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blackface obama

the_spacethe_space 74 Posts
edited October 2008 in Strut Central
F*ck me
«1

  Comments

  • ignastyignasty 163 Posts
    Last week's opening skit turned a sex offender into a HILARIOUS new next door neighbor just in time for Halloween. SNL writer's judgment is seriously img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/suspect5es.gif" alt="" /1
  • bull_oxbull_ox 5,056 Posts
    /font1
    Quote:/font1h,121b,121maya rudolph as michelle? does this bother anyone? this is 2008 and it makes me feel kinda crummy. this blackface stuff has me hecka bamboozled.b, 21b, 21h,121
    font class="post"1b,121b, 21WTF dude?? This NAGL is on you.
  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    Maya is as black as Obama.
  • deejdeej 5,125 Posts
    especially o_O comment on a record nerd forumb, 21b, 21img src="http://www.wcfr1480.com/content-images/rays/Riperton.jpg"1b, 21img src="http://www.wcfr1480.com/content-images/rays/Riperton.jpg"1b, 21img src="http://www.wcfr1480.com/content-images/rays/Riperton.jpg"1b, 21img src="http://www.wcfr1480.com/content-images/rays/Riperton.jpg"1
  • CosmoCosmo 9,768 Posts
    This is so ill.
  • GaryGary 3,982 Posts
    This thread is kind of awesome.
  • dayday 9,611 Posts
    img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crick13ab.gif" alt="" /1
  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    /font1
    Quote:/font1h,121b,121especially o_O comment on a record nerd forumb, 21b, 21b, 21h,121
    font class="post"1b,121b, 21THIS DEEJERY MUST STOP
  • pcmrpcmr 5,591 Posts
    /font1
    Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121especially o_O comment on a record nerd forumb, 21b,121b, 21h,121
    font class="post"1b,121b, 21THIS DEEJERY MUST STOP b,121b, 21h,121font class="post"1b,121b,121 img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/sscg.gif" alt="" /1
  • the_spacethe_space 74 Posts
    /font1
    Quote:/font1h,121b,121F*ck me b,121b, 21h,121
    font class="post"1b,121b, 21knowledge dropped. who says the strut is a time waster?b,121b,121fyi, original post:b,121b,121fred armisen as barack? maya rudolph as michelle? does this bother anyone? this is 2008 and it makes me feel kinda crummy. this blackface stuff has me hecka bamboozled.b,121 img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nagl2.gif" alt="" /1
  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/postmodern.gif" alt="" /1
  • GaryGary 3,982 Posts
    if it makes you feel any better fred armisen is not 1/2 black but he is 100 % awesome.b,121b, 21when he does that "political comedian" bit and reads from the paper it makes me laugh every time even though it should be played out by now.
  • GnarliamentGnarliament 375 Posts
    keenan is too fat to play obama.
  • rootlesscosmorootlesscosmo 12,848 Posts
    what the hell is this thread?
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Why can't a white man (or woman) play Obama? b,121b, 21Are we so hung up on race that it is the only feature of Obama we care about?b,121b, 21I don't watch it (on too late for me) but SNL has never treated their Black talent well.
  • GaryGary 3,982 Posts
    fred bears the closest resemblence, i guess....
  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    I think what The Space is suggesting is that SNL should have gone out and found a light-skinned, thin and stately Black dude to play Obama. Casting in-house = RACIST!b, 21b, 21Jokes aside, one should note that apparently, SNL had to go out and get one of their few Black female cast members to come back to play Michelle.
  • buttonbutton 1,475 Posts
    Now I'm no racist, but I caught a few minutes of that new Chocolate News show and maaaan was it shitt??
