Speaking of deprogramming and creepy songs, just how creepy was Layla (written by Eric Clapton, who was in love with George Harrison’s wife, Patty Boyd) taken to be at the time. Because, after reading all that went down, that whole business seems insanely skeevy.
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A fairly recent contender:
A decade and a half ago, maybe it was excusable to think that accepting low levels of racism as just being part of basic human nature was okay. After all, it “doesn’t mean we go around committing hate crimes.” It’s harmless, right?
I think the past few years have shown that racism needs to be excised, root and stem, because if you let it simmer below the surface, you’re giving it the opportunity to burst forth again, full-strength.
And I’d disagree with the idea that even back in 2003, racism was as harmless as how Avenue Q tried to present it.
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I’ve gone the other way on this. Everyone has racist reactions and conditioning but we do have the choice whether to be bigoted about it.
Semantics, maybe, but systemic and structural racism is so much a part of the walls and floors that getting through the day is rougher without the nuance.
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That part of the song I don’t take issue with. If the song ended at “Everyone makes judgements based on race,” I wouldn’t have any problems with it.
But then it goes on to justify telling bigoted jokes, to complain about immigrants not learning English and then to make fun of their pronunciation when they do, to indulge in outright anti-Semitism, and then to finish off with the statement which prompted me to call the song out: “Everyone’s just about as racist as you,” which rings horribly false when white supremacists of all stripes are marching down U.S. streets with the (arguably) tacit support of the President and one of the two major U.S. political parties.
“Everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes and we need to work on that” is a message I can wholeheartedly support.
“Everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes and that’s just the way it is, so shrug and accept (and even enjoy) it” is not.
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Ah, 2003, when racism was some obscure concept found in history books.
We thought it was okay to joke about racism, because racism meant lynchings, and anyone who said it was something more insidious was the overly-sensitive PC police. Of course, scratch an anti-PC “civil libertarian” and you’ll find a rabid alt-righter underneath the surface.
Back then, everyone was more than just a little bit racist.
If the song were about how everyone’s a little bit racist because it’s baked into our society, and it’s up to us to fix that, then it would be a completely different song.
Yeah, some people are a lot more racist than me.
BTW, I’d say tacit support of one of the two main political parties, and implicit support of the other.
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I honestly didn’t think the song would be worth time, much less mine, so I didn’t really take time to enter that song into my little sentence party.
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*facepalm*
When the discussion is about a general topic, of course someone can’t be expected to familiarize themselves with every instance of it.
However, when the discussion revolves around a particular song or book or movie or event (etc.), it’s just common courtesy to familiarize yourself with the thing being discussed before joining in. Or, at the very least, disclaim that you’re unfamiliar with what is being discussed and are unwilling to spend the (let me check) four minutes (or less if you’d rather just Google and read the lyrics) required to put the discussion into its proper context, before inserting yourself in said discussion.
You want to pivot discussion of a particular song about racism into a wider discussion of racism in general? Great, go nuts. But when the discussion topic is “specific examples of problematic media,” you need to do so explicitly, and from the start, because otherwise, everyone is going to think that you’re referring to the media being discussed, because that’s what everyone else is taking about.
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The song seemed terrible enough without review.
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Not asking you to review the song.
Just asking you to make it clear, in advance, that you’re not discussing the song, so that your statements are placed in the appropriate context and not assumed to be referring to the song itself.
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I was certainly reacting to the terrible idea of the song.
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I pretty sure they updated that song. I saw it a couple of years ago. I wasn’t all that familiar with the original version, I remember them saying at some point that it was revised.
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I know they update “For Now” for pretty much every run, because “George Bush is only for now” isn’t as relevant in other places and times as it was in 2003 New York City.
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When I saw it, it was Donald Trump.
Not much of an update
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I don’t see it as a justification - I see it as more ironic by preaching tolerance through recognizing racism and then unwittingly saying something totally bigoted in the process.
I think overall the message of the song isn’t a bad one - that no matter how woke we may think we are, we all have prejudices. Recognize these, learn from the experiences of others (like the conversation about taxi drivers not speaking English and Gary Coleman interjecting with, “I can’t even get a taxi!” to show how much worse it can be for others), and try to do better.
