Nuance

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.