said it. | |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: ryhog 09:59 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - BruceinIthaca 09:28 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| You are persuaded by someone who is blaming a conspiracy theory for the hurtful words he spewed in massive quantity? Whether or not you buy his sincerity (my take is that its damage control and the sick stomach is watching his brand evaporate), people who want to own their past and convince me of their remorse don't rail against nefarious forces trying to take them down. | |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 10:07 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - ryhog 09:59 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| "You are persuaded by someone who is blaming a conspiracy theory for the hurtful words he spewed in massive quantity? " What conspiracy theory are you referring to? (I've only read the statement that's quoted here -- if there's more in the ADVOCATE interview, I haven't seen it.) |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: ryhog 10:23 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Michael_Portantiere 10:07 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| you haven't seen it :-) (Ann posted the link.) | |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 10:36 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - ryhog 10:23 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| Okay, thanks, now I've read the whole ADVOCATE article, and all of the quotes. I was confused because what you wrote was: "You are persuaded by someone who is blaming a conspiracy theory for the hurtful words he spewed in massive quantity?" I thought you were saying that Rainbow felt there was a conspiracy against him at the time of his comments, whereas what he actually says is that he is being targeted now for his politics, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if that's true. But he did still apologize for what he said and/or wrote back then, and whether or not you believe that apology is sincere, did not blame any of that on anyone else. | |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: comedywest 10:09 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Michael_Portantiere 10:36 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| "what he actually says is that he is being targeted now for his politics, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if that's true. this is a real question, nlt a snarky one I've never been on Twitter and only relative recently been on Facebook Is it easy to casually go back and find tweets from 10 years ago? On Facebook I have trouble finding my posts from 3 years ago. I was wondering if this was likely a concerted effort to find such posts, or could the writer of the original article have just stumbled upon them. |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: ryhog 10:49 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - comedywest 10:09 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| Let's not lose sight of the fact that Randy said these things. Who found them (and I think it is reasonable to assume it was someone who does not like him, at a minimum) is not a defense, it is a diversion. Progressive individuals do not hesitate to dredge up bad stuff about anti-progressive people, and we (or at least I) applaud them when they do. | |
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| Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 12:14 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - ryhog 10:49 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| Hi again, all. I posted this above but doing so again, in response to ryhog's recent post, hoping to get more notice: Having read the full article in THE ADVOCATE, with three of the Rainbow Rainbow tweets in question, I have some questions about two of them. The tweet I don't have any questions about is this one: “Why is it OK to call it a ‘white noise’ machine, yet offensive to say that I bought it to drown out all the ‘black noise’ in my building?” I have no trouble understanding why many people would find that offensive, regardless of the fact that I'm sure it was meant as "just a joke." But in the case of the other two tweets quoted in the article, I honestly don't understand what the specific problem is. Here's the first one: “My parents said that had I been a girl, my name would’ve been Randi with an ‘i.’ And had I been black, it would’ve been ‘MISS JENKINS!!!’ Looking at the first sentence above, are people upset because they find it offensive for someone to reference the fact that some first names which have been popular among both men and women have often been spelled differently depending on the person's gender? If so, would the changing of "Bobby" to "Bobbie" in the new version of Sondheim's COMPANY also be considered offensive for the same reason? As for the second part of the tweet, at first I didn't understand it at all, but then I asked a friend who explained that it must be a reference to the character Marla Gibbs played in 227 -- a show with which I'm unfamiliar. So, do people object to this quote because they find it offensive that Rainbow was trying to make a joke in reference to a black character played by a black actress on an old sitcom, even though -- as far as I can tell -- he said nothing negative (or positive) about the character or the actress? The other controversy I don't understand is the one over the following tweet: “Black & White cookies R a delicious metaphor for racial harmony :) But they taste better if U keep both halves segregated. I mean separated!” In this case, I think it's safe to assume that RR is not in favor of segregation. So, are people upset about this tweet for the fact that the very serious matter of black/white segregation would be used as fodder for attempted humor? That's the only guess I can come up with, but if there's something else I'm missing, please let me know. I'm being 100 percent sincere when I say that I'm asking these questions not rhetorically and not because I have already arrived at an opinion and am looking for an argument, but because I'm honestly not sure I fully understand exactly what people find offensive in those two quotes, and I would be very interested to read various people's thoughts about that. |
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| re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article | |
| Posted by: ryhog 01:06 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article - Michael_Portantiere 12:14 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| I am not going to respond on the 2-3, because I think that that are unrepresentative. They are a small part of a boatload of quotes touching on race and other prejudices, often in manifestly hurtful ways, and clearly the "soft" platform chosen by RR for his "apology" was not going to tee up the hard ones. (Do you doubt he thought about where to respond? He found one that was happy to mix the offense up in a cocktail containing lots of self-promotion.) Not all of the tweets land with the same blatant force. The ones quoted are nonetheless a part of the very large body of "work" that is being discussed. If they were all there were, we likely would not be having this conversation. | |
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| re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 01:28 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article - ryhog 01:06 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| Thanks, ryhog. I fully understand your point, and i agree. But I'm a little confused by the fact that it was The Advocate, not RR, that chose to quote those three tweets -- and only those three -- that I was referring to out of (apparently) lots of other tweets and quotes that many people consider offensive. Why do you suppose that is? When I posted my question above, I had only read the three quotes in The Advocate article, but now that I have been made aware of and have read some of the others, I completely understand. To cite one example, that tweet at the expense of Asians -- the one that Wayman quoted -- was really cheap and offensive, in my opinion, and far more obviously so that the "MISS JENKINS" tweet and the one about the black and white cookies. |
