Saturday Night Live Titanic Sketch
just-a-guy
I have not seen any story about the sketch that was done on last week's
Saturday Night Live.
The sketch was about two black men who where in "FIFTH CLASS" and were not
going to be allowed on any lifeboat until EVERYTHING of value was off the
ship. Everything included 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, dogs, cats, luggage and
pieces of the ship.
I thought that the sketch was very racist (but the host was black, so it's
seems all right if black people make fun of themselves) and in very poor
taste.
Any thoughts anyone....?????
Scott Bell
Racist? I don't think so, unless Gone With the Wind was racist because it
showed blacks as servants during the Civil War.
I think it actually was a reflection of the artificial class distinctions
that existed at the time (taken to an extreme, obviously), and was a
statement regarding the horrible (and quite unfortunate) social station of
African-Americans at the time presented in the guise of a humorous sketch.
Relax.
Scott
noe...@earthlink.net
just-a-guy wrote in message
<6aecd4$341o$1...@newssvr04-int.news.prodigy.com>...
Mr. Majestyk
In article <6aecd4$341o$1...@newssvr04-int.news.prodigy.com>, "just-a-guy"
<STG...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>I have not seen any story about the sketch that was done on last week's
>Saturday Night Live.
>
>The sketch was about two black men who where in "FIFTH CLASS" and were not
>going to be allowed on any lifeboat until EVERYTHING of value was off the
>ship. Everything included 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, dogs, cats, luggage and
>pieces of the ship.
>
>I thought that the sketch was very racist (but the host was black, so it's
>seems all right if black people make fun of themselves) and in very poor
>taste.
>
>Any thoughts anyone....?????
Well, I thought it was clearly a humorous comment *on* racism, but I
didn't see it as racist in itself. I also think it was a subtle jab at
the fact, which I haven't seen discussed here, that there aren't any
people of color at all on the ship. Which of course has nothing to do
with James Cameron -- if no blacks were onboard the real Titanic (does
anyone know for sure?), it would be crazy to put a black person there
simply out of political correctness -- but it's interesting to note that
blacks simply had *no* place on the ship -- they didn't even rate third
class.
________________________________
Mr. Majestyk
Bill
On Sun, 25 Jan 1998 05:29:52 -0800, ch...@bronson.com (Mr. Majestyk)
wrote:
>
>Well, I thought it was clearly a humorous comment *on* racism, but I
>didn't see it as racist in itself. I also think it was a subtle jab at
>the fact, which I haven't seen discussed here, that there aren't any
>people of color at all on the ship. Which of course has nothing to do
>with James Cameron -- if no blacks were onboard the real Titanic (does
>anyone know for sure?), it would be crazy to put a black person there
>simply out of political correctness -- but it's interesting to note that
>blacks simply had *no* place on the ship -- they didn't even rate third
>class.
>
>________________________________
>Mr. Majestyk
Mr. Cameron, obviously decided to be "Historically Correct", as
opposed to "Politically Correct".
-Bill in Dallas
Remove "remove*" when E-Mailing <remove*bil...@flash.net>
Chris Pondy
Blacks are not the only ethnic origin (or people of color) besides white, there
are many other groupings of people. Cameron did show others onboard. Fabrizio
was Italian, there was an Oriental as the leo and fab were running down the
hall as they boarded the ship and there was what appeared to be a middle
eastern type family looking at the sign trying to deciphere what it said as
they were trying to make there way to lifeboats from bellow deck. Don't get me
wrong here, but just because blacks were not portrayed in Titanic, doesn't mean
Cameron showed no people of ethnic origin, or people of color, in the movie.
And where does your comment about blacks having no place on the ship come
from?? Just curious, but I can't imagine this was true. It seems what you are
saying is that classes were seperated according to race, but if I'm not
mistaken, it was according to wealth.
Chris Pondy
Mr. Majestyk wrote:
> In article <6aecd4$341o$1...@newssvr04-int.news.prodigy.com>, "just-a-guy"
> <STG...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>
> >I have not seen any story about the sketch that was done on last week's
> >Saturday Night Live.
> >
> >The sketch was about two black men who where in "FIFTH CLASS" and were not
> >going to be allowed on any lifeboat until EVERYTHING of value was off the
> >ship. Everything included 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, dogs, cats, luggage and
> >pieces of the ship.
