[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[Kaelik]

This exchange briefly gave me the idea for a sitcom featuring a sassy Jeffrey Dahmer and his straight man roommate Greg (not straight as in heterosexual, straight as in the trope), but then I realized that's basically Llamas with Hats.

"Jeeeffrey! You can't just keep murdering male prostitutes!"

"Oh, so it'd be okay if I murdered women? I'm disappointed in you, Greg. I may be a picky eater, but at least I'm not a sexist asshole."

Justice Scalia would be disappointed in you. We have a rich historical tradition that shows that the murdering of female prostitutes was permissible in 15th century England, and here you are implying it could be made illegal?

[Korwin]

This exchange briefly gave me the idea for a sitcom featuring a sassy Jeffrey Dahmer and his straight man roommate Greg (not straight as in heterosexual, straight as in the trope), but then I realized that's basically Llamas with Hats.

"Jeeeffrey! You can't just keep murdering male prostitutes!"

"Oh, so it'd be okay if I murdered women? I'm disappointed in you, Greg. I may be a picky eater, but at least I'm not a sexist asshole."

Justice Scalia would be disappointed in you. We have a rich historical tradition that shows that the murdering of female prostitutes was permissible in 15th century England, and here you are implying it could be made illegal?

What, if the guilty is not found, he did nothing wrong?
Jack the Ripper was 1888, what are you talking about?

[Kaelik]

This exchange briefly gave me the idea for a sitcom featuring a sassy Jeffrey Dahmer and his straight man roommate Greg (not straight as in heterosexual, straight as in the trope), but then I realized that's basically Llamas with Hats.

"Jeeeffrey! You can't just keep murdering male prostitutes!"

"Oh, so it'd be okay if I murdered women? I'm disappointed in you, Greg. I may be a picky eater, but at least I'm not a sexist asshole."

Justice Scalia would be disappointed in you. We have a rich historical tradition that shows that the murdering of female prostitutes was permissible in 15th century England, and here you are implying it could be made illegal?

What, if the guilty is not found, he did nothing wrong?
Jack the Ripper was 1888, what are you talking about?

Pretty sure people were killing prostitutes before Jack the Ripper.

[Korwin]

Justice Scalia would be disappointed in you. We have a rich historical tradition that shows that the murdering of female prostitutes was permissible in 15th century England, and here you are implying it could be made illegal?

What, if the guilty is not found, he did nothing wrong?
Jack the Ripper was 1888, what are you talking about?

Pretty sure people were killing prostitutes before Jack the Ripper.

legaly?
Edit: Framed as witches and killed on the stake, OK.

[ckafrica]

This doesn't explain their extremely racist caricature depictions of arabs and jews.

It is the method of out doing offensiveness of those who you are really making fun of. The kid growing up is not a joke about the incident in Cologne, its a joke at the people who will look at Cologne and say "keep them arab's out of our countries". That they'd be possibly thinking that "good thing that kid died before he got here where he'd have grown up to be a molester" or the juxtaposition of lamenting the lack of support that leads to the deaths of those trying to get to Europe and at the same time the lamentations of behavior once they have gotten there.

Hebdo cartoon depictions of any group are never flattering even when the depictions are actually in support of those depicted. My interpretation has again been that they aim to depict as they imagine their subjects(in the above case, arabs) are perceived by those they are really targeting (the anti-immigrant groups). The theory being by making the whole idea a farse it de-legitimizes those views.

[Prak]

Um.


UM.


UM.


UM.

[Chamomile]

You don't speak French, do you Prak?

[hyzmarca]

This doesn't explain their extremely racist caricature depictions of arabs and jews.

It is the method of out doing offensiveness of those who you are really making fun of. The kid growing up is not a joke about the incident in Cologne, its a joke at the people who will look at Cologne and say "keep them arab's out of our countries". That they'd be possibly thinking that "good thing that kid died before he got here where he'd have grown up to be a molester" or the juxtaposition of lamenting the lack of support that leads to the deaths of those trying to get to Europe and at the same time the lamentations of behavior once they have gotten there.

