OT: Amos and Andy
Dave in Toronto
George Kirby. You get to see some of the Amos and Andy TV shows from
the fifties.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLcyymCmXRg
Dave in Toronto
tomcervo
I remembered them from childhood, and read the reasoned descriptions
of Tim Moore's Kingfish as an American Falstaff, but I couldn't watch
an ep more than five minutes. It's a disgrace.
Derek Janssen
> Entertaining and good-natured look at racial stereotyping - hosted by
> George Kirby.
He also comes to the defense that the show was FUNNY, and beyond the
obvious complaint, harmless enough that modern audiences who defy the
"ban" and watch it anyway basically find a benign blackwashed version of
the Honeymooners, with more calamitous slapstick setups.
(Also points out that every *other* intelligent working character in the
episodes was also portrayed as black, Amos was a sensible employed
family man, and it was only Andy, the Kingfish, and their friends who
comically weren't the sharpest tools in the shed.)
Most of the complaints came from the 60's, when the show had been
floating around reruns for ten years, which made it an easy pop-culture
target for those with social chips on their shoulders--
More likely, though, Tim Moore and Spencer Williams were road-company TV
replacements for Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll's white radio voices,
and yes, maybe Moore *did* overdo his Charles Correll imitation a tad:
Try to think of a corny stock-generic Offensively Dated Black-Stereotype
voice, and if you find yourself doing "Ohh, holy mackerel, deahh",
you're doing Tim Moore's Kingfish...The character wasn't offensive,
Moore was just trying to capture someone else's character shtick radio
fans had been listening to since the 40's, and in all other duties, he
still did a hilarious job of it. :)
Like Hattie McDaniel and Eddie Anderson, when *one* figure becomes
"symbolic" of everyone else's complaints, one may suspect a bit of
railroading going on.
> You get to see some of the Amos and Andy TV shows from
> the fifties.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLcyymCmXRg
They're also on various and sundry public-domain-weasel DVD releases:
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Amos_n_Andy_Show/70090235,
although, like most 50's TV upgrades of old radio, the TV version was a
bit dumbed-down for visual gags, and not as cleverly set up as the radio
version.
(http://www.bored.com/radiolovers/pages/amosandy.htm after 1943)
Kirby is also correct in picking "Kingfish Sells a Lot" as an episode to
hold its own against Ralph & Ed's Chef of the Future, or Lucy on the
candy line: :)
Derek Janssen
eja...@verizon.net
Blue
I watched it also, thought it was funny as hell, hell yes racism is
there, just like it's in so many dumbass white sitcoms, of course, you
ain't seen them, get real. Whatever! Blue
Derek Janssen
> On Jun 20, 10:47 pm, tomcervo <tomce...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>On Jun 20, 10:09 pm, Dave in Toronto <dmatthew...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Entertaining and good-natured look at racial stereotyping - hosted by
>>>George Kirby. You get to see some of the Amos and Andy TV shows from
>>>the fifties.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLcyymCmXRg
>>
>>of Tim Moore's Kingfish as an American Falstaff, but I couldn't watch
>>an ep more than five minutes. It's a disgrace.
I came into the TV show just as an offshoot of listening to the radio
show on OTR tapes--
Where, without the visual cue, I somehow never got around to thinking of
the Southern-dialected characters as black, but as characters out of a
Pogo comic strip.
(With Andy being Albert, Kingfish as Owl, and Calhoun arguably a worthy
Churchy.) :)
Such thinking clearly paved the way for Gosden & Correll to try and turn
the series into the old 60's "Calvin & the Colonel" cartoon, but I have
yet track that down on Youtube.
