How racist is Mary Poppins Returns?

THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 2019

How slippery and sad is our tribe?
We'll start by making an admission:

We've never seen Mary Poppins, the 1964 Disney film which includes a Julie Andrews dance number which "might seem like an innocuous comic scene if [the original Mary Poppins] novels didn’t associate chimney sweeps’ blackened faces with racial caricature."

That assessment appeared in Tuesday's New York Times, penned by Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a youngish associate professor from Linfield College with degrees from both Harvard and Yale.

We've never seen the film in question. For that matter, we've never seen The Wizard of Oz, on TV or in a theater. Someone marveled at that admission just last week. But people! Given all the wars we've had to stop, who had that kind of time?

We've never seen Mary Poppins, the 1964 film. That said, we've read a lot of slippery language over the course of the past many years, and we couldn't resist the impulse to parse the professor's pleasing pronouncement.

Read again what the professor said. Did he say that the Andrews dance number shouldn't "seem like an innocuous comic scene," based upon material found in a 1943 novel? It almost sounds that way to us, even if you go ahead read his full rumination, which you'll have to decide to do on your own.

If that's what the professor said, what should he be taken to mean? Dis he mean that people who watch that movie shouldn't view that particular scene as "innocuous?" Did he mean that the makers of the 1964 film had some inappropriate race-based intent?

Dis he mean that readers can go ahead and enjoy the film while thinking poorly of the racial outlook of the people who made it? What did Associate Professor Pollack-Pelzner actually mean by that statement?

What did the professor mean? We found ourselves wondering that all through his peculiar piece in Tuesday's Times.

In our assessment, the professor seemed especially skilled at the dark art of pleasing the tribe though indistinct insinuation. For example, here's the way his report begins. What does he mean by this?
POLLACK-PELZNER (1/29/19): “Mary Poppins Returns,” which picked up four Oscar nominations last week, is an enjoyably derivative film that seeks to inspire our nostalgia for the innocent fantasies of childhood, as well as the jolly holidays that the first “Mary Poppins” film conjured for many adult viewers.

Part of the new film’s nostalgia, however, is bound up in a blackface performance tradition that persists throughout the Mary Poppins canon, from P. L. Travers’s books to Disney’s 1964 adaptation, with disturbing echoes in the studio’s newest take on the material, “Mary Poppins Returns.”
According to Pollack-Pelzner, a current film, Mary Poppins Returns, is an "enjoyable" film. He says the new film "seeks to inspire our nostalgia" for several states of affairs.

According to the Harvard/Yale scholar, the new film "seeks to inspire our nostalgia for the innocent fantasies of childhood." It also seems that the new film "seeks to inspire our nostalgia for...the jolly holidays that the [1964] film conjured for many adult viewers."

For ourselves, we're not entirely sure what that salad means. In our view, the professor's prose, at least in its edited form, is a bit hard to parse at that point.

For what it's worth, Manohla Dargis, the Times film reviewer, didn't seem to find the new film all that enjoyable. At the Washington Post, Michael O'Sullivan was underwhelmed as well.

That said, what does the professor mean when he offers the following tribally pleasing thought about "part of the new film's nostalgia?" We're not entirely sure what this puddle means:

"Part of the new film’s nostalgia...is bound up in a blackface performance tradition that persists throughout the Mary Poppins canon."

What the heck does that mean? Generally speaking, nostalgia would be, in this context, a feeling experienced by someone who views this new film. It wouldn't be something possessed by the film, though the film might attempt to invoke nostalgia.

Generally speaking, nostalgia would be a feeling on the part of the viewer. If so, what does the professor mean when he says that "part of the film's nostalgia" is "bound up in a blackface tradition" that existed in the original novels and in the 1964 film?

Does he mean that the new film participates in that blackface tradition? If that's what he meant, he could have just said that, of course.

He seems to mean something much more complex. Or is he simply hustling Times readers, serving them tribal porridge?

We've never seen Mary Poppins. Beyond that, we won't be going to see Mary Poppins Returns.

But if we watched wither one of those films, would we be confronted with scenes which are racially insensitive? Would we be confronted with scenes which are explicitly "racist?"

As best we can tell, the professor never says that. Instead, his dainty soul gets triggered by "disturbing echoes" like this:
POLLACK-PELZNER: One of the more indelible images from the 1964 film is of Mary Poppins blacking up. When the magical nanny (played by Julie Andrews) accompanies her young charges, Michael and Jane Banks, up their chimney, her face gets covered in soot, but instead of wiping it off, she gamely powders her nose and cheeks even blacker. Then she leads the children on a dancing exploration of London rooftops with Dick Van Dyke’s sooty chimney sweep, Bert.