> >
> >I thought that the sketch was very racist (but the host was black, so it's
> >seems all right if black people make fun of themselves) and in very poor
> >taste.
> >
> >Any thoughts anyone....?????
>
K Walker
>I think it actually was a reflection of the artificial class distinctions
>that existed at the time (taken to an extreme, obviously), and was a
>statement regarding the horrible (and quite unfortunate) social station of
>African-Americans at the time presented in the guise of a humorous sketch.
I hardly think that any sketch on SNL was that profound. They were
just trying to get a laugh.
Dark Penguin
In article <34CB63C0...@primenet.com>, Chris Pondy
<cmp...@primenet.com> wrote:
>Blacks are not the only ethnic origin (or people of color) besides white, there
>are many other groupings of people. Cameron did show others onboard. Fabrizio
>was Italian, there was an Oriental as the leo and fab were running down the
>hall as they boarded the ship and there was what appeared to be a middle
>eastern type family looking at the sign trying to deciphere what it said as
>they were trying to make there way to lifeboats from bellow deck. Don't get me
>wrong here, but just because blacks were not portrayed in Titanic, doesn't mean
>Cameron showed no people of ethnic origin, or people of color, in the movie.
(This is "Mr. Majestyk," the author of the post you're responding to...I
was using that handle as a joke on another newsgroup and didn't bother
changing it back.)
First of all, I apologize for a hastily worded post. If I may clarify, I
didn't mean to suggest that blacks are the only "people of color," as my
post suggests. I had originally meant to cast my net wider, but switched
gears and forgot to change what I'd already written.
As far as "people of color" being onboard Titanic, in my post I was, in
part, asking for some confirmation as to what nationalities were indeed
represented, because I couldn't remember. I didn't see the Asian, and you
reminded me of the others, so thanks. Mainly what I wanted to comment on,
in response to the original post about the SNL skit, was the absence of
blacks on the ship. I was wondering if indeed there weren't any there --
I didn't see anybody of that extraction in the film.
I also want to make it doubly clear that this has nothing to do with James
Cameron. I don't want to suggest that Cameron deliberately excluded or
included any group of people on the basis of race...I believe his primary
aim was accuracy. I'm not bothered by the representation or
nonrepresentation of any ethnicity in the film.
Sorry to lay on the disclaimers and clarifications, but this is the kind
of subject where it's easy for the discussion to devolve into irrelevant
race debates, which I don't want to get into! I wasn't very clear in my
previous post, so I want to compensate for that here.
>And where does your comment about blacks having no place on the ship come
>from?? Just curious, but I can't imagine this was true. It seems what you are
>saying is that classes were seperated according to race, but if I'm not
>mistaken, it was according to wealth.
You're right, but what I wanted to point out was that there was plenty of
discrimination and bigotry going on in those upper classes, and it wasn't
by any means confined to one's monetary status. The UK still has problems
with English discriminating against Irish -- and even in the US, there's
some residual bigotry. But whatever. The fact is that, no matter how the
English felt about the Irish, or how whites felt about Asians or Middle
Easterners, etc., blacks were pretty much on the bottom of the ladder, not
only economically but also in terms of how they were viewed by other
races. A lot of people didn't even consider blacks to be human.
I'm not saying that blacks were deliberately barred from Titanic -- like I
said, I don't know the historical realities of this part of the story --
but considering the low regard in which they were held, I don't think the
SNL skit was too much of an exaggeration. If there were any blacks on
board, you can be sure that they would be given the lowest priority. It's
a sad and disgusting aspect of the society of that era.
________________________________
Bryan Byun gor...@aol.com
---------------------------------------
http://www.linkline.com/personal/bbyun
Jackie McElroy
Dark Penguin <gor...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> Mainly what I wanted to comment on,
> in response to the original post about the SNL skit, was the absence of
> blacks on the ship. I was wondering if indeed there weren't any there --
> I didn't see anybody of that extraction in the film.
According to what I've been able to read on-line, there was one black
on the ship. Joseph Laroche was born in Haiti. In France to study
engineering, he met and married a widow named Juliette Lafargue;
The woman was white, so far as I know.
They had two daughters, both of whom were also onboard the Titanic.
Mr. Laroche was returning to Haiti to seek employment and was taking
his family with him. His mother in Haiti bought them tickets on
another ship but that ship line did not permit children. Hence, they
ended up on the Titanic, which did allow children.