> I watched it also, thought it was funny as hell, hell yes racism is
> there, just like it's in so many dumbass white sitcoms, of course, you
> ain't seen them, get real. Whatever! Blue
Seeing less funny contemporary variations of the characters turn up on
UPN, I submit that any hammy episode of "Martin", "The Jeffersons" or
"What's Happening" is easily more "unwatchable" and "racially offensive"
by today's standards--
I challenge you to watch Kingfish arguing with his mother-in-law and not
think "Fred Sanford and Aunt Esther". :)
Derek Janssen (Madam Queen was the Jackee' of her day)
eja...@verizon.net
Jim Beaver
"tomcervo" <tomc...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:4398631b-10c0-42e7...@h26g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
On Jun 20, 10:09?pm, Dave in Toronto <dmatthew...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Entertaining and good-natured look at racial stereotyping - hosted by
I remembered them from childhood, and read the reasoned descriptions
of Tim Moore's Kingfish as an American Falstaff, but I couldn't watch
an ep more than five minutes. It's a disgrace.
----------
RESPONSE:
I just watched the Kingfish Sells a Lot episode. I saw smart characters and
stupid characters and in-between characters, and I laughed my ass off. The
only difference I noticed between this and a great number of modern sitcoms
is that I laughed more often at this one. I saw not one racial mention or
any single item that made either an overt or subvert comment of any kind
upon the race of the characters. The similarities between this and a
Honeymooners episode are manifold, except that I don't recall Norton ever
buying a piece of property by selling his stock holdings. Not exactly a
put-down of the black race, that, methinks.
Jim Beaver
Bob F.
"tomcervo" <tomc...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:4398631b-10c0-42e7...@h26g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
>Tim Moore's Kingfish as an American Falstaff, but I couldn't watch an
>ep more than five minutes. It's a disgrace.
My, aren't we so PC and self-righteous!
A&A presents blacks as professionals and business owners as well
buffoons.
The average sitcom featuring white people does exactly the same thing.
A&A was funny as hell. Get off your high horse!
S D
scenic prop front. Andy opens the front door walks through and is
immediately behind the "house" . Lightin' walks to the side of the four
inch thick "building" and remarks " This sure is a thin house Mr. Andy "
Andy as the Punjab of Javapour 'cause it was his duty to pour the
coffee in one of his many short-lived jobs. Pissed off Andy to Kingfish
: I'm gonna close everything that's open and open everything that's
closed. Warm and very funny show, even present day Black comics like it.
calvin
> of Tim Moore's Kingfish as an American Falstaff, but I couldn't watch
> an ep more than five minutes. It's a disgrace.
Only to a self-righteous liberal, too invested in being
holier than thou to enjoy entertainment from another
era that had not yet installed mass thought control.
Bob F.
"S D" <for...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:13504-4A3...@storefull-3252.bay.webtv.net...
Lightnin' answers the phone at the Mystic Knights Of The Sea Lodge and
Lightnin': It's for you, Mr. Kingfish.
Kingfish: Well tell 'em I ain't here.
Lightnin' (on phone): Mr. Kingfish says he ain't here.
A&A was a hysterically funny show.
It's a shame it has gotten such a bad rap from overly sensitive
politically-correct assholes.
Derek Janssen
>
> I just watched the Kingfish Sells a Lot episode. I saw smart characters and
> stupid characters and in-between characters, and I laughed my ass off. The
> only difference I noticed between this and a great number of modern sitcoms
> is that I laughed more often at this one. I saw not one racial mention or
> any single item that made either an overt or subvert comment of any kind
> upon the race of the characters. The similarities between this and a
> Honeymooners episode are manifold, except that I don't recall Norton ever
> buying a piece of property by selling his stock holdings. Not exactly a
> put-down of the black race, that, methinks.
May we also recommend "The Rare Coin", which, taken verbatim from the
radio episode, keeps you guessing till literally the last line,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9tY1wNZplc
And "The Gun", which addresses the issue of blacks being mistakenly
arrested for crime, but in a manner that could've happened to Ralph Kramden?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrG6bRlVxiw :)
Derek Janssen
eja...@verizon.net
moviePig
> "tomcervo" <tomce...@aol.com> wrote in message
I, too, just now watched the episode and disconnected my ass. And,
imo, it wasn't that the material itself was especially inspired, but
rather that it was sold by some terrific deadpanning ...which,
importantly here, wasn't racially stereotyped, afaics. (E.g., such
comic naivete has been mined from virtually every socio-economic
milieu.) Admittedly, I did feel some racial discomfort while
watching... but I think it was from remembering how things were back
then, *outside* the studio...
