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The Today Show Explains It All for You

May 3, 2012 by at 6:14 pm

Meditations on Aston Kutcher’s commercial portrayal of a Bollywood Producer. Many deep thoughts are on display, including those on disenfranchised group membership and other things like the cringe factor. The joke is on us, however,  because the role of Al Roker is here being performed by Aston Kutcher in Jolsen-style black face. I’m sure that Mr. Kutcher will take the appropriate walk of shame. Don’t try to figure out the rules because you will always be wrong. Oceania is at war with East Asia… 

Meanwhile, does dad know?

20 Comments Filed Under: what's on tv

Comments

  1. Clare says:
    May 3, 2012 at 8:38 pm

    Actually, I think the rules are pretty simple. Generally, don’t appropriate the skin tone of another race–and never do it in order to portray stereotypes about that race. Don’t do it as a joke, don’t do it for serious, because either way it’s racist.

    And no, being a hipster does not make you less culpable. It makes you more so.

    Reply
    • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says:
      May 3, 2012 at 10:43 pm

      I’ve play-acted the redneck stereotype despite being only 7/16 ‘white’.

      Mea culpa.

      Reply
    • Jonathan Webb says:
      May 4, 2012 at 8:05 am

      Except when they’re not. In any event The Party will decide and priviledged exceptions are made for inner-party members. I’m done with race at this point. For me, it’s become a complete loser move. How are Indians disenfranchised? Generally, they seem like a rousing success on this side of the pond.

      Let us instead follow the dictum of Mr. John Prine and “forgive each other ’til we both turn blue”.

      Thanks Clare, you have a lovely name.

      Reply
  2. Jonathan Potter says:
    May 4, 2012 at 12:24 am

    What about this?

    Reply
    • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says:
      May 4, 2012 at 1:32 am

      TAGGED WITH: REVERSE FORNEY AIKEN

      Reply
    • Clare says:
      May 4, 2012 at 8:01 am

      That’s why I said generally–I can see it being helpful for someone to actually disguise themselves as someone from another race in order to recieve the actual treatment that race gets on a day to day basis. It would require a lot of moral seriousness and sensitivity, but I can see it being a very fruitful experiment.

      It’s not hard to distinguish that from what Kutcher did, and I doubt he tried to. People like Kutcher don’t get the rules wrong, they think the rules don’t apply to them because they are so cool, so rich, so educated, so hip and liberal that they couldn’t poooossibly be racist. Racism is for poor southerners who talk funny. It’s a really old liberal trope, and I am getting so sick of it.

      Reply
    • Jonathan Webb says:
      May 4, 2012 at 8:18 am

      Or this:

      Reply
  3. Matthew Lickona says:
    May 4, 2012 at 10:29 am

    What about Jon Hamm in blackface in a comedic commentary on blackface on the live 30 Rock?

    Reply
  4. Clare says:
    May 4, 2012 at 11:25 am

    Re Jon Hamm etc.: All things that really, really suck. Just because people don’t get called out on it very often doesn’t mean it’s not really bad.

    You can be done with race all you want, but people who are not white still have to deal with it every day. If you’re not sure why Indians are in some ways disenfranchised, why not actually ask an Indian what he thinks about it? The immigrant experience is hard, no matter how much you succeed, and it’s doubly hard if you don’t happen to be caucasian .

    Maybe I take this seiously because I have friends who have been really, really, hurt by stunts like this. Not in a political/offended kind of way, in a personal, ouch, I really don’t belong, do I? kind of way. I’ve been hurt by stuff like this, albeit different subject matter.

    I think you’re on to something in that how much one gets villified for racism depnds on one’s status among the elites (same with sexual abuse–oh hai Roman Polanski!), but I doesn’t think that entitles us to shrug off the ongoing problem of racism as a giant doublethink construction.

    And I see your John Prine and raise you Mary Travers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUKB3PxG-0E

    And thanks, you all have lovely names too.

    Also just because I love the song.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z9DleiIa9Y

    Reply
    • Jonathan Webb says:
      May 4, 2012 at 12:07 pm

      My new favorite Prine song and an anthem for all married types.

      Point taken about hurting feelings. Let’s always be careful to avoid hurting feelings. But…(always the “but”), isn’t that what it comes down to, respecting human beings. I often feel dissed and always feel vaguely used when I see someone pull the race card out of the wallet. Concerning the Today Show I say, yes, report the Kutcher thing as news and then spare us the commentary.

