There are some quotes that are great because they are
all-purpose. They can be trotted out
under almost any circumstances and found to be applicable. Jerry Brown once supposedly said, “What we
need is a flexible plan for an ever-changing world.” That applies to everything from the
coronavirus to the upcoming NBA playoffs.
FDR famously said, “All we have to fear is fear itself.” This is not as all-purpose as some people think
it is. Tom Brady recently said this in
response to a question about practicing while COVID-19 cases were spiking; Tom
Brady may have six Super Bowl rings, millions of dollars, and a supermodel
wife, but if he thinks people shouldn’t be afraid of the coronavirus he is an
idiot.
Another all-purpose quote comes from the season 1 opening
credits of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, when the lead character insists, “The situation
is a lot more nuanced than that.” Things
are rarely as black and white (pardon the expression) as people proclaim. People often look for an easy solution to
problems for which there is no easy answer.
To fall back on another all-purpose quote, as H. L. Mencken said, “For
every complicated problem there is an answer that is simple, easy, and wrong.”
Let’s take the example of shows like 30 Rock pulling
episodes because of the use of blackface. The idea that a Caucasian actor
or singer can put on makeup that makes them look like an African American so they
can impersonate an African-American is, well, inappropriate.
The most recent show to have an episode pulled for use of
blackface is
the Community episode Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The problem with this episode is that a
regular character who is Asian, participating in the role-playing game Dungeons
and Dragons, made himself up as a dark elf, which included dark facial and body
make-up. If he had chosen to be a
regular elf and just put on some pointy ears, I guess it would have been okay,
but clearly people were offended by an Asian actor playing a dark elf.
Do you see the problem here?
We’re talking about ELVES! People
are offended by an Asian actor playing an elf.
He could have been a green elf or a blue elf (Smurf?), but because the
script chose “dark elf” (which I understand is a thing in fantasy games and are
known as drows) he’s suddenly impersonating an African-American (an African-American
elf?). Should they have hired an African
American actor? No, this was a regular
character played by an Asian actor.
Could they have chosen not to make him dark? I guess no one complains about Orlando Bloom
playing an elf, so maybe, although the character of Chang is sort of evil and
would opt to play a dark elf (which, again, I understand to be a real thing in
fantasy games). Since Chang was playing
a dark elf, he was not engaged in “blackface.”
So far, I have heard no word on whether the Man Men episode
where Roger Sterling sang a song wearing actual blackface will be pulled. There was a previous instance where the BBC
pulled an episode of Fawlty Towers because a character made stupid racist
statements; as John Cleese pointed out, the character was, in fact, a stupid
racist and
the episode has been restored.
Society has seen a major, almost unprecedented shift in
perspective since the George Floyd death, and we are now entering the French
Revolution stage where the easy targets have all been attacked and people are
looking for more aristocrats to behead. This
month some BLM protesters in Boston vandalized
a memorial to an all-Black regiment that fought in the Civil War (had none
of these people seen the Denzel Washington film Glory?).
This country has a sordid history on race, and a long way to
go before we arrive at a harmonious society.
But in our haste to be virtuous, let’s not throw the dark elves out with
the bath water. The situation is a lot
more nuanced than that.
