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wakefresh

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Posts posted by wakefresh

  1. Posted

    At least we don't have to deal with Meredith Grey muckin around and screwin things up. Too much drama! where in Florida did you live? We southern floridians hear all about the bigotry and overall backwoodsy-ness of northern and central FL but it rarely trickles down here.

     

     

    The divide starts in Orlando, which Puerto Ricans for some reason have claimed, then we hit the nice Jewish conglomerate of west palm beach, followed by the any kind of every people in Broward/Miami. It's really pretty sweet here. I'm sure August Lindt would find it to be very nice. I mean, it's definitely more cultured than Seattle no offense lol. So it's not from lack of perspective that I was saying Shariq was overreacting. I think it's pretty clear to see the knee jerk response was on his behalf when he saw it was a Tyler Perry movie and assumed the worst. Not that it doesn't come from a real place, I don't doubt you authenticity Shariq! it just felt unwarranted.

     

    I believe that there will never be a circumstance for you where you think the claims of a POC are "warranted". Like when you gave a harsh resounding negative to the term "Blackie", but then immediately stated all of the circumstances where calling a black kid "Blackie" would be seen as tolerable. I mean, when you write things like that, there isn't really anything that you won't rationalize away.

  2. Posted

    I haven't listened to the episode since its debut, but I came out feeling so gross that I probably overstated my case re: the batting of eyes. I don't think Paul, Jason, or June are bad people, and I understand that hosts tread a thin line when it comes to policing the language that guests use. That said, it still grates on me when a rapper drops a "no homo" on Get Up On This and it goes unremarked. (Conversely, it was incredible to hear the Sklars call Terrell Owens out on his "homosexuality is a choice" bullshit a few months back.)

     

    I don't presume to speak for Shariq but, since I read virtually every post on the forums, I will say this: His opinions are often based on observations of trends in the media and the world at large, and many of his civil attempts at discussing these issues are met with knee-jerk denials that they even exist. Imagine this sort of interaction compounded on an hourly basis and you might begin to understand his frustration.

     

    I like Shariq. Yes, he sometimes goes overboard with the hyperbole but, as with HDTGM, I think the Earwolf forums benefit from his perspective and the perspective of anyone else who doesn't meet the standard 18-34 Straight White Middle-Class Male demographic that dominates podcasting. Under the mighty Shannon's guidance, we try to maintain a welcoming community here and, compared to relentless fuckstorms like Reddit, I think we do pretty well.

     

    (Also: If the strongest opinion you hear about the black experience every day comes from Shariq, you're leading a pretty insular life.)

     

    I listened to that ep and it was good to hear them push back on that. And it wasn't just a passing comment. It was like a good chunk of the interview.

  3. Posted

     

    Also, a big point of contention for Shariq seems to simply be that the HDGTM hosts don't care enough about learning the names of black actors? Even though for this episode it seems like (from her own admission) a lot of these actors are in "The Perry Fold", so...why WOULD they know their names? And saying "My hope was that by having a black guest on, someone would point out the actual actor/actress name and maybe even be familiar with other movies they had done before or after"...oddly seems to assume that either only black people know black actors/actresses, or that all black people are so familiar with Tyler Perry that they could "help out", like a Perry IMDB.

     

    (That's what it looks like when people make weird racial accusations from the OTHER side.)

     

     

    So you're kinda talking out of both sides of your mouth with that statement. You firmly believe that there is no reason for any of the gang to know anything about these actors/actresses. Just because they are in a Perry movie doesn't mean that they do nothing else at all in Hollywood. It's not like they are some sort of movie limbo where they ONLY work for Perry. Shemar Moore was in a Perry movie and he is/was also on Criminal Minds on CBS. By your logic, because he was in the Perry movie, there is absolutely no way the gang would know him from the long-running CBS show. But that's patently not true. Actors are in multiple projects. Just because Sam Jackson is in alot of Taratino movies doesn't mean that he ONLY works with Taratino.

     

    But at the same time, you say its weird that I would assume a black guest would be more familiar with the actors than the gang would. But you just told me that there isn't really a good reason why any of them would know any of the actors in the first place because they were in a Perry movie. Why is it an odd assumption that a black person would have some passing knowledge of the players in a movie marketed toward them? It's like if the gang was doing a Bollywood movie and you were upset because someone assumed that a Indian national would have some passing knowledge of Ahmed Khan.

