Current Events > Joe Rogan: What Do You Do About Old Racist Media?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LflW4SfFup4



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It's an interesting question.

There are a lot of good movies out there that are racist, sexist, or homophobic. Do you watch these movies like you would any other, do you watch them partly with a critical eye turned to the elements which don't work today, or do you just outright throw them away?

I'm looking forward to seeing the original King Kong when it comes to select theaters in March. I'd be surprised if TCM's foreword for the movie doesn't include a passing disclaimer or two about how women and black people are depicted in the movie.

20 years ago, it was accepted that old movies had things we wouldn't put in movies today. Today, some of the stuff from 20 years ago (mostly gay jokes) don't work in the current era and a lot of people will have nothing to do with those older movies which have sexism or racism in them.

I wouldn't personally advocate throwing the old movies away, but I can't blame someone who is willing to miss out on a good film experience if the wrong implication is given about women or people of color.

Skye Reynolds posted...

There are a lot of good movies out there that are racist, sexist, or homophobic

Nope

MarthGoomba posted...

Nope

You've chosen Option 3 and that's your right.

Nobody should force you or anyone else to watch films like Gone With the Wind, King Kong, Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours, Crocodile Dundee, The Searchers, Peter Pan, Dumbo, The African Queen, Austin Powers, or any other movie which in one way or another disparages women, people of color, or individuals who are LGBTQ.

But if one were to tell me that I shouldn't watch these films, that's where we might fall into a bit of a disagreement.

Austin Powers? C'mon now.

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People just accept that times were different. It is that simple.

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Skye Reynolds posted...

You've chosen Option 3 and that's your right.

Nobody should force you or anyone else to watch films like Gone With the Wind, King Kong, Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours, Crocodile Dundee, The Searchers, Peter Pan, Dumbo, The African Queen, Austin Powers, or any other movie which in one way or another disparages women, people of color, or individuals who are LGBTQ.

But if one were to tell me that I shouldn't watch these films, that's where we might fall into a bit of a disagreement.

Austin Powers is a parody of the older sexist James Bond movies, not really sexist itself.

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I don't get why context is such a hard thing to factor

I want a rotten tomatoes site except it's a racist tomatoes

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Idk just dont celebrate it. If it exists it exists. I say just put a disclaimer that it's from a different time and it doesnt reflect the values of the company.

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MarthGoomba posted...

Nope

Lol stfu there being some tasteless elements does not automatically disqualify a movie from in fact being well done or engaging

Evening_Dragon posted...

Austin Powers? C'mon now.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Austin Powers is a parody of the older sexist James Bond movies, not really sexist itself.

Sorry, I was thinking Ace Ventura and said Austin Powers.

I was thinking in my head that Austin Powers had a joke in which he slept with a woman only to discover she was really "a man." That was from a different movie, Ace Ventura.

Austin Powers does have a "she's really a man" joke, but it's not transphobic. It's centered on a mistaken identity and one guy's apparently masculine looking mother.

Its a man, man

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jre is Oprah for dudes

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Its history, theres no benefit in cleaning up history through censorship. Besides, who the hell gets to decide what is it isnt offensive?

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Disney+ handles it fine
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Why did they have to pick Song of the South for the thumbnail, though? There are plenty of wartime cartoons like Looney Tunes that featured extreme racism, and with those you can look at the circumstances around them to add meaning to them. They're absolutely fucking horrible, but they exist within a valid historical context that's worth talking about.

Song of the South is Disney basically depicting black people as being happy with slavery, laughing and being jolly at their lot in life, while their stories are repackaged for a white crowd with a noticeable lilt of ebonics in the voiceover.

I just mentioned Looney Tunes and how their wartime cartoons had additional meaning through the circumstances of their creation that made them worth discussing, but one cartoon that didn't have to exist was an Elmer Fudd/Bugs Bunny cartoon where Elmer Fudd was replaced with an extremely racist depiction of a black man. He drawled like he had 50 IQ points or lower, he had a massive forehead, his lips were massive. The only humor this character offered was "look at how stupid black people are! What a slow buffoon!" - and it's disgusting. You might have people defending something racist if it's funny, but this character drags the cartoon to a standstill - his antics, whether he was black or white, slowed the cartoon down to a fucking crawl. The only selling point was to have a grossly stereotyped black person, and it's a shitty cartoon because of it.

Song of the South is trash at best. It paves over the injustices that black people suffered by depicting a jolly, smiling black man who serves as a guilt-free depiction of happiness in servitude. After all, that's his standing in life, right? Might as well be jolly about it. There's no greater context except "white people wanted to enjoy black folklore without acknowledging slavery or racism, so they created a black figure who was okay with it to feel better". It's wrong, and there's no circumstances that make it worth talking about except as a product of racism. Just like that trash cartoon that took a perfectly serviceable Elmer Fudd story and replaced it with severe racism.

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MrMallard posted...

I just

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I think pretending history doesn't exist and erasing it isn't fixing the problem. If you watch stuff and know what parts are wrong, who the fuck is it hurting today? We just need to continue educating people to be able to tell wrong from right. Right?

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What Disney does is inform people about the content of their older racist stuff with a preface, which is fine.

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Lost_All_Senses posted...

I think pretending history doesn't exist and erasing it isn't fixing the problem. If you watch stuff and know what parts are wrong, who the fuck is it hurting today? We just need to continue educating people to be able to tell wrong from right. Right?

Traitor General Robert E Lee posted...

I think it wiser, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.

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Old kinda racist looney tunes cartoons I think dealt with this the best way. They basically put a disclaimer in front saying that these cartoons reference opinions and prejudices that were commonplace for this point in time. They were bad then and are bad now, but we are presenting them as they were because trying to ignore these prejudices would be akin to claiming that they never existed.

https://imgur.com/gallery/sOklpJa

We shouldnt hold on to racist media, burn it all away.

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iPhone_7 posted...

We shouldnt hold on to racist media, burn it all away.

Why do you think your false flag works ever?

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Proto_Spark posted...

Old kinda racist looney tunes cartoons I think dealt with this the best way. They basically put a disclaimer in front saying that these cartoons reference opinions and prejudices that were commonplace for this point in time. They were bad then and are bad now, but we are presenting them as they were because trying to ignore these prejudices would be akin to claiming that they never existed.

https://imgur.com/gallery/sOklpJa

This is how you do it

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