This might seem like an innocuous comic scene if Travers’s novels didn’t associate chimney sweeps’ blackened faces with racial caricature. “Don’t touch me, you black heathen,” a housemaid screams in “Mary Poppins Opens the Door” (1943), as a sweep reaches out his darkened hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to quit: “If that Hottentot goes into the chimney, I shall go out the door,” she says, using an archaic slur for black South Africans that recurs on page and screen.
Poor Pollack-Pelzner! When he watches the 1964 film, he's triggered by a disturbing flashback from a 1943 book!

In his judgment, does this mean that the 1964 dance scene was racially inappropriate, perhaps even racist? The professor never quite says. He simply insinuates throughout, pleasing morally pure Times readers with his ability to remember every inappropriate passage from a set of novels which date to 1934.

Indeed, there is no end to the string of triggers which haunt this fellow's dreams. For this overloaded soul, everything seems to suggest something else. Try the slippery language of this passage on for size, along with the strained association the slippery language permits:
POLLACK-PELZNER: When T.D. Rice, a popular white minstrel performer, crossed the Atlantic in the 1830s, his manager recalled that he inspired chimney sweeps and apprentices, who “wheeled about and turned about and jumped Jim Crow, from morning until night, to the annoyance of their masters, but the great delight of the cockneys.”

These chimney sweeps with minstrel dances were only a step in time away from Dick Van Dyke’s soot-faced Bert, needling the admiral on the rooftop, or Miranda’s lamplighter in “Mary Poppins Returns,” who worked for Bert as a child. The minstrel stage convention of the “pickaninny” rendered black slave children as cheery performers who, the historian Robin Bernstein argues, were “comically impervious to pain” inflicted by their labor. Similarly, the dark-lit grins and unflappable footwork of the lamplighters turn their dangerous labor into comic play; “smile and smirk,” they sing, is Cockney rhyming slang for “work.”
Rice, a minstrel performer from the 1830s, is "only a step in time away" from Lin Miranda's dance scenes in the new Poppins film.

Does that mean there is something racially insensitive, even racist, about Miranda's scene? Hiding behind more slippery locutions, this fly mother-frumper won't say.

This peculiar piece in Tuesday's Times sheds light on modern pseudo-progressive culture. It sheds light on major institutions—on the New York Times, on Harvard and Yale, on Tucker Carlson's nightly program on Fox.

Carlson loves to mock piddle like this. In recent months, all too often, his presentations haven't always exactly been wrong.

By normal standards, Pollack-Pelzner's obsessive piece belongs in some journal where it would be read by seven people, six of whom would fall asleep before his flashbacks were finished. By today's norms, his piece went straight to the front page of the Arts section of the New York Times, where it was placed by some flyweight editor who was rushing out the door to catch his ride to the edge of the Hamptons.

Concerning the children of Harvard and Yale, we will only say this:

Pollack-Pelzner displays a remarkable skill at the kind of slippery language which once was called "Clintonesque." When creeps like him emerge from such schools, we wonder if liberals shouldn't consider joining people like Carlson in asking if parents should still be sending their children to "college" at all.

Was something racially wrong with Mary Poppins? Is something racially wrong with the new Mary Poppins Returns?

We don't know, but there's something very wrong with the way this slippery fellow insinuates all the way through. He couldn't tell it straight if he tried. But in modern culture, slither like this is good enough for our desperate post-liberal tribe.

Others see this and roll their eyes. Again and again, more and more often, The Others aren't always so wrong. In these ways, the children emerging from Harvard and Yale find ways to let plutocrats rule.

Also this: In her Times review, Dargis reported no racial problem with the new film. As is appropriate, Times reviewers are rarely shy about reporting such problems.

Did Pollack-Pelzner say there was a problem? Given his slippery formulations, we can't really tell.

Can you?

48 comments:

  1. "How slippery and sad is our tribe?"

    'Slippery', Bob? Puh-leeze.

    Race-mongering is probably the most typical trait of your zombie death-cult.

    That's what your high-priests do best. As if it's news to you, Bob.