      It also comes down to a mode-of-being question. If you are disposed toward grace then you will see the face of Christ in everyone and be aware of your own weaknesses. If you are disposed toward judgement then you’re just wasting your precious life looking for opportunites to wield that “hammer”. No doubt it stems from feeling judged. The problem is that millions of lives are being wasted blaming the consequences of our choices, and excusing our ignorance on racism. The alarming thing for me is the fact that those attitudes are spreading from black people to hispanics and everyone else.

      Thanks for the comments. Forgive me for trying to keep the conversation lively around here.

      Reply
    • Jonathan Webb says:
      May 4, 2012 at 2:05 pm

      By the way, you know the song, The Wedding Song by the pro-abortion Christian one of the group? Anyway, my mom absolutely hated that song. I guess the line about “Becoming man and wife” really got her goat.

      I wonder when that song yielded to Pachelbel’s Canon as the official wedding march? Someone check a back issue of Bride Magazine.

      Reply
  5. Clare says:
    May 4, 2012 at 6:58 pm

    I’m planning to go up the aisle to Anarachy in U.K., but that’s just me.

    I do get what you’re saying about racism being used as a sledgehammer–I’ve seen it done and it’s nasty. But I don’t think being able to see the face of Christ in everyone detracts from the fact that there are systemic inequalities towards whole groups of people, and that a lot of the good choices on which we predicate our respectability are actually the result of the huge amounts of privelige we were born with, and that these are social ills we need to be aware of and work to eradicate.

    I can understand feeling dissed and vaguely used when people talk about race, because sometimes people use race to bully….but sometimes it just isn’t about us and we’re just not the victims, and sometimes our discomfort can be a healthy step out of complacency.

    Perhaps our failure to see eye to eye stems from you seing racism as the poor choices of a few assholes, and I see racism as open, symptomatic expression of systemic racial injustice?

    Anyway, I’m really enjoying this conversation, thanks for your candor!

    Reply
  6. Jonathan Webb says:
    May 4, 2012 at 8:40 pm

    And thank you for your pretty name.

    I think there are inequalities among people. You’re losing me at “systematic”. As individuals we should strive to love our neighbor as ourself. As a culture we are out of balance and need to tip back to personal responsibility. Discussions about systematic inequalities may be luxuries we will no longer afford. I hope that I’m wrong. In any event, we’re not doing people any favors by filling their minds with such nonsense. Protect the little self-images of children in the most violent ways to be sure. But, when kids are about twelve they need to learn to be tougher and turn the other cheek and not have such fragile self-images and believe in something other than texting and shopping and screwing.

    I’m certain you’re right in many ways, but from my vantage point America needs to suck it up.

    Anarchy in the UK is a good choice for you and lucky fellow.

    Reply
  7. Clare says:
    May 4, 2012 at 9:07 pm

    Well, I think we may have reached the point at which we just have to agree to disagree because we see things so differently from the ground up.

    I don’t know if discussions of systemic inequalities are luxuries–either they exist or they don’t, and if they do, the most sensible thing to do is treat them.

    I think a lot of black kids think about other things than texting and shipping and screwing. As far as I can tell, and keep in mind this is a limited cross-section from tutoring in inner-city schools, a lot of what they’re thinking is roughly: “I’m a thug. People tell me I’m a thug, they look at me like I’m scary. I’m different from normal people. I don’t belong in the white world. My teachers don’t care whether I do well and we both know it and know we know it. My brother was shot when I was 12. I really miss him. I miss my dad, too.”

    I agree that America has way too many overpriveliged and pampered kids, I just don’t think they’re primarily or often found in black neighborhoods.

    Reply
  8. Jonathan Potter says:
    May 4, 2012 at 9:54 pm

    I’m glad this conversation is happening here. Thanks to both Webb and Clare for sticking with it. I see a sort of Venn diagram of overlapping spheres of truth and reality here.

    Here’s a quote from a young Bob Dylan (1963) I stumbled on recently and that seems relevant: “There’s no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there’s only up and down and down is very close to the ground.” — (http://www.ranker.com/list/a-list-of-famous-bob-dylan-quotes/reference?page=1)

    Reply

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