Hebdo cartoon depictions of any group are never flattering even when the depictions are actually in support of those depicted. My interpretation has again been that they aim to depict as they imagine their subjects(in the above case, arabs) are perceived by those they are really targeting (the anti-immigrant groups). The theory being by making the whole idea a farse it de-legitimizes those views.

Occam's razor would suggest that "they're assholes" is the more likely explanation

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Can someone who speaks baguetteland talk tell us what those say? I only somewhat understand written french and am not literate by anyone's definition.

[Longes]

understandingcharliehebdo.com

This might help. Apparently there are paragraphs of subtext to this, but in my personal opinion satire that looks racist and offensive, but 'actually' isn't has failed to do its job. But that's just me.

[Maj]

North Korea... We don't believe you because you do this: http://www.naenara.com.kp/en/order/pyti ... y&no=21423

[Prak]

You don't speak French, do you Prak?

I'm not really concerned about the words... Charlie Hebdo falls back on racist stereotypes to create caricatures as a code for the races etc it is satirizing. Giving that you don't really need to play up any kind of facial proportion differences, let alone draw actual monkeys, to make it clear to your audience "we're talking about black people!" and that you can use symbols actually quite subtly and tastefully to mark characters as jewish or muslim or whatever religion, I'm of the opinion that whatever Hebdo's intent is they're racist fucks who should probably stop being racist fucks.

[hyzmarca]

You don't speak French, do you Prak?

I'm not really concerned about the words... Charlie Hebdo falls back on racist stereotypes to create caricatures as a code for the races etc it is satirizing. Giving that you don't really need to play up any kind of facial proportion differences, let alone draw actual monkeys, to make it clear to your audience "we're talking about black people!" and that you can use symbols actually quite subtly and tastefully to mark characters as jewish or muslim or whatever religion, I'm of the opinion that whatever Hebdo's intent is they're racist fucks who should probably stop being racist fucks.

Or they're just crappy artists who fallback on exagerated sterotypes to cover the fact that they can't draw.

[Prak]

Well, yes, there is that, too...

[Chamomile]

I'm not really concerned about the words...

This is exactly as dumb as looking at the various horribly racist things said by some of the characters in Django Unchained in isolation and declaring that the movie is clearly racist, because you don't need to bother yourself with silly little things like "context" to make conclusions.

Can someone who speaks baguetteland talk tell us what those say? I only somewhat understand written french and am not literate by anyone's definition.

My French is probably not good enough to be considered fluent and I occasionally had to feed a word through Google Translate. But roughly:



"The sex slaves of Boko Haram are angry. 'Don't touch our welfare!'"

The argument that Charlie Hebdo are secret satirical ninjas who are making reductio ad absurdum arguments on racists can be made for this, but it can also be made for virtually any other potentially racist declarations, so I remain unconvinced.



"GPA, it's 2 parents '...and one slave...'"

GPA here refers to gestation pour autrui, which is where a (presumably sterile) woman has another woman carry her baby for her. Like, a baby that actually has her and her partner's DNA. An image clearly trying to paint a brown person as victimized by a white couple is a really weird thing to bring up while trying to provide evidence that Charlie Hebdo is racist, which is why I singled this one out. I'm not exactly sure what all the others are referring to due to missing context, but most of them at least look like they're probably racist.



"Untouchables 2 'Musn't make fun!'"

This issue is dated to September 19th, 2012, so it's not anything related to the attack on Charlie Hebdo, if the presence of the Jewish guy wasn't enough to make that obvious.



"Blue racist rally."

I don't know enough of the context her to know exactly what's being suggested or if "blue" is associated with left-wing in France, but it seems pretty clear that Charlie Hebdo is accusing someone of being racist. Which does not preclude them from being racist themselves, and I have no idea who the person they're depicting as a monkey is supposed to be.