     

    And even Paul at one time admitted that just calling the two black actors "the black guy" and "black guy number 2" in the Dungeon Siege ep was reductionist. So, I give him some credit for that, but he didn't take the next step and look at his computer to see the IMDB for their names.

    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    I haven't listened to the episode since its debut, but I came out feeling so gross that I probably overstated my case re: the batting of eyes. I don't think Paul, Jason, or June are bad people, and I understand that hosts tread a thin line when it comes to policing the language that guests use. That said, it still grates on me when a rapper drops a "no homo" on Get Up On This and it goes unremarked. (Conversely, it was incredible to hear the Sklars call Terrell Owens out on his "homosexuality is a choice" bullshit a few months back.)

     

    I don't presume to speak for Shariq but, since I read virtually every post on the forums, I will say this: His opinions are often based on observations of trends in the media and the world at large, and many of his civil attempts at discussing these issues are met with knee-jerk denials that they even exist. Imagine this sort of interaction compounded on an hourly basis and you might begin to understand his frustration.

     

    I like Shariq. Yes, he sometimes goes overboard with the hyperbole but, as with HDTGM, I think the Earwolf forums benefit from his perspective and the perspective of anyone else who doesn't meet the standard 18-34 Straight White Middle-Class Male demographic that dominates podcasting. Under the mighty Shannon's guidance, we try to maintain a welcoming community here and, compared to relentless fuckstorms like Reddit, I think we do pretty well.

     

    (Also: If the strongest opinion you hear about the black experience every day comes from Shariq, you're leading a pretty insular life.)

     

     

    Thanks, Dan for having my back and making sure the conversation keeps going and is not derailed beyond comprehension. I appreciate ya.

     

    :D

    • Like 1

  5. Posted

    Time for some serious talk. I should credit Ta-Nahesi Coates at The Atlantic for helping me come to this conclusion, but I think there's an important distinction between racism and prejudice. Racism is the system of oppressing, differentiating, and dividing people based on race that has been a part of American culture since the inception of the republic. The most obvious example is of course American slavery, but the system continued long after the 13th Amendment was ratified in the Jim Crow laws of the south and the Chicago Housing Authority's discriminatory policies, among others. We've addressed a lot of those kinds of legal issues, which is a good start, but the less obvious effect of racism is in the erroneous patterns of belief or ignorance that become part of the framework of how people think about (or perhaps, don't think about) other people of a particular color. Prejudice, by contrast, is the kind of irrational fear and hatred that we think about with the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, and less extreme things like not wanting people with different skin colors to marry. Clearly these things are related and woven together, but are subtly distinct. One of the problems of eliminating racism is that no one wants to be labeled a racist, so we can't even bring up the ways that we may be personally prejudiced which in the aggregate lead to racism. Thus, those things get pushed down, become empowered by avoiding the light of exposure to better ideas, and perpetuate the cycle. Ultimately, my belief is that colloquially, we're all a little racist, because our culture is so infected and affected by racism. If we could be more open and honest about that, and confront and defeat the ways that we are individually part of the problem, I think we'd get farther along the road of eliminating the systemic issue. I may be wrong about that, but the status quo certainly isn't working.

     

    /serious

     

    Personally, I think Lance Gross (Brice) is way hotter than Robbie Jones (Harley), but I'm a straight dude, so what do I know.

     

    Tyler Perry always seems to use the same people aka Taratino and Lance Gross is sort of like his version of Sam Jackson. I think he's an ok actor and he's real handsome, so he could do that leading man type stuff, but he's in the Perry fold.