  • the_spacethe_space 74 Posts
    /font1
    Quote:/font1h,121b,121I think what The Space is suggesting is that SNL should have gone out and found a light-skinned, thin and stately Black dude to play Obama. Casting in-house = RACIST!b, 21b, 21Jokes aside, one should note that apparently, SNL had to go out and get one of their few Black female cast members to come back to play Michelle. b,121b, 21h,121
    font class="post"1b,121b, 21manny: not at all what i suggested , and the accusation is not terribly well received. there are several ways SNL could've approached the happenstance, with blackface being the most base solution. b,121b, 21perhaps in 2008, we HAVE moved on from the sensitivities associated with the subtle and not so subtle history of racism in america embodied in blackface. but perhaps we haven't... b,121b, 21unlike you, i cannot speak for anyone else's history, sensibilities, or intentions. however, when blackface is bandied about so casually, it silently condones the prevalence of other forms of racism, like yellowface, to seep into our collective conscience as americans. b,121 b,121 factoid: 4 major studio movies in 2007 had characters in yellowfaceb,121b, 21for what it's worth, kudos to SNL for going out of their way to find one of their few Black female cast members to come back, and my bad for not realizing. that oversight in and of itself may lend credence to your claim that i am racist (though i disagree).b,121b, 21as for the only opinion that actually matters in this case, what does the man himself think?b,121b, 21"I've gotta say, compared to Tina Fey and what she's been doing with Gov. Sarah Palin, my imitator isn't doing as great a job. I do know my ears have been getting bigger and bigger each episode. I'm sure they'll get me right over time."b,121b, 21and with jokes back in, if you forced me to make a suggestion about the casting decisions of SNL independent of this whole obama thing, i'd say:b,121drop kenan, get kel. he was funnier anyways. who loves orange soda?b,121b, 21img src="http://www.younghollywoodhof.com/drina/kenankel.jpg"1
  • funky16cornersfunky16corners 7,175 Posts
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    Quote:/font1h,121b,121I think what The Space is suggesting is that SNL should have gone out and found a light-skinned, thin and stately Black dude to play Obama. Casting in-house = RACIST!b, 21b, 21Jokes aside, one should note that apparently, SNL had to go out and get one of their few Black female cast members to come back to play Michelle. b,121b, 21h,121
    font class="post"1b,121b, 21b, 21Ellen Cleghorne was busy.
  • hammertimehammertime 2,389 Posts
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    Quote:/font1h,121b,121when he does that "political comedian" bit and reads from the paper it makes me laugh every time even though it should be played out by now. b,121b, 21h,121
    font class="post"1b,121b, 21b, 21that was "played out" before it began. quite possibly the least funny thing i've seen on that show. every time that shit comes on i've gotta b,121b, 21 img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/walkawaysonfinal.gif" alt="" /1
  • rootlesscosmorootlesscosmo 12,848 Posts
    Kenan has always been real embarassing; I don't think I've ever laughed at anything he's ever done.
  • SIRUSSIRUS 2,554 Posts
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    Quote:/font1h,121b,121 b,121b, 21b,121Ellen Cleghorne was busy. b,121b, 21h,121
    font class="post"1i always thought she was attractive.and kenan is funny,they just don't give him enough to do other than the usual bs they hem up black performers with on snl.
  • funky16cornersfunky16corners 7,175 Posts
    /font1
    Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121 b,121b, 21b,121Ellen Cleghorne was busy. b,121b, 21h,121
    font class="post"1i always thought she was attractive.and kenan is funny,they just don't give him enough to do other than the usual bs they hem up black performers with on snl. b,121b, 21h,121font class="post"1b,121b, 21b, 21I thought she was funny as hell on SNL. After she left she did a comedy album that wasn't very funny.
