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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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