[DSMatticus]

Prak, you said something similar in the trans videogame character thread, and it was fucking dumb there, and it's fucking dumb here. Artistic depictions of things (whatever the medium) are descriptive, not judgmental, and you really do have to think about the meaning behind what the creator is showing you in order to determine if their message is harmful or not.

If I write a satirical story about a white supremacist movement, I am going to have write a bunch of things that are, in the context of the story, pro-white supremacy. I am going to have to, in some capacity, depict the deeply racist worldview of my story's white supremacists. According to your entirely fucked philosophy, even though the message behind this hypothetical story is clearly to deride white supremacy, that would make me a white supremacist because reasons.

Um, no? Fuck no. That is not how this shit works. Yes, you do have to evaluate the overall meaning behind the inclusion of something racist into a particular work (whatever the medium). Does the work endorse that racist element? Does it villify it? If it's neither endorsing nor villfying it, why? Is it simply a background element, as opposed to a theme of the story? If so, is the author being needlessly flippant about something that's actually quite serious? Is that flippancy potentially harmful? You have to ask these kinds of questions, and if you aren't willing to, your views on what is and isn't offensive are worthless at best and harmful at worst.

[name_here]

I personally am completely unwilling to weigh in on either side of "It's satire" vs "It's racism pretending to be satire" for cartoons from a country I don't live in written in a language I don't know.

[hyzmarca]

I don't know enough of the context her to know exactly what's being suggested or if "blue" is associated with left-wing in France, but it seems pretty clear that Charlie Hebdo is accusing someone of being racist. Which does not preclude them from being racist themselves, and I have no idea who the person they're depicting as a monkey is supposed to be.

Rassemblement Bleu Marine is, apparently, an alternate name for the National Front.

And there was, apparently, an National Front politician who posted a picture of a monkey dressed in babyclothes on his Facebook that had a captain saying that it was Justice Minister Christiane Taubira at 18 months old. And he publicly said that she would be swinging from trees rather than serving in public office.

So, in this case, it is apparently making fun of something that a right-wing politician did.

They're still shitty artists who are badly ripping off the Simpsons and publishing things that are blatantly offensive mainly for shock value.

But really, the big problem isn't just that it's offensive. It's offensive and it isn't funny.

[Prak]

Prak, you said something similar in the trans videogame character thread, and it was fucking dumb there, and it's fucking dumb here. Artistic depictions of things (whatever the medium) are descriptive, not judgmental, and you really do have to think about the meaning behind what the creator is showing you in order to determine if their message is harmful or not.

If I write a satirical story about a white supremacist movement, I am going to have write a bunch of things that are, in the context of the story, pro-white supremacy. I am going to have to, in some capacity, depict the deeply racist worldview of my story's white supremacists. According to your entirely fucked philosophy, even though the message behind this hypothetical story is clearly to deride white supremacy, that would make me a white supremacist because reasons.

Um, no? Fuck no. That is not how this shit works. Yes, you do have to evaluate the overall meaning behind the inclusion of something racist into a particular work (whatever the medium). Does the work endorse that racist element? Does it villify it? If it's neither endorsing nor villfying it, why? Is it simply a background element, as opposed to a theme of the story? If so, is the author being needlessly flippant about something that's actually quite serious? Is that flippancy potentially harmful? You have to ask these kinds of questions, and if you aren't willing to, your views on what is and isn't offensive are worthless at best and harmful at worst.

You realize that something can be racist without the person who produced it being full on skinhead nazi, right? Racism (and sexism and misogyny) are so ingrained in our culture and Western society in general that a lot of people express racist (et al) views, or make racist (et al) jokes, thinking them completely harmless.

You can have a debate about whether the treatment of Erica in Catherine is transmisogynistic (and I'm not even sure I'd really go quite that far, I just think it was offensive), but the depictions of non-whites in Charlie Hebdo cartoons are offensively racist. I'm not saying that Hebdo's artists are goose stepping facists, I'm saying they produce art which falls back on offensive physical stereotypes, whatever their intent is, and there are much better ways they could indicate the person who is part of their comment is muslim than to make every depiction of a muslim in their cartoons a racist caricature of arabs. And that they should probably stop doing that if they want to have a substantive discussion and not be considered racists.