--
- - - - - - - -
YOUR taste at work...
http://www.moviepig.com
Jack Lefton
>> I just watched the Kingfish Sells a Lot episode. I saw smart characters
>> and
>> stupid characters and in-between characters, and I laughed my ass off.
>> The only difference I noticed between this and a great number of modern
>> sitcoms is that I laughed more often at this one. I saw not one racial
>> mention or any single item that made either an overt or subvert comment
>> of any kind upon the race of the characters. The similarities between
>> this and a Honeymooners episode are manifold, except that I don't recall
>> Norton ever buying a piece of property by selling his stock holdings.
>> Not exactly a put-down of the black race, that, methinks.
>
Honeymooners", in which Ralph and Norton go to Harlem to buy some pot. The
Kingfish sells them some oregano. I remeber thinking how great it would have
been to be able to really see this episode.
Bill Anderson
Trying to remember ... Is there a racially or ethnically stereotyped
character in "The Honeymooners" comparable to Lightnin'?
I just looked up the show in IMDB and I'm astonished to find Lightnin'
appeared in only five out of the 57 episodes that were filmed. In fact,
IMDB says the characters Sapphire and Algonquin J. Calhoun appeared in
only nine episodes each. Is that possible? Those characters made a
strong impression on me -- amazing to think they appeared in less than
20% of the shows.
--
Bill Anderson
I am the Mighty Favog
Undecided
> I just watched the Kingfish Sells a Lot episode. I saw smart characters and
> stupid characters and in-between characters, and I laughed my ass off. The
> only difference I noticed between this and a great number of modern sitcoms
> is that I laughed more often at this one. I saw not one racial mention or
> any single item that made either an overt or subvert comment of any kind
> upon the race of the characters. The similarities between this and a
> Honeymooners episode are manifold, except that I don't recall Norton ever
> buying a piece of property by selling his stock holdings. Not exactly a
> put-down of the black race, that, methinks.
The birth of Amos 'n Andy was in the Minstrel Shows - called by the
vernacular down south, but created by a gent born in NYC who migrated
to the theatre in Kentucky. His version of "Jim Crow" was itself
copied from an old Black guy who worked in a stable near the theatre
and would sing the song with a shuffle step. The trend was set: First
created by Blacks, becoming popular through White ripoff. For Louis
Armstrong's Hot Fives we had the Dukes of Dixieland and for Chick Webb
there was Benny Goodman and for Bird 'n Diz we have Gerry Mulligan and
West Coast Jazz. And for T-bone Walker and Memphis Slim there is
Elvis. And for Steppen Fetchit there is Jerry Lewis.
Remember too the Black Man worked as a shaman down south, taking away
the sins of his world. There were plenty of dim, slothful, spooked
crackers who felt much better in assigning those roles to Steppen
Fetchit and his imitators. Brother Dave Gardner was a pioneer of the
stand-up era in the fifties, and he always marveled he was welcome on
The Tonight Show, with Jack Paar, who apparently never knew Brother
Dave was just retailing traditional racist humor by using "Southern
Boy" as the nudge-nudge main character.
Remember also the Kingfish of Louisiana, Huey Long, was pleased to be
identified with the Amos 'n Andy character.
I always thought the idea for all these comedy routines was to render
social inversion as comical. Ralph and the Kingfish and Lucy might
aspire and conspire and even perspire, but they always ended up where
they began. Ralph and Ed might try a scheme to sell an apple corer on
teevee, but come Monday they were back at the bus and in the sewer.
And Lucy never made it into show business. There's your message.
About such matters, not
- Undecided
Derek Janssen
>
> Trying to remember ... Is there a racially or ethnically stereotyped
> character in "The Honeymooners" comparable to Lightnin'?
The Kramdens' neighbor, Mrs. Manicotti, might show up for a few
eastside-colorful Italian lines as determined by plot convenience.
Lightnin' was a holdover from the less enlightened days of the radio
show, where he wasn't much more than a multi-character voice gag to
begin with, so give credit to Nick "O'Demus" Stewart for getting the
best possible visual gags he had to work with on that one.
