Samuel Clemens Turning Over In His Grave!!!

I remember having this argument in English class as a class about whether it would be right to replace the N-word with something else (liek Negro) shortly before we read it in junior year, which was nearly nine years ago...so I'm sure TPTB have been trying to get that trough for a good long while now.

This fucking country.

My favourite episode is when Mike and a black friend are up for the same teaching gig. After Mike loses out to his friend, he's okay with it as it shows affirmative action gave the other guy the "edge" to get the job and he congratulates him.

His buddy replies "Mike, do you think it may just have been that they thought I was the better applicant?".

Archie was a product of his generation, but was able to respect people for who they were as individuals. Mike, OTOH, had an overwhelming sense of superiority to everyone around him...

Such people need to be immediately deported to a country more suited to their mindset... Canada, or any of the EU nations.

Umm, Bear? You guys are WAY more censored when it comes to literature and music.

Not to mention Shakespeare.

Clemens may have to hunt Thomas Bowdler down and drive a stake through his heart.

The interesting thing about any form of literary censorship is that it often increases the demand for "underground" versions of the unexpurgated work.

After Clemens re-kills Bowdler, he and D.H. Lawrence will no doubt meet for drinks.

HAN SHOT FIRST!
HAN!
SHOT!
FIRST!


And it isn't "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark", it is "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

I'm gonna guess somewhere before 1955... don't remember Mum ever singing it as anything but Indians, and she had to learn it from somewhere.

Okay, quick aside, but what is the DEAL with Han shooting first? I liked Star WArs as a kid, but whether Greedo or Han shot first makes fuck all difference to me, and I've yet to understand why I should care (unless it was one of the edits Lucas made to the re-released version of SW).

Character defining moment.
The key was that Greedo was willing to rip off Jabba for the money Han was about to earn to pay of his debt. Greedo had no motive to kill Han other than the latter's refusal to be robbed.
Not only did he shoot first, he was entirely justified in doing so.

Just like Rob Reiner.

And didn't Lucas justify the re-edit by saying some shit like, "Heroes don't do things like that,"?

Created by Norman Lear, one of the most hardcore liberals Hollywood ever produced.

The show was a ripoff of a British sitcom, Until Death Do Us Part, and was broad-brush satire. Archie's made to look like a fool again and again. The only way to make it more obvious would be to stick a sign on his back.

What's disturbing is the percentage of the viewing public that never got the fact that it was satire. Probably about the same percentage as those who mistake The Colbert Report for a right-slanted news site.



I can understand your mother's not wanting you to hear racist slurs when you were little, though, but not when you got older.

Guess science book will have to be rewritten to remove the term blackhole because some idiots think it can be used as a racist term.


I'm still trying to figure out what the endgame is for the Liberals pushing this are they trying to whitewash history to pretend that the word Nigger didn't exist ?..is so how dose this fit with wanting to present Blacks as always the victim..if you remove the number one example of how Blacks were treated by Racists aren't you removing a big part of that history?

In case you're wondering WTF I'm talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None

As far as I can tell,l the "N word" had a lot less stigma in England until a lot later--witness the dog mascot for the British bomber from WWII. I seem to recall thelurker saying something about how the book had its 1939 title for some time in England.

That said, no one is screaming that "Nigger Island" became "Indian Island" became "Soldier Island."

It wasn't just the slurs. Even now, she thinks the show was glorifying bigotry just because the central charcater didn't say nice things, and suspects the actor himself was a racist to put up with the role for as long as he did. The fact that this show adressed issued that were never touched upon like abortion, rape, cancer, women's equality was something I only discovered when I watched the show. She'd have a shit fit if she knew I actually enjoyed this show (or for that matter, about many of the views I have here).

Carroll O'Connor was also liberal. I'll never understand why people don't get that the actor is *acting*. Do they also believe Susan Lucci is a slut and a murderer?

See, now you're sounding like Mike... the poor dumb proles just don't get it. Bullshit. One can't look at Archie (or Alf) without seeing his folly. Mike, however, displays much more insidious prejudice with regularity.

Off the top of my head, he was willing to defraud the phone company, tell his wife to give up her career aspirations, often pulled rank in the marriage by virtue of his penis (and/or that Gloria was his intellectual inferior), and anytime he wasn't earning was still willing to live off of Archie and Edith's generousity. Then what happened? He dumped Gloria for putting on pregnancy poundage after dragging her across the country... The guy exemplifies the hypocrisy of his self serving generation.


Then again, I don't think anyone who's brain can power their heart and lungs would mistake Colbert for anything but satire. Frequently more blatant than what AitF presented.

Sulu was still gay.

I'm going to guess that there wasn't a Canadian edition before the title changed.

Mum was a huge Christie fan though, and I do remember the "Indians" version of the title on the shelves.

Of course. All of that's in there, and it's just as blatant as Archie's bigotry, but the secondary characters are not what people think of immediately.

But sitcoms are aimed at the lowest common denominator, and you can't tell me that for every viewer laughing at Archie there weren't at least as many thinking "This guy thinks like I do...only if it was me, I'd throw that bum of a son-in-law out on his fat ass."

Okay, I know statistics can be made to say whatever you want them to say, but there's this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/27/colbert-study-conservativ_n_191899.html



Colbert and The Daily Show are made up slickly enough to mimic the stuff on Fox, blurring the infotainment lines ever further.

I think your numbers are way off. Archie rarely failed to learn from his wrong mindedness and probably changed more attitudes than he reinforced. No argument though that most people were wondering why he put up with that baby boomer bum so long as he did. (Or why he never knocked him out for being such a prick to G).
Besides, he was hardly a secondary character... More often than not, he was used to illustrate their divide. The uniqueness was that his path was shown to be as flawed as Archie's. If not more so.

as for the link, it really shows nothing other than Colbert's brand of humour has enough truth in it to be amusing to both sides of the monochromatic scale that is US politics. Kinda like Archie and Mike, he shows that the new guard is no better than the old guard. Reminds me of Michener with "the Drifters"...

Who is it, exactly, who believes that Colbert is anything but satire?

Conceded, in both cases. No way of gathering hard data, anyway. And sending up both sides makes for stronger satire. If Archie had been the only target, the joke would have fallen flat.

"Exactly"? You're asking for an anecdotal example?

NO!!!!! This always infuriates Batboy. Han did NOT shoot first. Han shot. Period. Greedo DID NOT SHOOT! Han gunned the little blue fuck down in cold blood, and was perfectly justified in doing so. Changing that, even to imply that Greedo was ready and able to shoot at all cheapens the whole scene.

You must have some knowledge of a person or people who believe that Colbert is something other than satire, else you wouldn't have made the claim upthread. It would be interesting to know who that person or those people might be. A link to a statement supporting that, perhaps? A YouTube rant? A blog? Anything?

umm, she did link the Huffington post which provides an opinion based on not stats, but what appears to be "Mass Observation".

I saw that. What would be interesting is to see or hear actual people who believe that to be true.

Not to confuse it with the idea that, as humorous infotainment, you're able to pick up bits and pieces of reliable information amongst the satire...but people who believe that they're getting the real deal.

It's a little hard to swallow, having watched Colbert, that anyone believes it's for real.

Suddenly you consider these legitimate sources?

...