with old comics that are funny despite possibly being offensive (or cringeworthy) by today’s standards?
My best option seems to be setting up IfYouPlanToPassJudgmentOnPeopleWhoFindTheseFunnyJustDon’tLogOn.com
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Comics I Don't Understand 
Maybe a “Culturally Anachronistic” tag, like the Arlo tag?
I think zbicyclist might have the right idea. Give it that tag and keep them on the Arlo page so they’re not seen by anyone who doesn’t deliberately go there.
You could award those comics a “Whoopi” tag, in honor of the “cultural sensitivity” introduction that Whoopi Goldberg gives at the beginning of the Looney Tunes “Golden Collection” DVD sets.
Nothing wrong with discussion.
Maybe it’s funny and folks are just too sensitive. Or maybe we are jerks for thinking our humor excuses offense.
Or maybe it doesn’t matter. It was published and people thought it was funny.
Or maybe we can talk about. I’m *always* curious. So … publish.
Oh, there was never any question that I WOULD publish (somewhere) and we WOULD discuss: that’s what makes this fun.
I think zbicyclist nailed it in one. CA covers a lot of ground, from just outdated to out-of-style to not-considered-appropriate-by-some-or-many-in-the-current-world. Too much to type, I like Culturally Anachronistic, or CA for short. Think I may adopt this phrase :^), it’s cool beans!
How can it be anachronistic though? It’s inappropriate NOW, but was not recognized as such in it’s time — that’s like the exact opposite of anachronistic. What’s anachronistic is all these shows lately, especially BBC, that depict a past era as these racially integrated, happy, diverse, and always snowing-white-christmas-in-London paradises.
Tell people they’re *comics* and to suck it up?
My question is . . . has any CIDUer taken offense, that you (CIDUBill) know of? Or are you searching for a solution to an issue that doesn’t really exist?
Andréa, I’m not sure it matters whether anyone has complained. There are probably a lot of lurkers here, and if they’re too shy to contribute, they may be too sensitive for this type of comic.
I think posting it on the Arlo page is a good idea – stuff there is not for the easily offended.
@ larK – “What’s anachronistic is all these shows … that depict a past era as these racially integrated, happy….”
I gave up on “The History Channel” a very long time ago, when they showed a WWII propaganda movie utterly without any context or explanation, as if modern viewers should be expected to swallow and or interpret the exaggerations and outright fabrications without questioning them. It was completely irresponsible for a network that is supposed to be “teaching” (and not just “repeating”) “history”.
I am a fan of comics and comics. The former (or the latter) is the kind you might hear on Sirius XM Laugh USA. It was once billed as “clean comedy” and today is billed as “Comedy for Everyone,” with infrequent mild profanities and slightly risqué material.
On that channel, you will find materials that Sirius considers “funny” (despite possibly – or obviously) “being offensive (or cringeworthy) by today’s standards”. Bob Hope. Bill Cosby. All of the national stereotypes. Is anyone in charge there?
I don’t know if this should drive any decision you make, but I find the parallel interesting.
Is the offensive part of the comic required for the joke to be funny or is it merely coincidental? Like a comic with two racist caricatures for characters telling a joke that is otherwise objectively funny would be fine, but a joke where the punchline is dependent on racist ideas or stereotypes would be inappropriate IMO.
If I could wish for the anachronism fairy, I’d wish I’d written “its” and not “it’s”…
Kilby: I think we had a discussion here about the tube scene in Darkest Hour where Churchill stumbles upon the most racially and gender balanced underground carriage in all of London ever, straight from central casting. That’s “Culturally Anachronistic”.
Anachronisms were the least of that scene’s problems.
Kids grow up and mature; my working assumption is that cultures and mankind as a whole are likewise on a much longer march towards complete maturity. The founding fathers certainly had their flaws, but they ahead of everybody else. And they were at least progressing in the right direction, as a little kid who tells toilet jokes is at least housebroken. If he KEEPS telling them, then I have complaints.
With CA, I look at whether something is being presented as a something to be taken in the context of its time or is being offered up as a golden past to emulate. Much as I enjoy blatantly sexist old Bond films and vintage sitcoms that quietly demonized liberal leanings, I cringe when the same baloney is earnestly peddled as fresh.
An interesting case is Gasoline Alley from 1921, when Walt is trying to find a “nurse” (what we’d call a nanny these days) for Skeezix. After going through several white women, Skeezix picked Rachel, with the “surprise reveal” that she was black. For the most part, she was competent and affectionate, with the occasional jokes featuring her grammar. But she was drawn in the “minstrel show” fashion.
Years later, Walt had a caretaker, Gertie, who was black. He sometimes called her “Rachel”, to her confusion.
There was a very weird and decidedly strange sequence in the Buster Keaton movie “7 Chances” in which Buster Keaton has to get married by 7pm to inherit a fortune and thus leads to premise that he runs down the street and proposes to every woman he sees.
There’s two very strange scenes: 1) He talks to a young thing and she says “Yes” then “when her daddy gets home” and “can my dolly come” and we realize that despite her clothing and being played by an ingenue in her twenties she is supposed to be an eight-year old child.
2) He sees a woman in a skirt and hat from the back and runs up to talk to her. The camera sees her from the front and we realize…. she’s black. Keaton runs up to turns, sees her and immediate turns around and fans himself nervously over the near miss he just escaped.
I had to wonder what the assumed reaction of the audience of the time was supposed to be.
@ Brian in StL – That “Rachel” reminds me of a recurring “housekeeper” character in the old “Tom & Jerry” cartoons. When I watch them with my kids, I’m really not sure whether or how I should explain the “stereotype” issues, because they don’t see her that way at all. To them, she’s the owner of the house, who just happens to be comically ditsy. Luckily, you never see her face n the cartoons, so the “minstrel” effect is less prominent.
