Here at Goblinko, i have made a very strong push for an end to "being offended" & have been working to usher in an age of "minding your own business" & "live & let live". I totally understand the inverse of all this, but it is largely inexcusable & completely annoying. Today i was made aware of this awesome Japanese Super Mario Bros. Bunraku puppet show briefly showing a Japanese guy in black face as president Barack "Banana" Obama. The Neojapanisme blog was very insistent that Japan cease to attempt to portray Obama in blackface because it isn't socially acceptable in the West. Momus on iMomus (which has largely been a useless blog for many years but was once a pretty good read) counters in his sort of post-identity, secretly pushing for a one-world socialist state (which i'm all for, as long as i'm in charge) about "the metonymy of the worst", which uses the word metonymy, but is essentially saying that "Political correctness brings with it a kind of misanthropy -- the "metonymy of the worst" I mention in the piece. All motives and all representations become guilty and hateful ones; all Germans become Hitler, and all blacks shackled slaves. Forever. As a result, reductiveness, essentialism and misanthropy rule the day, even as we proclaim our hatred of these things.." Excellent point! Me? I was too busy enjoying one of the better novelty youtube clips i've seen involving old videogames to care one way or another. I figure that impersonating a black person is no big deal, & that using the soft underbelly of sensitivity argument all the time wrecks the culture, encourages black folks to be emotionally vulnerable & weak & assumes that people should care in the first place.
Friday, January 23, 2009
SUPER MARIO BANANA OBAMA
Here at Goblinko, i have made a very strong push for an end to "being offended" & have been working to usher in an age of "minding your own business" & "live & let live". I totally understand the inverse of all this, but it is largely inexcusable & completely annoying. Today i was made aware of this awesome Japanese Super Mario Bros. Bunraku puppet show briefly showing a Japanese guy in black face as president Barack "Banana" Obama. The Neojapanisme blog was very insistent that Japan cease to attempt to portray Obama in blackface because it isn't socially acceptable in the West. Momus on iMomus (which has largely been a useless blog for many years but was once a pretty good read) counters in his sort of post-identity, secretly pushing for a one-world socialist state (which i'm all for, as long as i'm in charge) about "the metonymy of the worst", which uses the word metonymy, but is essentially saying that "Political correctness brings with it a kind of misanthropy -- the "metonymy of the worst" I mention in the piece. All motives and all representations become guilty and hateful ones; all Germans become Hitler, and all blacks shackled slaves. Forever. As a result, reductiveness, essentialism and misanthropy rule the day, even as we proclaim our hatred of these things.." Excellent point! Me? I was too busy enjoying one of the better novelty youtube clips i've seen involving old videogames to care one way or another. I figure that impersonating a black person is no big deal, & that using the soft underbelly of sensitivity argument all the time wrecks the culture, encourages black folks to be emotionally vulnerable & weak & assumes that people should care in the first place.
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2 comments:
THAT IS AMAZING.
It was a puppet. With recorded voice accompaniment. They weren't impersonating black people, they were impersonating Obama. Mario's a plumber from Brooklyn and in Brooklyn, as with anywhere else in America, Obama is president. I don't see how people can get offended by that. Okay, I can see how, but I think they're fucking stupid for doing so.
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