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Monday, November 20, 2006

Cosmo, we hardly knew ye

Posted at 5:45:00 PM by Buck B.

(updated below)

There's no way of knowing what actors are really like, no matter how long we've been watching them or how many roles we've seen them play. But still, it's always a shock to find out someone is a virulent racist. Especially when it's Cosmo Kramer.

Watch Michael Richards go insane:



As Salon commented, it makes scenes like this one a lot less funny in retrospect.


UPDATE:

Over at Steve Gilliard's blog, one of his commenters weighs in with some industry experience and really breaks down Richards' outburst.

Permalink | Comments (7)

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe he meant it like "whats up my nigga" and not like "i sure wish i would have killed that nigger"

1:26 AM, November 26, 2006  
Blogger Len said...

Plain and simple he totally lost his control and composure. When you become a stand up comic you better be ready for the hecklers. It's part of the business. I've seen comics put hecklers in their place and be funny doing it.

We all hear black comics use the N word continuously through out their acts I hear it so much from them I sometimes miss the joke. So it's really ironic how if a white comic uses the word its the end of the world. I don't know why this is the case but is is. I don't understand why its ok for blacks to say it but not for whites.

One other comparison is with Sasha Cohen, you know borat? He can insult the Jews and it's funny. Though it wouldn't be funny if he wasn't a Jew himself. So I guess it falls into the same category.

Though the way his comments are heard in every area of the media I feel that the blacks themselves should take some responsibility for the this word still being used. The black comics must stop using the word if not this word will be used more and more instead of less and less.

12:26 PM, November 27, 2006  
Blogger Buck B. said...

Like anything else, it's a matter of context. I don't have a problem with the word "nigger" in and of itself. I have used it myself in a non-racial way, and it's pretty damn funny when Chris Rock or Eddie Murphy use it. I can't really imagine a context in which a white comic could say "nigger" and be funny, but I won't rule it out.

Here, though, there's no denying what Richards is doing. His outburst had nothing to do with stand up — he just happened to be on stage when he said it. His words would have been equally at home kicking a black guy out of a diner 50 years ago or lynching him 100 years ago. It wasn't comedy, it was pure racial hatred bubbling up from some dark recess of Richards psyche. I can believe that he's not a racist in his everyday interactions with people of other races, but what he said and did is inexcusable and he deserves whatever he gets. What would happen to you or I if we responded to stress in this way? Yeah, hecklers suck, but we all have to deal with assholes at our jobs from time to time.

I don't really see what grounds the audience members have to sue, though. Everyone's looking for their lottery ticket.

12:54 PM, November 27, 2006  
Blogger Buck B. said...

Think it, don't say it. Especially if you're an enormously famous multi-millionaire renowned for playing a lovable character.

Besides, there's nothing inherently wrong with heckling, especially if the guy sucks — and by all accounts, Richards sucked monkey balls. A professional comic accepts hecklers as a occupational hazard, and had ready-made ways to handle them.

Here's some example responses from the piece I linked to above:

Comedians have lines they use for hecklers. Richard Pryor destroyed many a heckler--in character often. Robin Williams fucking verbally drowns his antagonizers. I heard Chris Rock years ago stun a heckler into silence with a forlorn look heavenward while asking "WHY didn't I wear a scumbag when I fucked this dude's mama twenty years ago? Damn!"

Or you trot out the old stand-by, "Hey, take it easy...little respect. I don't come down to your job and:

a.) Slap the dick outta your mouth in the bus station bathroom when you're givin' blowjobs.

b.) Interrupt you and your mom's live sex act at the peep show.

Or some such variation thereof. What so-called professional comedian or person familiar with stand-up comedy doesn't have an idea of how to deal with something as common to the game as hecklers?

1:21 PM, November 27, 2006  
Blogger Buck B. said...

But that's how our culture works to remove its cancers — by making certain views and words no longer socially acceptable.

I don't give a shit if someone hates blacks or Jews or gays. It's a free country, and I don't want the thought police telling people what they can or cannot think. Behavior is what matters, what you say and what you do, whether it's denying someone a job or telling your daughter no Mexicans are allowed in the house. Calling for some audience members to be lynched because you can't handle a few mild heckles is not acceptable.

It used to be OK to go around publicly calling people niggers and faggots. It's not anymore, and thank God for it. That language is used to demean people and perpetuate a hierarchy in which the person saying the word is clearly above the person being insulted.

When we make it no longer OK to use that language, we take away away one of the most powerful tools of cultural domination. Why do you think the word "nigger" has such power? Because it was used for so many years as a way of subjugating blacks. And that's why it's OK for blacks themselves to say it — you can't racially subjugate your own people.

When you tell a racial joke, Chance, it's because you find it funny. In that context, yes, it's hard to argue that you should have to censor yourself based on the audience. But traditionally, racial jokes were told primarily to demean people and only secondarily because they're funny. A lot of racial jokes, especially when they're told by ignorant redneck fuckwads, have barely a hint of actual humor to them — they're mostly savage racism dressed up with a half-ass punchline.

2:26 PM, November 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

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3:27 PM, November 27, 2006  
Blogger Buck B. said...

Yeah, Matthew, the difference between racism and prejudice is widely misunderstood. Everyone has prejudices, both good and bad. The problem is when people confuse their own personal prejudices with some sort of universal truth.

3:55 PM, November 27, 2006  

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