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| re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 03:33 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article - Michael_Portantiere 01:28 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| Michael, if you haven't yet gone to the page that Wayman linked, I recommend going there. I only just went there, and it's pretty awful. I can't speak to what was in his mind when he posted some of the amazingly offensive tweets seen on that page, but it's hard for me to view most of them as satirizing racism. They're not funny, although, to be honest, I don't even get some of them. But I get most of the ideas (if we can call them that) behind most of them. If they were intended as satire of racism, then he would seem to be satirizing racism among gay men, not something I think he would have done, at least not in this way. Perhaps he thought that being outrageously offensive would bring him attention. In any case, I haven't yet gone to the Advocate page. I guess I'll do that later. I am posting here the link that Wayman posted. |
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| Link | LGBTQNation |
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| re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 04:06 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article - AlanScott 03:33 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| Thanks for posting the link again. I will go to it and check out the other tweets, though I'm sure it's going to be very painful to read them. The whole concept of satirizing racism through comedy is very interesting but, obviously, fraught with danger. To cite one of the most famous examples, ALL IN THE FAMILY seemed to manage it brilliantly, and though of course I'm not sure about this, I think maybe that show would be completely accepted for its clear intent and without any controversy even if it was new today. But I'm sure there are many other examples of past attempts to satirize racism that were not successful at the time and/or wouldn't be viewed as successful today. On a related note, I become very upset when I think of what happened with THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS -- a satire of very different form and tone, if indeed satire is the correct word -- in terms of the reaction to that show in some quarters and, in some cases, by people who hadn't even seen the show. |
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| re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article | |
| Posted by: ryhog 04:38 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article - Michael_Portantiere 04:06 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| I don't really want to drill down into this much more (and I think I may have said this before) but satire requires context. There was no context for those horrible old tweets; it was just saying hurtful things to draw attention (and try to make a living). | |
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| re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article | |
| Posted by: ryhog 01:40 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article - Michael_Portantiere 01:28 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| "Why do you suppose that is?" I "suppose" (and that's all it is) that RR (or his damage control publicist) chose the Advocate and the writer because they would give him a friendly reception. I probably also suppose that RR (or his damage control publicist) chose the specific quotes to use, and may have written the whole damn thing. We have both been around long enough that we know that these things happen. He wasn't going to toss this story to the Times, or Timeout, not just based on reception but also based on readership. TBH if you had asked me if the Advocate still existed, I am not sure I would have said yes. I'm sure it has only a tiny fraction of the number of followers RR has on Twitter. NB that he did not go there. |
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| re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 02:30 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Repeating here: Question about Rainbow Rainbow tweets quoted in THE ADVOCATE article - ryhog 01:40 pm EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| "I 'suppose' (and that's all it is) that RR (or his damage control publicist) chose the Advocate and the writer because they would give him a friendly reception. I probably also suppose that RR (or his damage control publicist) chose the specific quotes to use, and may have written the whole damn thing. We have both been around long enough that we know that these things happen." I have no doubt that such things happen, but for what it's worth, we should stress the point that if, in fact, an article/interview like this was written by or even guided by the publicist of the person in question, that would be INCREDIBLY shoddy journalism. I was aware that the Advocate still exists, though I believe only in online form, but I have not really followed it in years. There was a time when it was a pretty great magazine in print form. |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: MockingbirdGirl 10:30 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - comedywest 10:09 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| Is it easy to casually go back and find tweets from 10 years ago? On Facebook I have trouble finding my posts from 3 years ago. I was wondering if this was likely a concerted effort to find such posts, or could the writer of the original article have just stumbled upon them. In my experience, you need to scroll back through every preceding post, just like on Facebook. You can't really just "stumble upon" an old tweet. |
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| You can't even do that, really. | |
| Posted by: Seth Christenfeld (tabula-rasa@verizon.net) 11:16 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - MockingbirdGirl 10:30 am EDT 08/21/20 | |
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| Aside from the massive amount of time it would take to scroll back ten years, the feed stops after a thousand or so tweets. I went back and deleted some ancient tweets of my own last night, but had to do keyword searches to find them. Seth, not wanting to get Rainbowed |
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| re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate | |
| Posted by: ryhog 11:19 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Rainbow apologizes in the Advocate - Michael_Portantiere 10:36 pm EDT 08/20/20 | |
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| We each get to decide whether or not to buy his sincerity, of course. But the part that did not sit well to me was the linkage of what "the nefarious people" are doing now and the fact that these awful things have come to light. What other reason is there for mentioning them (and I don't doubt they exist) in the apology? To me what he is saying is that we would not be talking about his past words (and he would not have had to take them down) but for these people dredging up the old tweets. And when you marry that to his now-deleted recent tweet (his original reaction to the disclosure) in which he said "I don't know why people try to start shit with me" my takeaway is that what he regrets is the detour to the roll he is on currently on. To me that is blaming someone for his predicament rather than owning his earlier misdeeds. I feel sure I believe those "people" are as "nefarious" as he does but that's no defense to an ugly truth; it's trying to change the subject. | |
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