    Yeah, Bob, your being coy, pretending to be surprised, that's what is sad about this post, I'm afraid...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No matter how old you are, family history is important. While you might not think so at the time, as you get older there will be things you and your grandchildren will want to know. Most of us don't realize it until the older generations are gone and you can't replace first hand comments. Don't just put in about the good times, add in the harder times and how you overcame those trials. Another thing to remember is what caused the deaths of those you loved. There are many things that have been found to continue into future generations that knowing it runs in the family can be helped with now or possible in the future. prevention starts with knowing where to start. I wish someone had taken the time to write these things down for mew to be able to go back to. My Grandmother and my mother told us many stories of what things happened in their lives and about the people in their lives. I now wish someone had written those things down since both have passed now. But I never thought at that busy point in my life that I would one day want to remember all those things. So much family history is lost when the older generations are gone. Please pass it on to your family while you can. You can even just do it digitally so it can be accessed by family later on.Family pictures are something to cherish also. Just be sure to write down who is pictured in them, where they are taken and when. I have found family pictures that no one now even knows who is in them.

      AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com
      or
      call/whatsapp:+2349057261346

      Delete
  2. Apparently white people can't get dirty anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This article also discusses the confusion between having black faces and deliberately making one's face black as part of a form of entertainment:

    http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2019/01/or-it-could-actually-be-blackface.html

    Somerby seems to be ignorant of the entire history of portrayal of black people in the movies and other media (children's books, housewares, clothing). He also hasn't seen any of the Mary Poppins movies or read the books. How then can he talk about nostalgia or any aspect of this? How can he complain about the way a professor has written an article, if he has no familiarity with the topic or the specific films? Why would he even try to do this, except to make stupid complaints against PC culture?

    Who makes such complaints against PC culture? Conservatives do that. Not liberals.

    Disney was as racially insensitive as everyone else back in those days. They didn't have to repeat their original error except that they wanted to stay close to the first film, exactly because so many now-adults would have seen it as kids and would want to reexperience it with their own children. Leaving out the major character of Bert would have upset more people than including blackface, so they made a choice and tried to handle it better. But it was put in the film for the purpose of evoking nostalgia (no matter how you phrase it).

    Somerby loves to criticize professors, whether he has a valid complaint or not. I think his days at Harvard must have been truly awful for him to have built up such animus against professors. Did they perhaps puncture his youthful grandiosity by putting him in touch with his own ignorance? That is their job. But perhaps Somerby's ego was too fragile to respond by learning and instead reacted defensively by rejecting professors and all they stand for, including the idea that people can reason.

    Or maybe Somerby is just an ass. That would be the easier explanation, and it wouldn't involve any nostalgia for his own past distorted by remembered shame into professor-bashing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anon. @ 1:01: "Or maybe Somerby is just an ass." Or perhaps it is you that is the ass.

      Delete
    2. I explained my objection to Somerby's post. What is your objection to what I wrote?

      Delete
    3. What is your objection, dembot? Could you phrase in 30 words or less, please.

      The only thing I got from your comment is that liberal are not allowed to despise PC. And that those who do, are asses. It that it? Not a very meaningful objection, don't you think?

      Delete
    4. 1:55 is Bob's biggest bedlamite.

      Delete
    5. Liberals have learned to live with political correctness. Conservatives haven't, unless you tell them the truth about themselves.

      Delete
    6. Here is my objection, clearly stated above. Somerby shouldn't complain that he doesn't know what someone meant about a book or movie he hasn't seen, because he has no way of knowing whether the meaning was clear or not. Further, by his disdain for PC he shows himself to be far from a liberal. Finally, he once again treats a professor unfairly, which supports my previous statements that he dislikes professors, and I speculated about his motive.

      Delete
    7. "Further, by his disdain for PC he shows himself to be far from a liberal."

      This is not an objection. This is your irrelevant (and, frankly, idiotic) opinion of Bob.

      He likes to call himself 'liberal' and that's all there is to it, your silly litmus tests notwithstanding.

      In fact, I presume he doesn't believe that someone like you is a liberal. In Bob's mind you're a pseudo-liberal. A fake. A 100% dembot.
      .
      Your first sentence I can't decipher. Surely, he knows what Mary Poppins is, and it's certainly enough knowledge to form an opinion of the zombie piece in question.
      .
      You terrible suspicion that Bob might "dislike professors" is irrelevant. He addresses the piece published in nytimes. When/if he writes a post about professors being idiots (a-la Nassim Talebs "The Intellectual Yet Idiot"), then we can discuss whether disliking professions is justified (personally, I believe it is).

      Delete
    8. When Somerby uses the word "dembot" we will know for sure that you are a sockpuppet, Mao. I have a policy of not responding to you, following deadrat's suggestion. If you had used a nym above, I wouldn't have bothered.

