Remember when something as outrageously racist as a minstrel show was considered funny? Mainstream funny, not white supremacist funny? No, me neither. That kind of cruelty was a long, long time ago. Or so we thought.
Then this week a 1980s variety television show called Hey Hey It’s Saturday came back on air for a reunion. As part of the Hey Hey reunion they included their traditional amateur talent competition, judged by a couple of celebrity guests, where among other acts they brought back a ‘blackface’ skit, and as Fuck Politeness explains, it was startlingly awful..
Oh, the thigh slapping hilarity of ‘blackface’ humour, of ‘Michael Jackson – is he black or white??’, of ‘Haw haw how silly are those black performers with their comical and unwittingly homoerotic moves’ etc etc.
Or as the AWL puts it..
You know what never gets old for the folks on Prison Island? Blackface! Oh, how they chuckle!
The ‘blackface’ skit is so extraordinarily offensive that you wonder how, as Sophie Black in Crikey does…
.. the Jackson Jive idea managed to get the tick from several producers, a talent scout, the host of the show and the six guys who took the time to sit in front of a mirror and apply boot polish to their visages.”
Well, you just need a sense of humour! But no-one has thinner skin than us trying to justify our racism. We can dish it out alright, but we sure can’t take it in Australia. A shiny new coin observes that..
This is another occasion in which the response to the offensive material is actually as shocking (if not more than) as the material itself. I mean, a blackface skit? In 2009? It almost defies belief, but now we have the well educated people of the popular news sites expressing their outrage that anyone point out their stunning racism to them.
We might tell you we like to laugh at ourselves, but seems we much prefer laughing at others. And looking at the ‘blackface’ skit Crimitism notes..
It’s been defended as a tribute to the Jackson Five. It wasn’t. There is no attempt made to look like the Jackon Five actually looked; these are minstrels with pitch-black skin and funny wigs. When they talk to each other, they sound like Amos & Andy. They go to great lengths to get a laugh out of Michael being (very) white and the others being (very) black. These aren’t people, they’re golliwogs.
An apology followed on the show. But this is only because Harry Connick Jnr, an unfortunate guest on the program, makes his disgust so clear (particularly backstage, apparently) that something has to be done to keep him from leaving. As the NY Magazine explains..
Guest American judge Harry Connick Jr. took issue, thankfully, giving the Jive a “0″ and telling the tone-deaf host, “If they turned up like that in the United States, it’d be like Hey Hey There’s No More Show.”
But the apology from host, Daryl Somers is possibly even more dreadful than the ‘blackface’ skit itself. The Guardian is incredulous..
“I noticed that when we had the Jackson Jive on,” he says to Harry, “and it didn’t occur to me till afterwards, I think we may have offended you with that act … I know that to your countrymen, that’s an insult to have a blackface routine like that on the show, so I do apologise.”
Very good of him. In Australia, of course, it is perfectly acceptable, and we thank the nation for yet another important contribution to the annals of human culture.
Shame on the host and the other judges for trying to act like this performance was acceptable in any part of the world.
and Gawker, also note how paltry Somers’ apology is.. and how misdirected (nope, no apology to black people for the racism)..
Sure, there are culture differences, but it’s not like they don’t have black folks in Australia who would get pissed off by this.
Because as the A.V Club says…
Harry Connick Jr is being generous when he says, “I know this was done humorously,” because what’s the joke in having six white guys put on blackface to play the Jackson 5?
Ha. Get it? It’s funny cause there’s something inherently ridiculous about being black.
As you may have surmised from this post this incident has gone global, and like DListed, everyone is now wondering..
THE FUCK IS THIS?!
Let me explain. There is a style of boorish behaviour in Australia that has thrived in insular unaccountability. Too loud and obnoxious to ever hear those around it who were tiring of the ridicule and abuse, it thought itself quite the funniest thing.
But times have really changed, as Crikey observes …
Once upon a time an outrageous piece of live, prime-time television would have had no more publicly conspicuous consequence than an invisible stream of complaint calls to the Channel Nine switchboard.