The youngest daughter, who was one year old (if I recall correctly) in
1912, is still alive and lives in France somewhere. Mr. Laroche died
when the Titanic sank; Mrs. Laroche and the two children survived.
Mr. laroche was the only black person onboard the Titanic so far as
I've been able to ascertain. His two daughters were biracial. Under
the laws in most of the states of the United States at the time, that
would have made them black (one-drop rule and all that).
They were in second class. We never saw or even heard much of the
second class passengers; hence, no sighting or mention of Titanic's
one black passenger and his interracial family.
-jackie
Jackie McElroy, B.A., E.M.D.
mcja...@usa.pipeline.com
Venice Florida USA
Fire-Rescue Dispatcher
Sarasota County 9-1-1
(I speak for me,
not my boss)
Carolyn Marie
And the Net came alive with a thousand voices fighting to be heard, and one of
them named Dark Penguin connected to me:
> Mainly what I wanted to comment on,
> in response to the original post about the SNL skit, was the absence of
> blacks on the ship. I was wondering if indeed there weren't any there --
> I didn't see anybody of that extraction in the film.
>
That because Cameron couldn't be bothered to depict the Second Class! I'm
afraid they didn't fit into his heavy-handed social commentary <g>...
Joseph LaRoche of Haiti is, as far as recent scholarship shows, the only black
person aboard the Titanic. He died, but his French wife (white) and two
daughters lived.
However, Cameron was right that there were what we now call many 'people of
color' aboard, including a great many Middle Easterners, Indians, and Asians.
One of them, Second Class' Masubumi Hosono, has recently received a lot of
attention because a letter of his was just translated from the Japanese,
recounting how he survived (he was ordered in to help row; he never would have
left of his own accord, he wrote, proving that 'women and children first' was
not an exclusively Western idea). Another, Ching Foo, participated in the New
York-based lawsuit of the Third Class passengers against the WSL.
Things were never as simple as folks think; the Third class wasn't a faceless
oppressed mass and yes, despite what Cameron depicts, there was a Second Class.
Carolyn
the ship
Rick Kaumeier
Carolyn Marie wrote:
> That because Cameron couldn't be bothered to depict the Second Class! I'm
> afraid they didn't fit into his heavy-handed social commentary <g>...
Carolyn,
Are Second Class passengers depicted in the current Titanic musical?
How significant are their parts, if any?
Rick
Carolyn Marie
And the Net came alive with a thousand voices fighting to be heard, and
> Are Second Class passengers depicted in the current Titanic musical?
> How significant are their parts, if any?
>
Yes, they are, in loving detail. Although Peter Stone's book changes
the fate of a few of the lesser-known folks, all of the people in the
musical really existed. Sorry, no nudity.
The musical has three triumvirates to help people into the story:
-Captain Smith, Thomas Andrews, J. Bruce Ismay, captain, designer,
owner;
-Fireman Fred Barrett, Wireless Operator Harold Bride, Lookout
Frederick Fleet, crewmen;
-Kate McGowan, Kate Murphey, Kate Mullins, Irish steerage immigrants.
And several romantic links, the most important being Kate McGowan and
Jim Farrell of the Third Class, Fred Barrett and his girlfriend back
home, to whom he proposes using the Wireless; Ida and Isidor Straus in
the First (they have a poignant song, 'Still', as they prepare to die
together), and two couples in the Second Class.
Unusual among 'Titanic' adaptations for its treatment of Second Class,
the musical has Americans Edgar and Alice (IRL Ethel) Beane as major
characters, getting more lines than most First Class-ers. Edgar is an
amiable, solid Midwestern hardware store owner who is happy with his
lot and regards with loving bemusement his ambitious wife (played by
the bubbly Broadway star Victoria Clark), who does such things as
gossip in a wonderful patter song about the First-class passengers as
they come aboard, thereby introducing them to us as well, and crashing
the First-class dancing on the Boat Deck. She aspires to First class
and represents the ambitious bourgeois. Caroline Neville and Charles
Clarke (both real people but not romantically involved IRL) are an
unmarried couple, her from a rich family and he a struggling English
journalist, who are leaving Britain and her family, who would not allow
them to marry. They plan to marry in NYC and make their own way in
life; Charles represents the more typical Second-Class passenger, the
professionals who weren't rich but were doing OK, like real-life
schoolteacher Lawrence Beesley (the author of one of the best survivor
accounts). This is done very efficiently and Stone manages to make the
social commentary very subtly but firmly; the cross-class romance is
much more convincing than the movies' IMO. There are a million other
little subtleties, such as the fact that the costume designer had three
different fashion houses work on the three class' costumes; Second
Class all dress in blue, usually. One of the more poignant scenes is
when Alice is separated from her husband as the women go to the
lifeboats, and she cries out to him that she now knows that all her
nagging about his lack of ambition didn't really matter. THAT made me
cry; anyone who thinks people who didn't cry at the movie have hearts
of stone should have sat next to me the five times I saw the musical!