There are no stereotypic parts, just lazy actors. :)
Derek Janssen
eja...@verizon.net
David Oberman
>The birth of Amos 'n Andy was in the Minstrel Shows - called by the
>vernacular down south, but created by a gent born in NYC who migrated
>to the theatre in Kentucky. His version of "Jim Crow" was itself
>copied from an old Black guy who worked in a stable near the theatre
>and would sing the song with a shuffle step. The trend was set: First
>created by Blacks, becoming popular through White ripoff. For Louis
>Armstrong's Hot Fives we had the Dukes of Dixieland and for Chick Webb
>there was Benny Goodman and for Bird 'n Diz we have Gerry Mulligan and
>West Coast Jazz. And for T-bone Walker and Memphis Slim there is
>Elvis. And for Steppen Fetchit there is Jerry Lewis.
My favorite black-qua-black character from TV was Rochester. I laughed
so hard I farted a whole bunch of times! (I take Harry Cohn's
criterion for good movies a step farther.) I looooove Rochester.
>I always thought the idea for all these comedy routines was to render
>social inversion as comical. Ralph and the Kingfish and Lucy might
>aspire and conspire and even perspire, but they always ended up where
>they began. Ralph and Ed might try a scheme to sell an apple corer on
>teevee, but come Monday they were back at the bus and in the sewer.
>And Lucy never made it into show business. There's your message.
Interesting, Tim. Kind of reminds me of the "anti-establishment"
message in GIDGET. It gets a bit sidetracked when both Gidget &
Moondoggie put on Sunday clothes, pack themselves off to college, &
revert back to their Christian names. End of movie.
____
"Hier ist das Werk, wo ist das Geld."
-- Beethoven canon
Derek Janssen
>
> My favorite black-qua-black character from TV was Rochester. I laughed
> so hard I farted a whole bunch of times! (I take Harry Cohn's
> criterion for good movies a step farther.) I looooove Rochester.
Rochester actually wasn't served well by the TV Jack Benny:
Like most radio-to-TV upgrades, the TV version centered on Wacky Visual
Gags, which took away from the radio Benny's ability to sneak a smart
line on us when we literally weren't looking.
Blacks always complained that the TV Rochester was just playing a
victimized "yes, boss" domestic with overdone reactions--But on the
radio version, Rochester was the smartest "normal" character on the
show, who could singlehandedly burst every one of Benny's balloons by
accident.
(Eg: "I'm going out, Rochester, is my dinner jacket ready?"
"Sorry, boss, we haven't gotten it back from the dry-cleaners yet."
"Well, never mind...How does my hair look?"
"I don't know, we haven't gotten THAT back from the dry-cleaners yet,
either!")
:)
>>I always thought the idea for all these comedy routines was to render
>>social inversion as comical. Ralph and the Kingfish and Lucy might
>>aspire and conspire and even perspire, but they always ended up where
>>they began. Ralph and Ed might try a scheme to sell an apple corer on
>>teevee, but come Monday they were back at the bus and in the sewer.
>>And Lucy never made it into show business. There's your message.
OTOH, we see at least several occasions--including the real-estate deal
cited--where Andy demonstrates enough smarts to intentionally hoist the
Kingfish on his own petards by the last punchline, thus fooling us in
the audience as well.
One thing modern sitcoms seem to have forgotten is that for even the
not-brightest Ralph Kramden, Fred Flintstone or not-always-coordinated
Rob Petrie to be sympathetic, they have to demonstrate the same degree
of normal average-guy smarts we have, even if their luck or social
naivety isn't always up to par...
Something that's practically vanished in the post-Homer Simpson/Peter
Griffin era, where any chuckleheaded character is now seen as a freakish
social accident to be viewed from a safe distance, lest they contaminate
you with their red-statishness.
Derek Janssen
eja...@verizon.net
Jim Beaver
"calvin" <cri...@windstream.net> wrote in message
news:e302b209-1fc2-4563...@n19g2000vba.googlegroups.com...