It’s not so easy to manage complaints in the online world. Hey Hey is now a subject of international discussion and heated rebuke, thanks to the meme spreading rapidity and the all-encompassing involvability of the internet. That’s what has really changed since Big Media first thought it was funny to use the outraging of minority sensibilities or even the broad sweep of taste for their shock value and ratings. You just can’t do that today and hope to get away with it.
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Do not look at the comments on YouTube.
@Anna:
Or anywhere. Good gods, full of “Lighten up!” and “How is it racist… unless black people are ASHAMED OF THEIR RACE!”
Yuck.
Here’s the other thing: They WON when they originally appeared. I’m stunned.
how…what…huh??? i’m beyond speech here. i may not love the way the internet makes it possible to investigate the minutest bits of trivia as if they were worthy of a nobel prize, but this is definitely why it’s good overall. fuck that shit! anywhere! it’s completely inexcusable to allow this kind of “humor”, no matter how insulated you are from the rest of the world.
Hi, delurking today just to say when I heard about it yesterday morning, I could have cried with embarrassment, honestly. The “skit” was bad enough, but the reaction to it, the sheer willful inability/refusal to see HOW offensive it was were even worse. To make matters still worse, channel 9 have form with this stuff, letting Sam Newman away with it years ago. There was outrage then, so I know they know the history of this sort of thing, and yet they still asked those “performers” back. The thing is, in the first reunion show, I channel surfed past it and watched about 5 -10 minutes and counted at least 4 racist jokes just in that time. Nothing at this level, of course, but racist nonetheless, full of stereotypical “funny accents” and stupid little screen caps. It’s awful. And Harry Connick Jnr is a damn hero for speaking up!
To make it so much more special, Today (on channel 9) just brought out a clip of Connick Jnr doing a preacher skit AS IF IT WERE EQUIVALENTLY OFFENSIVE. They actually said “but he’s also made fun of preachers, so can he really say anything?” – so incredibly fucked up. The guy they had on pointed out that it was a stupid comparison but they still seemed to think it was even relevant.
My first reaction was one of disbelief. I wanted to say, “Are you sure that this really happened?” because it is just so, so wrong. Followed by a deep sense of shame that it happened. I’m pretty taken aback by the people who performed in the skit saying that they’re not racist because look, one of them is Indian Australian and the others are from multicultural backgrounds.
Well just like women can never be misogynists, people of colour can never be racist. It all makes sense doesn’t it? *headdesk*
The absolute ignorance of those defending this skit is just appalling :-(
Watch the ratings go through the roof.
This morning I was informed by a colleague that blackface isn’t racist when it’s done outside of the USA, especially when done by someone of Indian background because Indians are “black”. Depressing.
Hey geek anachronism, I just saw that as well. Arj Barker was like, “Erm – I have not seen that skit before but he is not impersonating a race so, WHAT?”
How do derail discussions of your own racism #7235: quick quick point the finger at the person that tried to speak up and dig into their past about how they’re a hypocrite OMG!
Great post by the way. Particular fan of, “But no-one has thinner skin than us trying to justify our racism. We can dish it out alright, but we sure can’t take it in Australia.” I want to stamp that on the foreheads of every defensive brat crawling out of the woodwork to scream about how non-racist the skit was and how “it was FUNNY!”
The explanation of how this “boorish behaviour” has continued to thrive sums up my experience of college pretty well.
A handy and easy to follow flowchart for people without a clue. Media types just substitute your medium for “blog”:
Should I use Blackface on my Blog
The “skit” was bad enough, but the reaction to it, the sheer willful inability/refusal to see HOW offensive it was were even worse.
Right on. Had the radio on in the background all day yesterday, and the standard excuses were:
“It can’t be racist, it was a tribute”
“It can’t be racist, it was well choreographed”
“It can’t be racist, there’s a movie called White Chicks which no one gets upset about”
“It can’t be racist, it’s just a tv show”
“It can’t be racist, because Americans are imposing their values”
“It’s only racist because of the PC minorities running our country”.
So apparently things can only be racist if your intentions were pure evil, it’s not entertaining, it’s not in the media, and there’s no racism anywhere else in the world, ever. And you can only be rebuked by your best friend who otherwise acknowledges you’re a wonderful person. Apparently.