[MGuy]

Prak, you said something similar in the trans videogame character thread, and it was fucking dumb there, and it's fucking dumb here. Artistic depictions of things (whatever the medium) are descriptive, not judgmental, and you really do have to think about the meaning behind what the creator is showing you in order to determine if their message is harmful or not.

If I write a satirical story about a white supremacist movement, I am going to have write a bunch of things that are, in the context of the story, pro-white supremacy. I am going to have to, in some capacity, depict the deeply racist worldview of my story's white supremacists. According to your entirely fucked philosophy, even though the message behind this hypothetical story is clearly to deride white supremacy, that would make me a white supremacist because reasons.

Um, no? Fuck no. That is not how this shit works. Yes, you do have to evaluate the overall meaning behind the inclusion of something racist into a particular work (whatever the medium). Does the work endorse that racist element? Does it villify it? If it's neither endorsing nor villfying it, why? Is it simply a background element, as opposed to a theme of the story? If so, is the author being needlessly flippant about something that's actually quite serious? Is that flippancy potentially harmful? You have to ask these kinds of questions, and if you aren't willing to, your views on what is and isn't offensive are worthless at best and harmful at worst.

You realize that something can be racist without the person who produced it being full on skinhead nazi, right? Racism (and sexism and misogyny) are so ingrained in our culture and Western society in general that a lot of people express racist (et al) views, or make racist (et al) jokes, thinking them completely harmless.

You can have a debate about whether the treatment of Erica in Catherine is transmisogynistic (and I'm not even sure I'd really go quite that far, I just think it was offensive), but the depictions of non-whites in Charlie Hebdo cartoons are offensively racist. I'm not saying that Hebdo's artists are goose stepping facists, I'm saying they produce art which falls back on offensive physical stereotypes, whatever their intent is, and there are much better ways they could indicate the person who is part of their comment is muslim than to make every depiction of a muslim in their cartoons a racist caricature of arabs. And that they should probably stop doing that if they want to have a substantive discussion and not be considered racists.

What would an offensive and racist depiction of a caucasian look like to you Prak?

[Prak]

That's an interesting question, but because western society treats caucasian as the standard from which other races deviate from, I don't think you could really make it a physical characteristic thing, unless you wanted to use something like the natural form of a changeling in D&D



to specifically attack the idea that caucasians are the baseline.

It'd be better to create a depiction based on the caucasian tendency to appropriate shit from other cultures without any understanding of what it means, or interest in sticking to a single culture when doing so. A "racist" and "offensive" depiction of a caucasion person would then best be done through drawing a white person (exaggerating white however much you wish) who has piled "pretty but negative" symbols from other cultures on themselves.

Except I wouldn't consider that offensive or racist, because my race seriously does have a problem with doing that sort of shit.

[DSMatticus]

Prak, you have no fucking idea what you are talking about. You are not even vaguely interacting with the discussion at hand, and are instead off in stupid fucking tangent land. Whether or not you think the people who work at Charlie Hebdo are the collective reincarnation of Hitler or merely insensitive is completely and totally irrelevant.

The question at hand is "when is a depiction of racist beliefs itself racist?" Because the claim was that Charlie Hebdo was using depictions of racist beliefs to satirize racism, and your response was that that doesn't matter because they're still depictions of racist beliefs. Your theory is that mere depictions of bigotry - presumably those that cross your personal comfort threshold in particular - are themselves bigoted. And that's fucking insane, full stop. You are going to have to parse context and considering meaning in order to determine whether or not the thing you are seeing is bigoted and/or its creator is a bigoted asshat, is an asshat, and if you aren't willing to do that then your opinions are pretty much worthless.

Let's talk about Springtime for Hitler, the musical-inside-a-movie.