      Delete
    9. Bert s a chimney sweep. He gets sooty. He's a sweep.

      Sometimes a cigar really is just a cigar.

      Think of it as Jane and Michael Banks being introduced to a world outside the environment of their parent's earnest middle class social climbing/striving.

      That's what Pollack-Pelzner meant with his reference to a holiday.

      Or 'oliday, luv.

      Delete
    10. Conservatives are fools. They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.

      Delete
    11. Im not sure many people would hold the Aztec ritual of human sacrifice as being a traditional value despite the archaic nature of the practice or its communal intentions.

      Delete
  4. I thought by now it was common knowledge that such slippery language is just a complete moron trying to sound like a deep intellectual.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Slippery? Here’s an example of slippery writing:

      “If that's what he meant, he could have just said that, of course.”

      And:

      “He seems to mean something much more complex.”

      “If” and “seems” are doing the blogger’s slippery work here.

      Delete
  5. Leave it to Somerby to critique an opinion column about two movies and several books, none of which he has seen or read.

    It is especially annoying when Somerby says this kind of thing:

    “the professor seemed especially skilled at the dark art of pleasing the tribe”

    It is at least possible that the “professor” has written his sincere opinion on this matter. As such, it isn’t some effort in “pleasing the tribe”, but simply offering an opinion. The readers of his column will no doubt have differing reactions.

    Somerby seems incapable of viewing the world without resorting to sententious labels like “liberal”, “career liberal”, “pseudoliberal”, and “tribe.” Even the word “professor” becomes a judgment-laden epithet in his hands.

    And this from a blogger who tells “liberals” not to view “The Others” this way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "It is at least possible that the “professor” has written his sincere opinion on this matter."

      I think it certainly is possible. When you read a piece like that, the question always arises: is the author a shameless hack or sincere idiot?

      Bob here is assuming the former, but the latter is certainly a possibility...

      Delete
  6. Watch this number yourself and see if you think it's racist. I sure don't. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I-b_GJ4ltk

    It is true that one character mentions the dirty-faced chimney sweeps as looking like Hottentots, but that word zips right by in the excitement and enthusiasm of the dance and song.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The opinion piece isn’t just about that one scene.

      Delete
  7. It isn't up to white people to tell black people what is racist and what is not, nor to tell them what they can and should be offended by, or not.

    It is the responsibility of all civil people to try to avoid offense as much as possible. They should definitely not deliberately give offense to others or any race or social status.

    The British and American middle and upper classes used to blithely go along without caring whether they offended people they considered to be socially inferior, including African Americans and immigrants. That's why the original Mary Poppins books contain descriptions that might be humorous to their intended audience (middle and upper class white children). It is the misunderstanding of the identity of the chimney sweep that is supposed to be funny, and the terms in the book (Hottentot) were widely used at that time. The civil rights movement was in full swing in 1964 but the people who made the movie didn't care and Disney wasn't known for racial sensitivity (witness "Song of the South" with Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby). So Disney Studios expanded on the racial theme by making Bert's part much bigger in the film, to accommodate Dick Van Dyke. Since his part was so large in the first film, they couldn't cut him entirely out of the sequel, so they tried to make the character more positive by changing him to a female descendant and they tried to tone down the racial elements.

    Personally, I don't know why a sequel was necessary. I also continue to find Disney unacceptable in the way it perpetuates stereotypes of girls and women (despite films like Mulan). Girls are second-class citizens at the Disney Parks and Disney's searching for a Hispanic princess doesn't change that. They perpetuate a conservative social attitude in terms of race and gender.

    That said, Disney films are entertaining while they continue the oblivious attitude toward minorities current when the original Mary Poppins book and movie came out. The movie "Saving Mr. Banks" is very interesting and suggests what came from Travers and what came from Disney in the Mary Poppins movie.

    Out of consideration for why blackface arose and the role it played in entertainment, civil people do not participate in blackface, just as we no longer engage in slavery, call black men "boy", make black people use separate bathrooms and so on. Someone who insists today that black face is innocent is being deliberately inflammatory, just as much as someone who insists that separate drinking fountains are harmless so why would anyone object to them? There are a lot of derogatory terms for minorities and civil people do not use any of them.

    I do not understand why Somerby is being obtuse about this. It is a kind of wink and nod to bigotry and it puts him on the wrong side of racial issues, along with conservatives who similarly should know better but are making political points with their objections.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousJanuary 31, 2019 at 3:35 PM
      It isn't up to white people to tell black people what is racist and what is not, nor to tell them what they can and should be offended by, or not.