RESPONSE:
Must you label EVERYTHING you don't like as "liberal?" I'm about as liberal
a fellow as you're gonna meet on this board, and I agree with you about this
show. So how does Tom Cervo's being (presumably) a liberal add to your
argument?
Jim Beaver
Jim Beaver
"Bill Anderson" <billand...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:6Yqdncn31ou...@giganews.com...
>
> Trying to remember ... Is there a racially or ethnically stereotyped
> character in "The Honeymooners" comparable to Lightnin'?
What is it about Lightnin' that was "racially or ethnically" stereotyped?
Serious question. He's slow and stupid, but not particularly slower or
stupider than the village idiot I played on THUNDER ALLEY or any number of
slow, stupid, and sweet characters on CHEERS, etc. What is racial about his
performance? He doesn't talk jive, or "ebonics," he doesn't roll his eyes
or say "Feets don't fail me now." He's obsequious, but to black characters.
What I've seen of the show seems almost totally devoid of racial or ethnic
stereotyping while being filled to brim with sitcom stereotyping. It seems
to me that you could keep every single line in the show, every single
situation, every single dialect, replacing only the black faces with white
faces, and you'd have a 1950s sitcom that no one whatsoever would note
except for its being funny. Tim Moore's dialect as Kingfish is supposedly
part of the "racial stereotype," but it's not really. It's an uneducated
*Southern* dialect, not a "black" dialect, loosely equivalent to Foghorn
Leghorn's. And no one else speaks with a "black" dialect. I think it's a
tempest in a teapot.
>
> I just looked up the show in IMDB and I'm astonished to find Lightnin'
> appeared in only five out of the 57 episodes that were filmed. In fact,
> IMDB says the characters Sapphire and Algonquin J. Calhoun appeared in
> only nine episodes each. Is that possible? Those characters made a
> strong impression on me -- amazing to think they appeared in less than 20%
> of the shows.
I noticed the same thing. I think it's simply that full cast credits
haven't been added to the IMDb for this show yet.
Jim Beaver
Dave in Toronto
> "Bill Anderson" <billanderson...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
Bill Anderson
> "Bill Anderson" <billand...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:6Yqdncn31ou...@giganews.com...
>
>> Trying to remember ... Is there a racially or ethnically stereotyped
>> character in "The Honeymooners" comparable to Lightnin'?
>
> What is it about Lightnin' that was "racially or ethnically" stereotyped?
> Serious question.
Serious answer: It doesn't matter how much logic you bring to this sort
of argument; if people are offended by something they consider (rightly
or wrongly) to be an offensive stereotype, a network will cancel a show.
Back when I watched Amos 'n Andy as a kid I saw nothing offensive in
the characters, but I've learned a lot since then.
I can easily understand how people who were beginning to see a light at
the end of the Jim Crow tunnel, who were beginning to visualize their
children achieving the American dream in numbers never before imagined,
who were still smarting from decades of watching Blacks portrayed on
stage and in the movies as child-like simpletons, might look at Amos 'n
Andy and all those ignorant characters and think, "Enough is enough."
So what if Lightnin' held a steady job slowwwwwwwly pushing a mop?
Lightnin' was an offensive dimwitted stereotype to a lot of people, as
was Andy, as was the Kingfish, as was Sapphire, as was the shyster
lawyer Algonquin J. Calhoun, whose name I enjoy typing almost as much as
I enjoy speaking.
I loved the show at the time, but I have no problem understanding how
some people whose skin color, life experience and unique aspirations are
different from mine might see the show in a different, perfectly
understandable light. Serious question: Do you?
Bob F.
> I loved the show at the time, but I have no problem understanding how
> some people whose skin color, life experience and unique aspirations
> are different from mine might see the show in a different, perfectly
> understandable light. Serious question: Do you?
I have a problem when the people who see the show in a different light
cause it to be blacklisted (no pun intended) and buried away from modern
viewers.
calvin
> "Bill Anderson" <billanderson...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I loved the show at the time, but I have no problem understanding how
> > some people whose skin color, life experience and unique aspirations
> > are different from mine might see the show in a different, perfectly
> > understandable light. Serious question: Do you?
