What exactly is wrong with using stereotypes for humorous purposes? We still do them today. Isn't the point of comedy is that nothing is off-limits? Warner Brothers were never suppose to be strictly kids material. How exactly is an Indian casino owner in the Simpsons deemed as comedy while Injun Joe in a Porky Pig short deemed offensive?
Slavoj Žižek says that by recognizing stereotypes, and making jokes about them, we can destroy the invisible "walls" put up by society via these stereotypes. He uses an example of how some black guys asked him to sign their book, and he made a joke about how he can't tell black people apart, and they laughed and called Zizek their nigga. He does something similar with a deaf lady at one of his speeches too. He also warns that when totalitarianism rises, the first thing that goes away is racist jokes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dNbWGaaxWM
>>83697755
A character can be stereotypical without being a caricature.
Racial caricatures are dehumanizing, with their appearances exaggerated to freakish levels.
Every character is stereotypical or cliché to a degree, but it becomes a problem when the audience is asked to treat characters of different races as less than human.
>>83697755
>What exactly is wrong with using stereotypes for humorous purposes?
Nothing. There's always a context and an intent where they could be completely offensive and probably even blatantly racist, but that doesn't make it wrong. Just bad for business.
>We still do them today.
Acceptable targets, which change all the fucking time. Nobody cares about stereotypes regarding First World nations (US, Europe, sometimes Russia, pic related) today, but who the fuck knows how that'll look in 20 or 30 years? The old stereotypes we find "offensive" today were acceptable targets at the time.
>Isn't the point of comedy is that nothing is off-limits?
Yes.
>Warner Brothers were never suppose to be strictly kids material.
The shorts you're referring to used to play in front newsreels and such. They were always intended for a wide audience. So, correct.
>How exactly is an Indian casino owner in the Simpsons deemed as comedy while Injun Joe in a Porky Pig short deemed offensive?
People want to read way too much into shit they want to find faults with, and not enough into things they enjoy. They'll give unconscious passes to things they like. That's just basic human natures. Everyone ignores the flaws in the stuff they like.
>>83697755
>What exactly is wrong with using stereotypes for humorous purposes?
The problem comes when you rely on hurtful stereotypes to mock those you deem "lesser than you" rather than when you use them on occasion to make a point about either the stereotype or the underlying assumption behind the stereotype.
The first approach gets you shit like Family Guy.
>>83698927
>Racial caricatures are dehumanizing, with their appearances exaggerated to freakish levels.
Like the shitty teeth hick redneck. This is allowed but people bitch about the crows in Dumbo. Strange world.
>>83699348
Acceptable targets.
>>83699249
I don't think anyone on Family Guy thinks they're better than anyone else, I think they're just going for shock and offensive humor for cheap laughs because they're run the show into a rut and even the writers are tired of it. That's all their audience wants now-a-days anyway. Edgy offensive humor. They're basically the cartoon version of the Jackass guys.
>>83699348
Nah, everything related to Cars is an abomination.
>>83697967
Žižek is based as fuck
>>83699540
>I think they're just going for shock and offensive humor for cheap laughs
And that's the other big problem with relying on stereotype-based humor: edginess for the sake of it.
>>83697755
This always reminds me from when I learned WB stopped broadcasting Speedy because they saw him as an offensive cartoon of Mexicans, but the only thing they accomplished was a bunch on Mexicans being mad as fuck because they loved Speedy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC-0gQHrKjs
>>83699348
Cars in general is fucking retarded though. Like it's legit the worst successful Disney franchise.
>>83700616
Cars makes a billion dollars in merch alone. It made so many they made a franchise out of it, that's the only reason why it got a sequel and a spin-off, Planes, which ALSO got its own sequel.
>>83700679
I worded that wrong. What I meant was it was the worst disney movie that is successful as in it is a piece of shit that is really successful