Sounds like we need a bingo card…
what are the Aboriginal activist saying or is anybody asking them?
i’m a little familiar with the older activists like gary foley but only slightly
Sorry to those whose comment have been languishing in auto-mod! Tigtog and I have been coming and going from various holiday travels today. I’m finally back online.
I’m making a bingo card of all the responses and excuses. Any suggestions would be great :)
PharaohKatt– in addition to The Amazing Kim’s suggestions, I’d add “It can’t be racist because it’s Aussie humour!”
Thanks Beppie :) I have incorporated some of Amazing Kim’s suggestiions :D
Bingo card is nearly done. I will be posting it here when I’ve done. Check out my twitter page to see what I’ve added so far :)
Am also delurking to agree with those who so aptly express their dismay over the ‘Hey Hey’ segment……..
It was a weird experience for us: we had looked in on the show and then switched over to watch the first of a series of docos on SBS about the backgrounds of refugees who have made it to Australia. It was a quite disturbing and illuminating acount of a woman journalist and her family originally from Sierra Leone. Thought provoking, and really we should have left it at that for TV for the night, but someone switched across to Ch 9 and the first image that came up was a lm blackface performance. Unbelievable.
Good on Harry Connick who seems to have grabbed the chance to make the point quite well. Shame on Australians who just don’t seem to get it. The act was so wrong, claiming it as ‘our’ type of humour just makes you cringe. And I really can’t believe that someone at Ch 9 didn’t question putting this act on.
The doco was part one of 4 called “Destination Australia”, SBS Wed 8.30pm – well worth watching.
[ableist language disemvowelled ~Lauredhel]
Why is everyone so shocked? I mean seriously, did anyone really expect that hey,hey its dickheads anonymous would NOT make us look like some anipodean relic from the 19th century? The show was vulgar, crass, sexist and totally obnoxious before which is exactly why ch9 brought it back, there’s no such thing as bad publicity in the minds of ch9 because they all remember the glory days when hey hey was big big.
Its like bemoaning the page 3 girl on the daily tele. These people don’t give a rat’s for such sensibilities, in fact they deliberately flaunt their low brow anti-intellectualism to appeal to a certain market. Check out Seriously, cant we have a laugh anymore? its all just FUN ppl. FCS.
Thanks PharaoKatt, yes, “bingo card” is what springs to mind!
I liked Fran Barlow on LP’s definition of this kind of thing: “T]he “meaning” of this skit is a robust statement of plebeian Australian exceptionalism”
Plebeian Australian exceptionalism. Exactly. Now we’ve got a name for it.
A man at my workplace said to me the other day, when no-one else was listening: “Crikey, you look around here and you’re lucky if you can see an Australian in the room sometimes.” By Australian, of course, he meant white people.
I am so ashamed of this carry-on. I am so utterly embarrassed for this and the responses of people around me. It breaks my heart. Australia is terribly, terribly racist. And I don’t know what to do to help change that, other than keep fighting the little battles that come my way. Looking at the huge expanse of the ignorance of this situation – it makes me weep.
I don’t think anyone is “shocked” David, probably far from it actually, but it is really important to challenge this kind of shit whenever it surfaces. If you don’t see a need to challenge it well that’s probably your privilege talking. I wonder when there will be a function to disemvowell unexamined privilege.
Thanks for the heads-up on that documentary, Ann.
Hey PharaohKatt, if you feel like including the excuses from my blog, go right ahead (although I imagine you’ve got them all by now).
Also this all seems attached to anti-Americanism too, some kind of notion that since the Americans elected George W they are inherently WRONG. I spent some time explaining how blackface was a racist at work today and immediately afterwards had someone tell me “Americans just don’t know anything”. Er, were you listening to me dude? Also, way to blame someone else for the racism you’re being called on.
Oh and as an MJ fan I’m finding the they were “impersonating” arguments particularly grating. They looked nothing like the Jackson 5!
@Shiny:
I’ll definitely be going through your post. Hopefully it will help when I get to the “rebutting these arguments” stage of my post. Thanks :)
Linda I agree it needs to be challenged, but I’m disillusioned with the notion that people like the program makers for hey hey are at all responsive (publicly at least) to any form of public criticism. They only understand ratings and as distasteful as it seems, controversy helps publicise the show. Fran’s quote by Helen works for me.