>
> I have a problem when the people who see the show in a different light
> cause it to be blacklisted (no pun intended) and buried away from modern
> viewers.
A rare case of agreement. I don't actually like the show,
but tried to watch an episode that someone posted, about
one of them opening another's mail and then trying to
cheat him out of money for a rare coin; and that was all
supposed to be funny. I thought it was a horrible premise
and quit watching, but it had nothing to do with racial
stereotyping, which was common in that era.
Now black people racially stereotype non-blacks. Kids
won't study because they don't want to be like 'whitey'.
Stereotyping is a normal part of the human condition,
and *no* race is above it. We stereotype the Muslims,
and they collectively call us the Great Satan. Jews
stereotype non-Jews. And so it goes.
Derek Janssen
As someone who recognizes Johnny "Algonquin" Lee also as the voice of
Disney's Br'er Rabbit, my defense of unjust pop PC-blacklisting by those
who never bothered to watch the darn thing in the first place is twofold--
Two martyrs share a common foe. :(
Derek Janssen
eja...@verizon.net
Derek Janssen
>
> A rare case of agreement. I don't actually like the show,
> but tried to watch an episode that someone posted, about
> one of them opening another's mail and then trying to
> cheat him out of money for a rare coin; and that was all
> supposed to be funny. I thought it was a horrible premise
> and quit watching,
Evidently: If you'd gotten to Act 2 (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROt1N3nFmE8 ), you'd have seen
how--since, in comedy, Crime Does Not Pay--the Kingfish tries to call
the collector on a pay phone, reaches for a nickel, and....yyyep. ^_^
Which, in true Ralph & Ed style, necessitates the business of trying to
get the coin *back*, and the various legal entanglements that result
from going about it in just about the wrongest ways possible.
All of which situations being not only 100% color-blind, also emphasize
that if there was one thing A&A excelled at, it was George Kaufman(?)'s
stage adage about getting a character up a tree in act 1, and throwing
rocks at him in act 2.
And A&A didn't stop pitching 'em till the bottom of the ninth inning.
Derek Janssen
eja...@verizon.net
calvin
> calvin wrote:
> > A rare case of agreement. I don't actually like the show,
> > but tried to watch an episode that someone posted, about
> > one of them opening another's mail and then trying to
> > cheat him out of money for a rare coin; and that was all
> > supposed to be funny. I thought it was a horrible premise
> > and quit watching,
>
> Evidently: If you'd gotten to Act 2
> how--since, in comedy, Crime Does Not Pay--the Kingfish tries to call
> the collector on a pay phone, reaches for a nickel, and....yyyep. ^_^
> Which, in true Ralph & Ed style, necessitates the business of trying to
> get the coin *back*, and the various legal entanglements that result
> from going about it in just about the wrongest ways possible.
Yes, I watched parts 2 and 3. Thanks.
Jim Beaver
> I loved the show at the time, but I have no problem understanding how some
> people whose skin color, life experience and unique aspirations are
> different from mine might see the show in a different, perfectly
> understandable light. Serious question: Do you?
>
I have no problem understanding it. I have a bit of a problem agreeing with
it. My feeling is that some folks would rather cut off their own noses to
spite their faces. Instead of focusing on the gifts available in a
situation like this (an ALL-BLACK sitcom in the early 1950s???!!!, a show
with comic genius and available talking points on the subject of
responsible, caring, and upstanding black citizenry?), they (whoever they
were) chose to focus on the negatives (some of which I believe were
manufactured rather than inherent negatives), and thus allowed the only
all-black show on American television and an icon that black Americans, had
they so chosen, could have pointed to with pride as their own I LOVE LUCY or
THE HONEYMOONERS, to disappear, leaving ONLY white shows and occasional
subservient black characters to rule the day.
I get that other people than myself will get their backs up over different
things than I will. I just think they threw away an opportunity here,
thinking they were throwing away a liability. IMHO.