But maybe that’s just an overly optimistic interpretation but taken as a whole, Avenue Q is mostly crude allegorical stories about love, tolerance, diversity, and friendship. While it may not have aged well in some ways I think it’s motives were positive.
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I’ve got a maybe-interesting-to-somebody case; my dad has a stack of dozens of novelty song 45s from when he was a kid in the 50s and 60s and when I was a kid I listened to them regularly. I loved everything Australia so one of my favorites was this:
I remember the yellow label clearly. My earliest attempt at digitizing something (which I do professionally in a library now, albeit not audio) was hanging a computer voice microphone on a long cable from the second-floor balcony where the computer was down to the living room where the record player was to record this song.
However, it features these lyrics:
Let me Abos go loose, Lou
Let me Abos go loose:
They’re of no further use, Lou
So let me Abos go loose.
I never knew what that part meant as a kid, and I more-or-less forgot about the song after a while. Then a few years back I took a deep dive into Australian movies. I loved the ones I had seen already, like Gallipoli and a few other Peter Weir films, the Mad Max films, and Breaker Morant. I watched all the rest of the classics, and some deep-dive ones as well (TCM had an Australian film festival and I watched all of the 15-20 or so films they played, but I found a bunch of others to watch too).
As an aside, there’s some problematic of-its-time stuff in Peter Weir films - as astonishing and still-enjoyable as her Oscar-winning performance is, the white actress Linda Hunt should not have been cast as a character who is an Asian man in The Year of Living Dangerously. I think the term “Abo” is used in some of his films (one, The Last Wave, is basically all about how Aboriginals are persecuted) but I didn’t make the connection to the song until I saw The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, the 1972 film by the director of Breaker Morant (who also directed Driving Miss Daisy, of all things).
I loved the movie - there’s so much incredible Australian slang in it that I hadn’t heard before (one of my favorites is “point percy at the porcelain” to refer to urinating). But the main character, who is certainly supposed to be a bit of a bozo (in American slang), uses the term “Abos” to refer to Aboriginals and/or other non-white people (the film is set in England) and something about the context of that film made me finally understand that it was meant to be an offensive racial slur. It’s not presented with a critical eye, it’s presented in the film as being normal and acceptable (sort of like the unfortunate racist humor in Good Morning Vietnam - could have worked as illustration of reality if it was presented in the film with a critical eye, but it’s presented exactly the same as the rest of the humor, legitimizing it).
It was while watching that film that I made the connection to the song, and realized with dread that one of my favorite childhood songs is really rather racist - more than low-level racist really, considering the whole verse.
Rolf Harris has apparently expressed regret about the verse, and has sanitized the song (he also removed the didgeridoo verse and the references to dying, the whole point of the song, for this children’s version):
He seems like a good guy (retracted upon receiving current information), and I’d believe the verse is an unfortunate product of the times. I still like the song. But, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and if we’re honest, there’s no way around that the guy’s racist. Just like most white people of the time, yes, and, well, of today’s time too, but… hmm. For some reason, this song pops up in my mind regularly ever since seeing Barry McKenzie and it’s always the offending verse that I think of.
Not sure how I never came across this before but he recorded a version with The Beatles, rewriting the verses to be about The Beatles:
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He’s probably got other things on his mind these days…
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Whoops, I guess I need to retract my “He seems like a good guy” line - I didn’t know!
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Ethnic jokes may be uncouth
But we laugh because they’re based on truth
Don’t take them as personal attacks
Everyone enjoys them, so relax.
If that’s not justification, it’s skirting right along the edge of it.
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Agreed. I mean I can totally laugh at a racially based joke but that kind of humor walks a very fine line - intent and context are critical. But that’s a lot of nuance to pack into a what’s meant to be a humorous song in a comedy musical.
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There’s no doubt it’s racist. At the time it was written snd still today (in the original version). It’s always been racist and derogatory to call Indigenous Australians that. Although it was somewhat more ‘acceptable’ back then. And that’s leaving aside the fact that he’s a total garbage person.
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