Yes, it’s wrong to use the word “shocked” (or “hysterical” or “noisy”) to describe people from the blogosphere, many of whom are the reverse of shocked – more like weary and “here we go AGAIN”. I’ve had enough conversation with ppl like the coworker quoted above and my ultra RW brother in law and others to not be shocked at all about racist crap. People re not necessarily shocked – they’re speaking up, is all, to say it’s not OK, which wasn’t so easy before the internet. Predictably, just the same as with feminism, there is pushback. In the form of all the rubbish we are going to see on Pharaohkatt’s Bingo card.
+1 to Helen.
To add to the roundup, Racialicious has a post here: WE’VE SPENT SO MUCH TIME TRYING TO NOT MAKE BLACK PEOPLE LOOK LIKE BUFFOONS: THE LOOKS OF RACISM
and it’s on Metafilter:
“In America, it would be like ‘Hey, Hey, There’s No More Show”
Alright, here we go, the bingo card.
[image link added. PK, can you add a link to a text or HTML version, for accessibility? Cheers. Lauredhel]
Ok, I’m writing up a text version now. I will link to it when I’m done (or just copy-paste here)
Sorry about multiple comments. Feel free to merge them or something.
Text Version: http://pharaoh-katt.livejournal.com/80434.html#cutid1
Is that ok? Currently working on a response to each argument.
Again, sorry about multiple comments. If you would like to link people to the Bingo card, please link them here and not to my personal journal. Link includes a take-down of all the arguments excuses.
PK, there could aso be something about how the looney lefties/bleeding hearts are somehow secretly ruling the planet and this is proof of it.
David, if you agree it needs to be challenged then don’t try to characterise the people who are getting on with the challenging (which incidentally takes a lot more guts than to just sit back and go “Oh well what do you expect?”) as hysterical or naive.
Resigning yourself to the status quo is not exactly progressive, particularly if it just happens to be structured in your favour.
Possibly the most fucked-up defence of Hey Hey It’s Blackface:
Guess where? Feministing comments.
The post itself concludes:
I await their posts denouncing crip-drag.
I suspect it was deliberate.
There have been too many similar examples recently where controversy has resulted in publicity that draws attention to shows.
Some examples: the infamous Kyle fella [who I note is back on air again], the 9 Footy show, the chef fella insulting the TV star, the modus operandi of Big Brother in general, shock jocks in general. Its a long list.
I would suspect the producers are quite happy with the resultant publicity from the skit.
“David, if you agree it needs to be challenged then don’t try to characterise the people who are getting on with the challenging (which incidentally takes a lot more guts than to just sit back and go “Oh well what do you expect?”) as hysterical or naive.”
I don’t believe David suggested, even obliquely, that anyone was being hysterical.
I also agree with David that no amount of public outcry directed at the show will do anything other than make them feel as though they’re getting a shit-load of free publicity. Ratings and advertising dollars are the only things these people understand. If you want to challenge this sort of behaviour and have your voice heard, you have to challenge it by hitting them in one of those spots.
Great post!!!
@the Amazing Kim. Beautiful analysis. Love it. Kudos.
@David & Rebekka:
Firstly, I think folks are taking issue with the “why are people shocked/surprised/etc.” impression that came from David, particularly, because it’s actually a pretty tried and true silencing technique used against people calling out offensive behaviour. I know for me, it rather sounds like “well, why should we expect anything more from them?” which sounds like giving folks a pass, to me. idk.
Secondly, if it were just the Hey Hey folks being so horrifically defensive in their response to the criticisms, I’d be more open to the point about ratings and advertising dollars (though, to be honest, I actually find that argument pretty tiring, generally). But it’s not. We’ve suddenly got our Deputy Prime Minister defending this shit as expressive of the national sense of humour or whatever the fuck. Not long after this whole thing exploded, it became about much more than another line in the long list of stupid shit Channel Nine does.
And yeah, I think there’s something to be said about why blackface on Hey Hey gets more publicity than blackface/brownface/yellowface elsewhere on Australian television. But it’s ridiculous to think that the presence of a USAian guest who called that shit out wasn’t a big part of the difference.