      It is the responsibility of all civil people to try to avoid offense as much as possible.


      This is a tricky area. In practice, it led to a hierarchy of who can demand not to be offended. E.g., as a conservative, I find the term "undocumented immigrant" offensiveness, because it's a misstatement. But, we conservatives cannot require that people not use that term. Conservatives are at the bottom of the "offended hierarchy".

      Here's another problem: Because being offended gives a group power, they look for more ways to be offended. IMHO this has done enormous harm to African Americans. Instead of celebrating toughness, as they once did, they are encouraged to celebrate weakness.

      Delete
    2. 3:35 be that as it may, I think we can all agree that black females are horrible drivers.

      We have to call a spade a spade. Cunt.

      Delete
    3. You've a heart of stone if this drivel doesn't set off more eye rolling than a Hugh Grant movie.

      https://amp.azcentral.com/amp/2683881002?__twitter_impression=true

      Delete
    4. If you're so civil and sensitive, what's with coming here to insult and belittle the blogger at every opportunity?

      Surely there must be places on this world-wide-web where morally upright folks can meet and peacefully exchange compliments on their moral uprightness, civility, and sensitivity?

      Delete
    5. Sounds something quite atrocious.

      Delete
    6. "Conservatives are at the bottom of the "offended hierarchy"."

      I don't think so. I tell Conservatives the truth about themselves all the time, and all I hear is whining and crying from them because I'm not being politically correct.

      Delete
    7. It isn't up to white people to tell black people what is racist and what is not, nor to tell them what they can and should be offended by, or not.

      I wouldn’t ever consider such to be my portfolio. My job is to perform the public service of informing members of this commentariat that David in Cal is a moral and intellectual idiot who will swallow whole any right-wing talking point and regurgitate it here. He’s our village idiot and as such is incapable of understanding. There’s no point in reasoning with an idiot since idiots are incapable of understanding, and he doesn’t deserve excoriation since idiots are not responsible for what they do. It is also my self-assigned mission to note that Mao is our village troll, self-confessedly interested only in triggering others to respond to his trolling.

      KEEP ON TRACK; DON’T POST BACK

      But that piece of self-promotion aside, everybody should determine what offense is reasonable and act accordingly. I propose two simple rules: A) if you’re an idiot like DA in CA, your offended sensibilities don’t matter, and 2) the upper bound for your vicarious taking of offense is that level of offense taken by those on behalf of whom you are offended.

      To help with A), take the following quiz:

      Which of the following are racist:

      1. Use of the word niggardly.

      2. The term tar baby to describe a complicated and insoluble problem

      3. The phrase “touched by the tar brush.”

      4. These mascots or nicknames:
      a) the erstwhile Chief Illinwek of the University of Illinois Illini
      b) Chief Osceola of Florida State University Seminoles
      c) the Washington Redskins
      d) the erstwhile Chief Noc-A-Homa and Homer the Brave of the Atlanta Braves
      e) the erstwhile Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians

      5) The use of makeup to intentionally mimic black people (i.e., blackface)

      6) Blackening one’s face to mimic chimney sweeps (see the Mary Poppins controversy) or pictures of people whose faces are blackened by work (see the coal miners picture referenced by Cecelia at 4:23P).

      7) Samuel Clemens putting the words “you can’t learn a nigger to argue” in Huck Finn’s mouth in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

      Partial credit will be awarded for sensible reasoning, but if you can’t pass the test, no one need pay attention to your hurt feelings.

      For part B of the test, consider whether as someone who is not an enrolled member of federally recognized tribe, you are offended by the term Indian.

      Delete
    8. Oh, the dembot/wannabe dembot supervisor is back.

      Should we now expect your "friend" Erik to make an entrance? Or are you now sockpuppeting strictly as Anonymous?

      Delete
    9. deadrat's comment illustrates my point. There is a hierarchy of who can demand not to be offended, and conservatives are at the bottom.

      Delete
    10. Yeah, some talk about the "hierarchy of victimhood".

      But, even though it looks like this might be the case, I don't think it's true.

      Here's my analysis: lib-zombie death-cult leaders don't need or want any predictable, systemic rules on "offending". The idea is that they are free to accuse and bully anyone they choose, while their cult must always be presumed super-extra-'moral' - even when they openly preach mccarthyism, xenophobia, lies, censorship, and all the rest.