Franz Liebkind is a fictional Nazi who wrote that fictional musical to celebrate Hitler and the Nazi party. White supremacy is a big part of that political ideology. Franz Liebkind is definitely a bigoted asshat, and as he wrote it Springtime for Hitler is definitely a bigoted musical.

Max Bialystock, the fictional producer who decides to put Springtime for Hitler on stage, predicts that Springtime for Hitler will be a total flop because who could possibly enjoy a musical about how awesome Hitler is? So he uses it in his scheme to make money off a total flop. Max Bialystock is being something of an insensitive jerk; he is flippantly exploiting the celebration of a human tragedy for his own personal gain, though at least he is exploiting that celebration's failure instead of its success.

Mel Brooks, the very real writer and director of the very real film in which Springtime for Hitler appears, wholly understands that the very real audience who views his film will see Springtime for Hitler as the ridiculous and comical farce it is intended to look like. But nonetheless Mel Brooks' film depicts a scene which is, in the context of the film, simply inept Nazi propaganda. Your methodology spits out "Mel Brooks is a nazi, or at least being really insensitive about the whole thing." And that's insane.

Now, let's contrast that with Roger Debris, a character in the same film who is a homosexual stereotype. That is a genuinely problematic depiction, because sometimes the joke really is just "haha he's gay" and that's as far as it goes.

None of this is really all that complicated, but it does all require (to some extent) understanding what the fuck is going. Context is not optional.

[Prak]

There's a difference between "Springtime For Hitler" and Charlie Hebdo's depictions of ethnic and religious minorities. Springtime for Hitler is an in-work creation of a character who is obviously racist. The depictions of muslims and jews in Charlie Hebdo are not in-work creations.

To use your own example, the Charlie Hebdo cartoons are not "Springtime for Hitler," they're Roger Debris.

[Kaelik]

You realize that something can be racist without the person who produced it being full on skinhead nazi, right? Racism (and sexism and misogyny) are so ingrained in our culture and Western society in general that a lot of people express racist (et al) views, or make racist (et al) jokes, thinking them completely harmless.

Prak please stop being such an idiot.

Of course people can do or say racist things without being a nazi. But whether or not something is or isn't racist requires knowing the message being said.

So your position of "It's racist, fuck context and fuck message, if someone writes a cartoon that explicitly and directly calls someone else racist for saying something racist, it's racist if the cartoon repeats what they said"

is always fucking wrong, always and forever.

There's a difference between "Springtime For Hitler" and Charlie Hebdo's depictions of ethnic and religious minorities. Springtime for Hitler is an in-work creation of a character who is obviously racist. The depictions of muslims and jews in Charlie Hebdo are not in-work creations.

To use your own example, the Charlie Hebdo cartoons are not "Springtime for Hitler," they're Roger Debris.

Except that at least one of the images you posted was specifically and directly them restating what some other person who's a racist said, and then calling it racist.

And I know that, and you don't, because it's fucking context.

[DSMatticus]

There's a difference between "Springtime For Hitler" and Charlie Hebdo's depictions of ethnic and religious minorities. Springtime for Hitler is an in-work creation of a character who is obviously racist. The depictions of muslims and jews in Charlie Hebdo are not in-work creations.

Pathetic hair-splitting is fucking pathetic. Your argument is that Springtime for Hitler gets a pass because it is the in-work creation of a specific fictional character but Charlie Hebdo's art would not because it is instead the stand alone creation of an abstract racist? So you would be 100% okay with Charlie Hebdo's art if they created their own fictional racist mascot to whom they attributed their work? That would be a substantive enough difference to make you shut up? I don't think so.

To use your own example, the Charlie Hebdo cartoons are not "Springtime for Hitler," they're Roger Debris.

You don't get to claim that, because 1) you don't actually fucking know, and 2) your entire goddamn argument is that you don't have to know. You rejected the notion that context, meaning, or intent are factors, and as a result you have left yourself no ability to distinguish between racism and satires of racism (which are by definition inearnest depictions of racism that you are supposed to laugh at - both things you the viewer have to figure out on your own, i.e. context and meaning).