Here's a taste: the last song as the lifeboats depart is called "We'll
Meet Tomorrow":
We'll meet tomorrow, we will find a path
And reach tomorrow, past this day of wrath
We'll be together once again,
Cling to your hopes and prayers till then!
I'll hold thee closely as I say goodbye
And keep your image in my memory's eye
And all this love of ours will soar
Come dawn or danger, we'll meet tomorrow,
And have each other evermore!
If tomorrow is not in store,
Let this embracing replace Forever,
Keep us together evermore!
And that's only half of it!
Please go to www.buybroadway.com to find out more about the musical,
and perhaps you will understand why so many people who saw it, with its
simple sets and all, were so disappointed by the movie. To each her
own, I guess. But please go and see what could have been.
Carolyn
Matthew and Maura
As for black passengers this is what I've found. From the web page: RMS
Titanic: Her Passengers and Crew at
http://www.rmplc.co.uk/eduweb/sites/phind
"Joseph LaRoche
Joseph Laroche was born in Haiti on May 26, 1886. In 1901, at age 15, he
left Haiti and travelled to Beauvais, France, where he hoped to join the
high school to study engineering.
While visiting nearby Villejuif Joseph met Miss Juliette Lafargue;
Juliette was born on October 20, 1889 and was the daughter of widower
Monsieur Lafargue, a wine seller of Villejuif, France. After Joseph
graduated and got his degree, he and Juliette were married in March of
1908. Their daughter Simonne was born Feb. 19, 1909; a second daughter,
Louise, was born prematurely on July 2, 1910, and suffered many
subsequent medical problems.
Racial descrimination prevented Joseph Laroche from obtaining a
high-paying job in France. Since the family needed more money to cope
with Louise's medical bills, Joseph decided to return to Haiti to find a
better-paying engineering job, the move being planned for 1913.
In March 1912, however, Juliette discovered that she was pregnant, so
she and Joseph decided to leave for Haiti before her pregnancy became
too far advanced for travel. Joseph's mother in Haiti bought them
steamship tickets on the La France as a welcome present, but the line's
strict policy regarding children caused them to transfer their booking
to the Titanic's second class. On April 10 the Laroche family took the
train from Paris to Cherbourg in order to board the brand
new liner later that evening.
Joseph - who is thought to have been the only black passenger on the
Titanic - died in the sinking but his family were saved, and Louise is
still alive."
I found this fascinating.
Maura
--
Matthew and Maura Greig mag...@SPAMpacbell.net
Remove SPAM before replying
Rick Kaumeier
Carolyn Marie wrote:
>
> And the Net came alive with a thousand voices fighting to be heard, and
> one of them named Rick Kaumeier connected to me:
>
> > Are Second Class passengers depicted in the current Titanic musical?
> > How significant are their parts, if any?
> >
>
> Yes, they are, in loving detail. Although Peter Stone's book changes
> the fate of a few of the lesser-known folks, all of the people in the
> musical really existed. Sorry, no nudity.
Thanks for taking the time to respond in such great detail. I doubt if
I'll have a chance to catch the musical on Broadway anytime soon, but
now I'll surely buy the CD.
Best,
Rick
SierraMist
Oh please. The musical was a joke! Although it was somewhat accurate, the
lyrics were nearly comical. I found it rather disheartening to see the Titanic
portrayed as so. The movie is definitely a better portrayal...not because of
the FX, but what it makes you FEEL. As for the Second Class not being
mentioned, what exactly was the point? Everyone knows there was one, and how
would it have made a difference? That's like saying..."yes, Jack Thayer was on
the Titanic, but Cameron didn't put him in <scowl>"