Mocking Blacks? "30 Rock" and "Amos and Andy"
In case you missed it, in the middle of its sixth season, NBC’s highly vaunted hit comedy, ”30 Rock”, which is neither a hit nor very comedic, hit rockbottom last Thursday by featuring a reversion to blackface.
If you did miss the show, you have plenty of company since almost everyone else did too.
Despite being a big fave among leftist elites, “30 Rock” has been an abysmal flop.
With Nielsen rankings starting at 102 in its initial season, climbing all the way to 94, 69, 86, then flopping back to 106 last year, its death throes could be heard last week as “Mad Men’s” guest star Jon Hamm donned black makeup in a sketch ostensibly aimed at satirizing racism in the television industry.
Confident in the liberal misconception that libs can’t be racists any more than blacks can, the live episode was more a desperate attempt to boost ”30 Rock’s” ratings by mocking African-Americans under the guise of satire.
Hamm, decked out in an afro and mimicking stereotypical black speech, would have been driven into the same entertainment oblivion as “Seinfeld’s” Michael Richards just a few years ago but, apparently, blackface is now back in vogue.
The use of blackface–white performers such as Al Jolsen coloring their faces in dark paint or charcoal makeup in order to appear as what were then called Negroes–dates back to the days of 19th century minstrel shows. Blackface, always cloaked in humor, later became symbolic of every slander committed against black people.
As it did in 2010, “30 Rock” once again revived the previously-condemned practice of whites ridiculing blacks by appearing in blackface as comedic fodder even though, along with the word “nigger,” which is also making a regrettable comeback, it has been banished as a gross example of racism.
It was a counterintuitive gambit to satirize discrimination against blacks on television since anyone who watches TV has to be aware that African-Americans have been represented in dramas, sitcoms, and commercials far in excess of their 13% of America’s population ever since Rev. Jesse Jackson complained blacks were being given short shrift in the entertainment industry. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=22889.)
In case you missed it, in the middle of its sixth season, NBC’s highly vaunted hit comedy, ”30 Rock”, which is neither a hit nor very comedic, hit rockbottom last Thursday by featuring a reversion to blackface.
If you did miss the show, you have plenty of company since almost everyone else did too.
Despite being a big fave among leftist elites, “30 Rock” has been an abysmal flop.
With Nielsen rankings starting at 102 in its initial season, climbing all the way to 94, 69, 86, then flopping back to 106 last year, its death throes could be heard last week as “Mad Men’s” guest star Jon Hamm donned black makeup in a sketch ostensibly aimed at satirizing racism in the television industry.
Confident in the liberal misconception that libs can’t be racists any more than blacks can, the live episode was more a desperate attempt to boost ”30 Rock’s” ratings by mocking African-Americans under the guise of satire.
Hamm, decked out in an afro and mimicking stereotypical black speech, would have been driven into the same entertainment oblivion as “Seinfeld’s” Michael Richards just a few years ago but, apparently, blackface is now back in vogue.
The use of blackface–white performers such as Al Jolsen coloring their faces in dark paint or charcoal makeup in order to appear as what were then called Negroes–dates back to the days of 19th century minstrel shows. Blackface, always cloaked in humor, later became symbolic of every slander committed against black people.
As it did in 2010, “30 Rock” once again revived the previously-condemned practice of whites ridiculing blacks by appearing in blackface as comedic fodder even though, along with the word “nigger,” which is also making a regrettable comeback, it has been banished as a gross example of racism.
It was a counterintuitive gambit to satirize discrimination against blacks on television since anyone who watches TV has to be aware that African-Americans have been represented in dramas, sitcoms, and commercials far in excess of their 13% of America’s population ever since Rev. Jesse Jackson complained blacks were being given short shrift in the entertainment industry. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=22889.)
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