There is also a third scene in “7 Chances”. Buster sees a woman on a park bench. He starts talking to her but she ignores him and goes back to reading her newspaper. Her newspaper is all in Hebrew. Wow, what a narrow escape: Buster almost married a Jewish woman. I suppose it was funny at the time.
“Buster sees a woman on a park bench. He starts talking to her but she ignores him and goes back to reading her newspaper. Her newspaper is all in Hebrew. ”
I thought the joke was she didn’t speak English and he just wasted his time when she couldn’t understand him.
It seems, in keeping with the stereotypes of the times, Buster would have easily be enable to entice this Jewish lady if she knew he was rich.
Changing norms can certainly change how one will react to something that is out of step with your sensibilities. I recently watched an old Spencer Tracey film, “Man’s Castle.” It’s supposed to a romantic comedy, I guess. Except the mail protagonist is an abusive a-hole and the woman a doormat who is constantly trying to please him. This is an old pre-code film that was later cut to remove nudity and “overly suggestive” scenes and those scenes have been lost to time. It’s important historically and represents early work from both Tracey and Loretta Young. I was able to watch it, but it was not so enjoyable.
I think putting them on their own page is probably best. Nobody can complain they were terribly surprised and shocked when they have to actively click through. I’d say “non-PC” would be a good tag. After all, “politically correct” just means something aligns with whatever is considered the appropriate opinion of the particular group doing the judging. For example, saying Donald Trump is a great president is politically correct among his supporters. Saying Hilary Clinton would have been a better USA president is politically correct among her supporters.
In any case, I trust CIDU Bill’s judgement. He wouldn’t post something just to shocking and edgy. And if I don’t like it, I’ll stick to the main page and not click through to the non-PC page.
Woozy, I was going to say that in 1925 the “problem” with a Jewish woman would probably be more than her not speaking English. However, having watched the scene, I think you’re right about the joke. It’s played more as if she didn’t understand him.
The whole film (though in not so good quality) is posted on YouTube. The sequence of the three women begins at 24:58 and takes place over the next 4 minutes or so. The order is little girl, Jewish lady, black lady. The “black lady” however, appears to be someone in blackface and, given the build and the walk, probably a man. Given that there is a man playing in blackface in the film, it may be him.
“However, having watched the scene, I think you’re right about the joke. It’s played more as if she didn’t understand him.”
I rewatched it and was no longer so sure I didn’t get it. I think the first time I saw it, I assumed the joke with the Hebrew Newspaper had to be she didn’t speak English because it never occured to me it’d be because she was Jewish, but then the very next scene was that black woman and I was … taken aback… and thought, while watching, gosh *that’s* pretty racist… And I had never gone back to review the previous newspaper scene.
BTW… I don’t get the “Julian Eltinge” joke at 29:00…. Was that a female impersonator? or (*goes to google*) … Oh, I guess so…. and an actual person. Possibly a recognized name at the time.
I think it was because Hebrew script is immediately foreign to the English speaking audience, even those barely literate. No other language spoken/read by white people would do that. And the movie has two Jews in prominent production roles, Joseph Schenk and David Cov-awhatsit. Looks like an Italian name but he was Jewish. So I think your initial impression was right.
As for the “black lady” aside from racism, antimiscegenation laws may have meant that it wouldn’t be possible to marry.
I dunno – a few minutes of this is more than enough. Over an hour of this movie would drive me up a wall . . .
“I think it was because Hebrew script is immediately foreign to the English speaking audience, even those barely literate. No other language spoken/read by white people would do that.”
I think that any of the Eastern European languages that uses Cyrillic script would be quickly recognized as foreign.
The question, to me, would be whether the film’s producers would expect to recognize Hebrew script as Hebrew, or be expected to recognize it as foreign, or if they intended different parts of the audience to do both.
This is why it’s called the ‘web’ (well, it used to be) . . . I started by reading woozy’s post, then googled Julian Eltinge . . . which lead me to the Newsweek article, “The History of Drag, from Julian Eltinge to ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race'”, which was actually a review of the book, “Drag: Combing Through the Big Wigs of Show Business”. So I to my library’s website to see if it was available; it wasn’t, so I went to amazon.com to order it. Whilst there, the book, ‘The Ninth House’ was recommended to me and it sounded interesting, so back to the library site to see if it was available. It was; I put it on hold and was told I’d already put it on hold. Kinda of full circle, so 15 minutes after reading woozy’s post, I came back to CIDU.
In my mind ran a movie of the first time I’d been to a drag show; In Chicago, back in late 70s, which is what began my interest in drag as an art form. (And, referencing a RANDOM COMMENTS from quite a while ago, NO, I’ve not yet been to Hamburger Mary’s down the highway from me . . . I’ve come to feel as tho doing so would be like visiting a zoo; just doesn’t feel comfortable anymore.)
BTW, my fave drag star . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conchita_Wurst
(and an hour later, after watching her Sydney Opera House concert –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6gLTKzJ0tg – I’m finally back to finish this comment.)
And let’s not forget to mention portrayals by: Tim Curry, Nathan Lane, Patrick Swayze and the entire cast of ‘To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar”.
What was the question again? Was there one?
I don’t think there were micegenation laws in California. I got the feeling it was just assumed that interracial marriages was not considered an option and the black woman might as well be a child or a mannequin or Julian Tingle as for as feasibility goes.
I don’t think inter faith marriages in 20s Hollywood would have been considered as unfeasible.