Jim Beaver
calvin
> ... (an ALL-BLACK sitcom in the early 1950s???!!!, a show
> with comic genius and available talking points on the subject of
Not to detract from your point, but it was *essentially* all
black, based on the posted episode that I watched. The
coin dealer and his secretary were white. It might be
interesting to know just what other minor characters were
white in other episodes.
Ray Faiola
closed-circuit auditions of several white actors (including Maurice
Manson) in blackface. A kinescope survives and it is unsettling, to
say the least. Thank goodness they saw the folly in this idea and
hired a group of outstanding black comedians to populate the show and
a wonderful director, Charles Barton, to direct.
moviePig
Given that, rather than rejecting it out-of-hand, auditions were
needed to finally dismiss the idea of blackface, the decisive debates
on the matter might've been fascinating to overhear...
Undecided
> Interesting, Tim. Kind of reminds me of the "anti-establishment"
> message in GIDGET. It gets a bit sidetracked when both Gidget &
> Moondoggie put on Sunday clothes, pack themselves off to college, &
> revert back to their Christian names. End of movie.
David, I'm very curious about this fetish for tamping down social
inversion. I recall Flaubert defended Madame Bovary from the
authorities as an object lesson for one who would be better than she
should be, and the Bard and Jonson and probably all the others chimed
in on lampooning their various Malvolios. I see it as a massive
conspiracy, with the same forces behind it as caused the great
Blacklist witchunts of the fifties with rarely a mention of possible
fascists in the woodwork. To me, the secret corporate thumb on the
entertainment scales is clear.
In my early years, the great rebels were ... losers, actually. What
happened to Jim but just wandering on home, still without a cause -
even saving his little gay buddy with the mismatched socks was beyond
him. All he did was escape from a jalopy before it went over the
cliff. And Johnny was a Wild One, all right, but he had his motor
repoed and he learned to smile at the pretty girl just like the
yuppies in the last scene. Shoot, even the heroism of Shane in taking
out Wilson and Ryker only meant Starrat could continue farming.
What we celebrated was decorum, or the lack of it, spunk and drive,
the sheer upsurge of dynamic youth, plus hormones, and then we just
went home to supper.
A conspiracy theorist who is actually
- Undecided
calvin
> In my early years, the great rebels were ... losers, actually. What
> happened to Jim but just wandering on home, still without a cause -
> even saving his little gay buddy with the mismatched socks was beyond
> him. All he did was escape from a jalopy before it went over the
Well, there was the girl. He saved her from 'frank company',
and from the need to wear lipstick and upset her father.
Having a new, presumably steady girl made his mother
feel better about him, and the night's adventure inspired his
father to be more assertive with his mother. Were the police
going to look the other way about the the theft of the jalopies,
one of which he drove over the cliff? We weren't told. Were
the hoodlums going to leave him alone now? We weren't
told that either. A strange movie, made everlasting by the
incredible star power of a young actor in a posthumous role.
Undecided
> A strange movie, made everlasting by the
> incredible star power of a young actor in a posthumous role.
Prosthumous roles, like in Topper? Jimmy Dean crashed and burned
during the filming of Giant, and not Rebel. And if I'm not mistaken
yet again, the director of Giant uncharitably rated Dean as `good when
he could express anger at his father; otherwise he showed what he was,
an inexperienced actor.'
Me, I'm
- Undecided
calvin
> On Jun 24, 10:18 pm, calvin <cri...@windstream.net> wrote:
>
> > A strange movie, made everlasting by the
> > incredible star power of a young actor in a posthumous role.
>
> Prosthumous roles, like in Topper? Jimmy Dean crashed and burned
I'm well aware of that, and wonder why you would assume
otherwise. Both Rebel and Giant were released after Dean's
death, making them both posthumous roles.
As for when he died, Giant was still filming, but his
part had been finished. I don't assume you're not
aware of that, but just want the thread to be clear.
Undecided
> My favorite black-qua-black character from TV was Rochester.
He was Kent to Benny's King Lear, a wiser head in a subservient role.