  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
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    Quote:/font1h,121b,121 there are several ways SNL could've approached the happenstance, with blackface being the most base solution. b,121b, 21perhaps in 2008, we HAVE moved on from the sensitivities associated with the subtle and not so subtle history of racism in america embodied in blackface. but perhaps we haven't... b,121b, 21unlike you, i cannot speak for anyone else's history, sensibilities, or intentions. however, when blackface is bandied about so casually, it silently condones the prevalence of other forms of racism, like yellowface, to seep into our collective conscience as americans. b,121b, 21h,121
    font class="post"1b,121b, 21Slow down a moment here. b,121b,121Let's begin with this fair criticism: SNL hasn't had the best history of recruiting and keeping staff of color, especially Black actors, at least not past one or two on an otherwise all-white cast. So to the extent that they "needed" an Obama and made the decision to cast in-house rather than recruit a new actor - something that I don't think they've ever done (recruit someone just to play a role) - it does suggest that they were left in the awkward situation of having to acknowledge that the ONE black guy they had wouldn't fit the role b/c Kenan simply doesn't remotely look like Obama. b,121b, 21But to call Fred Armisen's role "blackface" - as if it were equivalent to say, Al Jolson in "The Jazz Singer", seems to flatten a spectrum of racially transgressive performances into a case of - pun intended - black and white. b,121b, 21For one thing, unless I'm mistaken, they don't actually blacken Fred with make-up which is only important here because it reflects that Obama - as a half-white guy - is light enough that a white dude can "plausibly" play a caricature of him. Provided, Obama's blacker than, say, Maya Rudolph but the very fact that you weren't aware that Rudolph is half-black and the fact that Armisen can play a Black man without actually having to blacken up says a lot about the challenges and complexities of dealing with performance, satire and the ambiguity of race. b,121b, 21Think of it this way: isn't Rudolph, as a racially ambiguous, half-white/half-Black actress, playing Michelle Obama (who, as far as I know, is "full" Black), about the same as Armisen, as a full White guy, playing a half-White guy? Add in the fact that Obama himself has played the politics of post-race throughout his entire campaign and in some ways, the fact that a White guy is playing him is actually rather apropos. b,121b, 21What makes it less funny - to me - is that there are plenty of Black comics out there who'd love to have the opportunity to play Obama on a stage as big as SNL (esp. with the ratings they're enjoying this season - thanks Sarah/Tina!) but again, because SNL usually only has the "one" Black guy around on any given season, they were left with having to cast in-house and thus, use a White guy. b,121b, 21But that to me is not "blackface being bandied about casually" because in order for you to say this, you'd have to really make a convincing argument that Armisen's performance resembles traditional blackface which, I would argue, it does not. Blackface, traditionally, has meant far more than playing a Black person - it is the performance of an imagined Blackness itself. b,121b, 21Gus in "Birth of a Nation" = blackfaceb, 21White boy wanna-be thugs throwing up gang signs on myspace = blackface. b,121Amy Winehouse = (aural) blackfaceb, 21Amos n' Andy = blacks doing blackfaceb, 21b, 21Fred Armisen playing a Black politician who himself has been criticized for not being Black enough...that to me is something significantly different. I don't see Armisen's role as performing Blackness and without that dynamic, it's a different kind of blackface. It's not even the equivalent of Jonathan Pryce in "Miss Saigon" (one of the more infamous yellowface casting decisions in the 80s) since in that case, part of what Pryce had to do as an actor was perform "Yellow-ness" in the process of playing an Asian character. And in any case, with Pryce, the bigger brouhaha was less about him performing in yellowface and more the issues of why they couldn't find an Asian actor to play his role. b,121b, 21Which brings us back to the politics of inclusion rather than the politics of representation. b,121b, 21The last thing I'd add here is that what makes all of this really, I>really[/i] complex is that a show like SNL - as sketch comedy - has direct roots back to vaudeville which in turn, has direct roots back to blackface minstrelsy. In that respect, even when white people are playing white people or black people are playing black people on the show, it all goes back to blackface traditions anyways. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be sensitive to the racial politics of these performances but it does mean that blackface has a far deeper and foundational dynamic in practically ALL American comedy. What we've learned to find funny about satire and caricature is not that distinctly different from what audiences 150 years found funny when white (and black) performers applied burnt cork and shucked n' jived their way to the stage. b,121b, 21In that respect, it's actually kind of hard to caricature Obama (except for his ears) because his own racial performance doesn't fit any recognizable mold (most of the time, except for when he does his post-MLK preacher speak).
  • The_NonThe_Non 5,691 Posts
    I looked this up yesterday: Fred Armisen is German, Japanese and Venezuelan. b,121An I'm out!
  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    /font1
    Quote:/font1h,121b,121I looked this up yesterday: Fred Armisen is German, Japanese and Venezuelan. b,121An I'm out! b,121b, 21h,121
    font class="post"1b,121b, 21See my point? One racially ambiguous dude playing another racially ambiguous dude. Blackface ala Jolson? b,121b, 21Can't see it.
  • funky16cornersfunky16corners 7,175 Posts
    /font1
    Quote:/font1h,121b,121 Amos n' Andy = blacks doing blackface b,121b, 21h,121
    font class="post"1 b,121b,121b,121Actually, for the time that Amos and Andy was a huge hit on the radio, it was an all white cast. They even blacked up for a movie (or two) before a black cast was brought in for the TV show.
  • GaryGary 3,982 Posts
    Man I can't stand Al Jolson.
  • verb606verb606 2,518 Posts
    what, no hate for Darrell Hammond portraying Jesse Jackson?
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