Are Immigrants TV's New "Coons" ?

So I think there's a new trend that I'm gonna have to go ahead and dislike.

I'm sure many of you have seen the show The Big Bang Theory, which features 4 geek friends. One is an Indian scientist named Raj, and a good number of the jokes surrounding him focus on his Indianness. But he's still smart, he's not any sillier than Wolowitz or Leonard, and when drunk is pretty successful with the ladies. And the Wolowitz character is far more stereotyped, in terms of his Jewishness. So... let's say we give it a pass.

But this evening I decided to tune into two shows I'd never seen before: Franklin and Bash, an American law dramedy; and Mr D, a new Canadian sitcom. And they both had a Southeast Asian Ha Ha The Funny Asian character. Though the shows are from different countries, different genres.

The one on F&B was Pindar, a sci fi nerd working for the two (white) heroes. He was the episode's clown.


The one on Mr D was the school janitor, about whom the big joke was he talks unintelligibly. He was a mega-clown. (Eg. Showing up to a bar in sequined disco slacks, and an orange shirt, tucked in over a big belly, and then dancing away, flirting with the ladies, etc.)

I couldn't believe it--two in one night.

I don't know if Big Bang Theory started the trend, or if this is part of the larger trend of "ethnic comedy" amongst stand-ups. I'm not against ethnic comedy since it's usually done by the Ethnic Person in Question, though there's the whole question of Are people laughing because they get the satire, or because they think it's true? (It's something that made my Jewish friend uncomfortable halfway through Borat, and it's one of the reasons Chappelle stopped his show. Given that Jeff Dunham* is the third most popular comedian in the US, I think Chappelle and my friend have something.)

Dunhams' José

But this oh-the-funny-Indian-accented-guy in the context of regular television is what's referred to amongst African-Americans as a "coon" character. A 21st century version, which plays on our perception of immigrants as these incomprehensible buffoons with funny accents.

   

The issue goes beyond the character being represented in a stereotypical manner. The humor is often derived from the character daring to be something he so obviously couldn't be, like a good dancer, or a ladies' man. (A ladies' man with that accent? Oh please! Ha ha ha it's so funny.) The real nub of the situation is best summed up by a line from Spike Lee's Bamboozled: 

"The network does not want to see Negroes on television unless they are buffoons."

My first school year in Quebec was in a special class for learning French, so all my friends were immigrants. My best friends were two interesting, intelligent Pakistani sisters, each completely different from the other, and not fitting any stereotype. My classmates were from every corner of the globe, and none were Weird Funny Foreigners.

Yes, sometimes when people speak in a second language / with an accent, it's funny. When we moved to Quebec our francophone step-relatives laughed at my brother and I all the time, for reasons we could never quite figure out. And when my brother's Indian father-in-law stopped taking photos at the wedding because "you are a silly bunch" it was funny. But there's a difference between someone who's occasionally funny, and reducing someone's culture to a joke.

Incidentally these characters tonight reminded me of the Latino immigrant played by Oscar Nunez of The Office in movie The Proposal. So maybe the new Stepin Fetchit will be multicultural. ...Yaaay.

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*Like most comedians, Dunham claims he's an equal opportunity insulter. But then admits that he doesn't go after the Christian Values jokes because he was raised on them, and it's the majority of his constituency. ...So there goes that excuse.

          
       

The brain, she breaks

I've tried three or four times now to describe what the Prince concert meant to me, and I haven't succeeded. I think I need a bloggy break. But instead of leaving bloggy empty I'll try to find some little flowers to plant in it. Here's one that was posted on a friend's facebook.

real women

Excuse me while I throw this down, I’m old and cranky and tired of hearing the idiocy repeated by people who ought to know better.

Real women do not have curves.   Real women do not look like just one thing.

Real women have curves, and not.   They are tall, and not.  They are brown-skinned, and olive-skinned, and not.  They have small breasts, and big ones, and no breasts whatsoever.

Real women start their lives as baby girls.  And as baby boys.  And as babies of indeterminate biological sex whose bodies terrify their doctors and families into making all kinds of very sudden decisions.

Real women have big hands and small hands and long elegant fingers and short stubby fingers and manicures and broken nails with dirt under them.

Real women have armpit hair and leg hair and pubic hair and facial hair and chest hair and sexy moustaches and full, luxuriant beards.  Real women have none of these things, spontaneously or as the result of intentional change.  Real women are bald as eggs, by chance and by choice and by chemo.

 Real women have hair so long they can sit on it.  Real women wear wigs and weaves and extensions and kufi and do-rags and hairnets and hijab and headscarves and hats and yarmulkes and textured rubber swim caps with the plastic flowers on the sides.

Real women wear high heels and skirts.  Or not.

Real women are feminine and smell good and they are masculine and smell good and they are androgynous and smell good, except when they don’t smell so good, but that can be changed if desired because real women change stuff when they want to.

Real women have ovaries.  Unless they don’t, and sometimes they don’t because they were born that way and sometimes they don’t because they had to have their ovaries removed.  Real women have uteruses, unless they don’t, see above.  Real women have vaginas and clitorises and XX sex chromosomes and high estrogen levels, they ovulate and menstruate and can get pregnant and have babies. Except sometimes not, for a rather spectacular array of reasons both spontaneous and induced.

Real women are fat.  And thin.  And both, and neither, and otherwise.  Doesn’t make them any less real.

There is a phrase I wish I could engrave upon the hearts of every single person, everywhere in the world, and it is this sentence which comes from the genius lips of the grand and eloquent Mr. Glenn Marla:

There is no wrong way to have a body.

I’m going to say it again because it’s important: There is no wrong way to have a body.

And if your moral compass points in any way, shape, or form to equality, you need to get this through your thick skull and stop with the “real women are like such-and-so” crap.

You are not the authority on what “real” human beings are, and who qualifies as “real” and on what basis.  All human beings are real.

Yes, I know you’re tired of feeling disenfranchised.  It is a tiresome and loathsome thing to be and to feel.  But the tit-for-tat disenfranchisement of others is not going to solve that problem.  Solidarity has to start somewhere and it might as well be with you and me.

From Hanne Blank blog