In my small town, we didn't know from any stereotype but Black,
however Jack Benny featured a couple of them, including the eponym. I
didn't know until much later that Shylock, or fanatical greed, was
part of an ethnic slur. Also, one of the recurring features was an
Hispanic who was listless, taciturn, and dim. One bit they did was a
series of one-word matched responses.
Benny: You have a sister? What's her name?
Pancho: Sue.
Benny: And what does she do?
P: Sew.
B: Sew?
P: Si.
B: Don't you have a brother too?
P: Si
B: And what's his name?
P: Cy.
B: Cy?
P: Si.
It went on, and it was funnier to hear, and it was based upon an
ethnic stereotype, and it's strange that this is not noticed so often
as the Black model. I saw a recent Jimmy Fallon Spelling Bee which was
hilarious and featured a pat Hispanic moderator dressed as a bee. The
funny part was in how the moderator mispronounced the words.
- Undecided
calvin
> ... It went on, and it was funnier to hear, and it was based upon an
> ethnic stereotype, and it's strange that this is not noticed so often
Stereotypes are not always bad, such as high-achieving Asians.
Nor are stereotypes that some do-gooders think are bad always
bad. Do-gooders became all outraged about the stereotypes
connected with 'Speedy Gonzales'. Except that Mexicans
loved the character and the show.
Stereotype-seeking do-gooders very often are do-badders.
David Oberman
>Prosthumous roles, like in Topper? Jimmy Dean crashed and burned
>during the filming of Giant, and not Rebel. And if I'm not mistaken
>yet again, the director of Giant uncharitably rated Dean as `good when
>he could express anger at his father; otherwise he showed what he was,
>an inexperienced actor.'
Pauline Kael says in her article on Brando (written in the late 1960s)
that some audiences hooted at Dean in movies because they thought he
was trying to be Brando -- i.e., that Brando was the genuine antihero
with young audiences while Dean was only a poseur. How widespread was
that feeling at the time? I don't know.
I like when Dean pushes Jim on his Backus in REBEL.
____
Be mindful, love, of love�s mortality.
Be mindful that all love is as the grass
And all the goodliness of love the flower
Of grass, for lo, its little day shall pass
And withering and decay define its hour.
-- James Agee, from "Permit Me Voyage"
calvin
> I like when Dean pushes Jim on his Backus in REBEL.
My father hated that. He rarely went to movies, but he
happened to see the preview of Rebel Without a Cause
which showed that scene. He was very disappointed that
movies were showing parents being treated that way.
Dave in Toronto
> >Prosthumous roles, like in Topper? Jimmy Dean crashed and burned
> >during the filming of Giant, and not Rebel. And if I'm not mistaken
> >yet again, the director of Giant uncharitably rated Dean as `good when
> >he could express anger at his father; otherwise he showed what he was,
> >an inexperienced actor.'
>
Very true I think. Dean was hopeless when playing an old man.
Dave in Toronto
Pjk
I'm coming to this a little late but the problem with the old show
from the 50's, which was very funny and as good as those already
mentioned, was that it was many viewer's first expirience with Black
people, and the characteristics that were shown were asumed to be
actual characeristics of real Black people. Slow-moving Lightening is
a better example, but you can also think of the way the Kingfish
talked and his resorting to trickery for laughs. These all 1) harken
back to the minstrel shows where White performers dressed in black-
face and cemented many of the stereotypes we've come to associate with
Blacks, especially Southern plantation Blacks, and 2) were supposedly
dispelled with the performance of Blacks during WWII. While Amos &
Andy may have provided Black actors with a chance they wouldn't have
had otherwise, it was and is a throw-back to a meaner time, a meaner
representation of one group of people for another group.
Pjk
calvin
> Dean was hopeless when playing an old man.
He wasn't supposed to be old. The character was middle-aged
like the Benedicts, old enough to have children in their early
twenties.
Dave in Toronto
That's even worse! Dean played him like an old man and did it badly.
Dave in Toronto
calvin
Not my impression, but it's certainly nothing to
argue about. Dean's great movie was 'East of Eden',
IMO. 'Giant' was great for reasons not having a lot to
do with him, though I thought he was just fine. The
problem with his part was that it was badly written,
making his character's transformations unbelievable.