And oh lordy, I just made the mistake of reading the article David linked to. Oh, Tracey Spicer. The point is sailing so far over your head i don’t even know. Of course, what’s hilarious is that given my professional experience with the particular law firm she mentions? I really wouldn’t be surprised about that part.
Incidentally, what with the lead man in the act’s “oh it’s ironic I’m being called racist” or whatever “let’s pretend intra-POC racism doesn’t exist” defensive thing he said, I don’t really care who says they’re not racist. They’re words anyone can say. And I think a safe rule of thumb would be that if you have to say it, you might want to stop and have a bit of a think.
That’s very sweet of you to want to take care of David, Rebekka but I’m pretty sure he can answer for himself. As for how best to challenge shit like this, I’ll decide for myself how I can best challenge it, athough I think it’s safe to say that the best way to not challenge it is to try to silence people who are attempting to shape public discourse about it. That’s a very conservative approach.
@Linda, “That’s very sweet of you to want to take care of David, Rebekka but I’m pretty sure he can answer for himself.”
I wasn’t answering for David, as I’m sure you actually realised, and in my opinion it’s a pretty low debating tactic to make a comment like that. If you actually want to have a discussion about a topic you might try not patronising people who disagree with you.
I think there needs to be a response, but like I said, I don’t believe simply calling it out as racist will have any effect whatsoever.
@Jennifer, I take your point about it being used as a silencing technique – but so is Linda trying to silence David, who disagreed with her argument, by claiming he said that anyone who doesn’t agree with him is “naive” or “hysterical” (particularly in a feminist forum, given those words are highly weighted and gendered terms) when he did not in fact used those terms, and did not even come close to using the term hysterical, even if you choose to interpret “why was anyone surprised” as implying naivety.
And so was Linda’s technique of claiming I was “sweet” to “take care of David” instead of engaging with my argument.
David pointed out what I think is an excellent point, and one that needs to be borne in mind when formulating a response to these sorts of incidents. Yes, we should condemn them, because it is important that it is not seen as acceptable. But unfortunately, the producers/tv station/etc don’t give a rat’s about our condemnation. They are pitching shows like this in a deliberately low-brow way; to appeal to the people who ARE sexist, racist, ableist, etc, and the fact that we all think it stinks probably just confirms to them that they are hitting their target market, and are therefore likely to get even bigger ratings and so even bigger advertising dollars the more stink there is.
There are people out there – the vast majority Herald Sun readers, according to their reader poll this morning – who think “political correctness has gone too far”, and that the skit wasn’t racist. Those people are more likely to watch the show if it’s on again BECAUSE of this. It’s screwed, and I think we need a different approach.
But I did engage with your “argument” Rebekka. It’s not a debating tactic because you didn’t give me anything TO debate. I referred to the need to reshape discourses, and that’s what the internet allows so many of us who would otherwise not be heard, to do. You’re basically telling everyone who has blogged about this that they’re wasting their time. And if you don’t want to be seen to be answering for people, then don’t answer for them, don’t intercept and presume to clarify their statements for them. And when feminists challenge privileged males who attempt to silence them, don’t then accuse those feminists of trying to silence the privileged males who are attempting to silence them. Don’t immediately attempt to invalidate said feminist’s lived experiences. This is 101 stuff btw.
“But I did engage with your “argument” Rebekka.
No, you didn’t, you made a snide remark.
“I referred to the need to reshape discourses, and that’s what the internet allows so many of us who would otherwise not be heard, to do. ”
I agree, that’s the great thing about the internet.
“You’re basically telling everyone who has blogged about this that they’re wasting their time. ”
No, that’s not what I said. Nor did I imply it. You’re putting words in my mouth. I actually think the initial expression of outrage about something like this is very important. I don’t think it will change what they show on Hey, hey it’s Saturday, but that in no way means I think every one who has blogged about it is wasting their time. How are people supposed to realise there is a community that disagrees with this sort of behaviour if no-one writes/talks/blogs about it? I blog about things all the time that I do not believe are going to change a company’s mind about something, but which I do think may let me connect with other people who think the same way, or even educate someone who didn’t previously know about an issue. I don’t think I’m wasting my time.