      Delete
    11. Lib Zombie Death Cult Leaders only seem super-extra-'moral' when you compare them to Conservatives.
      It's similar to how those who understand 3rd Grade math seem super-extra-'smart' when you compare them to Republicans.

      Delete
    12. "The civil rights movement was in full swing in 1964 but the people who made the movie didn't care and Disney wasn't known for racial sensitivity (witness "Song of the South" with Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby). So Disney Studios expanded on the racial theme by making Bert's part much bigger in the film, to accommodate Dick Van Dyke. Since his part was so large in the first film, they couldn't cut him entirely out of the sequel, so they tried to make the character more positive by changing him to a female descendant and they tried to tone down the racial elements. "

      I grew up in Southern California around those people, and you don't know the FUCK what you're talking about.

      Delete
    13. Yes. lib-zombie death-cult perverts the meaning of everything. The idea of the "civil rights movement" was, of course, the equal rights.

      E-q-u-a-l, dembots, equal. color-blindness.

      Not demonizing people with pale skin while glamorizing those with darker.

      Delete
  8. @7:24 I love liberals. My wife, daughters and best friend are all liberals. Most of my extended family are liberals. I want to help liberals see that quite a few liberal policies will not achieve liberal aims, which I agree are worthwhile aims. Many of these aims are better achieved through so-called conservative policies.

    ReplyDelete
  9. No matter how old you are, family history is important. While you might not think so at the time, as you get older there will be things you and your grandchildren will want to know. Most of us don't realize it until the older generations are gone and you can't replace first hand comments. Don't just put in about the good times, add in the harder times and how you overcame those trials. Another thing to remember is what caused the deaths of those you loved. There are many things that have been found to continue into future generations that knowing it runs in the family can be helped with now or possible in the future. prevention starts with knowing where to start. I wish someone had taken the time to write these things down for mew to be able to go back to. My Grandmother and my mother told us many stories of what things happened in their lives and about the people in their lives. I now wish someone had written those things down since both have passed now. But I never thought at that busy point in my life that I would one day want to remember all those things. So much family history is lost when the older generations are gone. Please pass it on to your family while you can. You can even just do it digitally so it can be accessed by family later on.Family pictures are something to cherish also. Just be sure to write down who is pictured in them, where they are taken and when. I have found family pictures that no one now even knows who is in them.

    AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com
    or
    call/whatsapp:+2349057261346

    ReplyDelete
  10. Liberals are great. Somebody's gotta fix us lattes and tear our movie tickets.

    ReplyDelete
  11. The article Somerby is critiquing does indeed have problems with clarity. It seems that Mary Poppins and Disney have a history of using minstrel show humor, as well as, broader anti-African humor. It also seems that attempts to expunge or elide that insensitive humor have been incremental. In the latest movie, certain scenes that are innocuous to a vast majority of viewers are not innocuous to those few who are aware of the racially insensitive origin of the scenes, no matter how diluted and altered. All fine and good. Not a bad history lesson. But to suggest there is something contemporaneously wrong with the current movie, which is apparently not offending anyone (at least not because of racism), is stretching it. And I think the author's vague language is trying to make that suggestion.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Conservatives are great. Someone has to rig the economy to screw over the masses , and tear-up when called out on it.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Me too: I LOVE my dembot stalkers, assigned to me by Prophet Gyorgy Soros (Peace Be Upon Him), in His infinite wisdom.

    A couple of my dembot stalkers are appear to be seriously damaged, though: one keeps endlessly confessing and repenting, and the other has switched to the most primitive 'replication' mode.

    So, I'm worried, and of course I, too, would like to help... Yeah, man, trying my best...

    ReplyDelete
  14. An extended whine about an extended whine.

    ReplyDelete
  15. What will never be discussed are the minstrel shows that go on in today's society. They are men dressing as women in these ridiculous "drag" shows. They perpetuate demeaning stereotypes of women but people dare not criticize them for fear of violating the political correctness of the day which means that aspects of the gay community dare not be criticized.

    ReplyDelete
  16. My response is to ask yourself what feelings/reactions does this inspire in most people.

    If you must plead cases based upon words like "hottentot" or that this innocuous thing reminds someone of something not innoculous, then you're being taught to feel LESS not more. You're being programed.

    You're being inured against feeling

    ReplyDelete
  17. "I LOVE my dembot stalkers,"

    You don't have to LOVE them. Just respect the fact that they are worlds smarter than you'll ever think of being.

    ReplyDelete
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