“And if you don’t want to be seen to be answering for people, then don’t answer for them, don’t intercept and presume to clarify their statements for them. ”
I didn’t actually clarify David’s statement, I pointed out that your summary of his statement was incorrect and unjustified.
“And when feminists challenge privileged males who attempt to silence them, don’t then accuse those feminists of trying to silence the privileged males who are attempting to silence them. ”
Your feminism doesn’t protect you from being called on dirty tactics in an argument. You used them on me as well. I am not saying it was unjustifed to call David on trying to silence dissent – you will note that I agreed with Jennifer on that. But you were clearly also trying to silence someone with whom you disagreed – first David, then me. Not by arguing against our arguments, but by putting words into David’s mouth that he didn’t say – naive and hysterical, pretty weighted terms – and by trying to frame my agreement with David’s argument as somehow anti-feminist with your framing of it as “sweet” and “trying to protect” him; aligning my agreement with David with traditional models of femininity.
“Don’t immediately attempt to invalidate said feminist’s lived experiences. This is 101 stuff btw.”
And again with the patronising. I did *not* attempt to invalidate your “lived experience”, I called you on your tactics. You can not just frame it as anti-feminist every time someone disagrees with you or calls you out, and think that is a sufficient argument against them.
Rebekka: “I blog about things all the time that I do not believe are going to change a company’s mind about something, but which I do think may let me connect with other people who think the same way, or even educate someone who didn’t previously know about an issue. I don’t think I’m wasting my time.”
This point really resonates with me. It is such a common criticism of progressive speech – “why bother blogging about that”, “you’ll never change any ableist’s/racist’s/etc’s mind with that attitude”, and so on and so forth. You all know the drill.
But so much of what we do is not aimed specifically at converting or controlling those who can be optimistically characterised as being in “pre-contemplation” stage of change, or, less optimistically, the unconvertible. That is the job of the law, when the transgression is severe enough to warrant intervention by threat of force.
Much of our discourse is aimed both at people who are in contemplation and active change mode, AND as expressions of friendship and solidarity amongst our own communities, AND as ways of refinining our own arguments and sharing words for feelings and intuitions that may have been previously unverbalised. And a lot of what we try to do here, and at similar blogs, is intersectionality – trying to examine and chip away at ideas about there being only one axis of oppression, or one primary axis of oppression that Matters Most. There is so much more to life and speech than head-on collision between bipoles.
I’m sorry Linda I wasn’t trying to stifle any debate or silence any contrary opinion. My concern is that the controversy over the hey hey skit can easily be exploited to increase the ratings success of the program. The link to Tracy’s article is an example where those who are objecting to the show and the skit can be easily portrayed as some kind of PC killjoys and how that image can then feed into the mindset of the audience that turns to shows like Hey Hey. I don’t agree with Tracy’s line of thought at all, I was using her article to illustrate this point.
Perhaps my language or approach is not ideal and I guess in retrospect my comments could have been better directed.
But nobody has disagreed with me, Rebekka. Had you not noticed that? Also, I think you need to own your first response to me on this thread. Would you really have bothered if you didn’t already have an issue with me? lol And exactly what are these “dirty tactics” you speak of ? Am I suddenly the enemy? You might want to save your words for those who really deserve it, rather than inflict them on a single lesbian mother trying to get through university.
You’re becoming quite the concern troll, Rebekka.
This is a “concern” that comes up a lot. I think it’s closely related to “Don’t react to the bullies, it only encourages them”. Both ideas might be superficially attractive (and handily slacktivist to boot!), but long hard experience has shown that attempting to ignore bullies doesn’t discourage them in the slightest, and that ignoring racism doesn’t make it go away. Change occurs through pushing and noise and protest, not through euphemism and polite neglect. Will we change a particular TV station at this particular point in time? Maybe not, but that’s not the sole goal.
Also, please return to playing the ball on this thread, folks – racist speech and the ways in which we might work to combat it.
Change comes in lots of ways. John Howard changed Australia and not for the better. Perhaps my concern is slack and politely neglectful, but I have also written to both ch9 and ACMA voicing my “concern” and my objection to the skit. In this case that’s an appropriate course of action for me, in other situations I blog about stuff.
Well the first way we might work to combat it would be to not privilege white male voices. Cos really, what do they know about discrimination?
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