    • Like 1

  6. Posted

    Hey Shariq where I live doesn't define me, so don't stereotype! and at least I didn't use words like butthurt and lamewangs like I usually do. You didn't really respond to the metaphorical bombs I dropped on ur noggin so I guess you admit defeat. When I listen to pcasts like Desus vs Mero I don't get pre-angry whenever a white person has laid a proverbial turd and I know they are gonna tag on them and call it like it is. when something is garbage you can call it garbage as the hosts (mostly Jason) are fond of. Nothing is off limits in the HDTGM Thunder dome. I know it may come off as racially insensitive to use shorthands for minority characters but they do that for so many characters to imply its racially charged is silly, especially since the podcast isn't even out yet. So you brought that baggage into the forum! I'm not trying to argue, I'm saying this discussion is so asinine because it's all over presumptive issues! You must trust the hosts to be smarter than that?

     

    Why is that every time we have a discussion about the social issues surrounding these bad movies, some ignorant derper comes along and cries "PC!" and compares everyone to children with "hurt" feelings? I have never seen that in any of the threads about Marvel movies vs DC movies, or the threads about the extended Street Fighter universe, or the threads about the best Mortal Kombat game. I mean if even talking about social issues is a waste of time, then all of the previous topics are HUGE waste of times -- Mortal Kombat fans aren't being denied the right to marry; unarmed DC fans aren't being gunned down by police and "neighborhood watchmen".

     

    Plus, you don't even have a good grasp on what we're talking about Florida. That's why your comment had the feeling of a canned response that you would hear on conservative talk radio.

     

    Kickpuncher, myself and others were talking about the possibilty of having a black guest for this show. Otherwise, it would be a group of white people talking about a movie that isn't really geared toward them at all. And just like when they brought in the Marvel writer and Jon Grembling (sp?) for the Daredevil and Street Fighter eps, it made it a little bit better because you had the perspective of someone who is more familiar with the source material than the gang. There insights were valuable. This could be a similar situation.

     

    I had an added reason for wanting a black guest because the gang regularly does not name black actors/actresses in the movies they do. They didn't even say Tamara Tunie's name in the Devil's Advocate ep and she's been on SVU for damn near 20 years! The only actors that were not named in the Dungeon Siege ep were the two black actors that played knights...and all of the masked goblin extras. They didn't name the actor who played Jax in Mortal Kombat but did name the actress who played Sonya -- her claim to fame being that shitty movie (though I happen to like it) and being married to Andre Agassi. It's always "the one who..." or "the black guy..." or "Blackie". I didn't think this was going to be funny because the whole podcast would be nothing but "the one who was the husband said..." and "the black guy, who I'll call Blackie, didn't want to fuck in the kitchen..." My hope was that by having a black guest on, someone would point out the actual actor/actress name and maybe even be familiar with other movies they had done before or after.

     

    But just like someone from Florida, you couldn't miss an opportunity to scream "PC!" and make Limbaugh proud.

     

    cut_off_florida.gif

  7. Posted

    Part of me does wonder if it would be a little more difficult to get an African American comedian to guest on this episode just because they might be worried that it would hurt their chances of being in a Tyler Perry produced movie in the future. I mean, even if he makes arguably bad movies there is no denying that he's got a lot of power to get stuff made. Not to say that they shouldn't try their hardest to get an African American guest, but I would understand why many would be hesitant.

     

    Ya know, I never thought about it from that perspective. A paycheck is a paycheck and if there aren't really any movies in Hollywood written for black actors/actresses, then yeah, it would be shooting yourself in the foot to go on record bashing one of the few acting opportunities you did have.

     

    It's probably why the gang has never done any Adam Sandler movies -- and he puts out some bombs (Grown Ups 2, anyone?) -- because they want to have the opportunity for a paycheck, he comes a calling.

     

    But I feel that there are some performers who are never gonna really be in the running for a Tyler Perry movie role because what they do is so far from what he does. Hannibal Buress comes to mind. As does Ron Funches. I also don't think Taneisha Long or Nicole Byer would really care about burning that bridge.

    • Like 4

  8. Posted

    This particular forum is so PC that yall are calling the hosts racist because you're thinking of all the ways they could come off racist just cause it's a Tyler Perry movie lol. I think you are all failing to understand that they watch and talk about SHIT movies with SHIT characters who don't deserve to be referred to by their character names, unless they are Chev Chelios or Hulkster. Take off ur judgmental pants and put on ur "oh this movie was awful, let's enjoy the roasting of it" pants. I mean, this movie is racist as fuck, and you're worried about characters not being treated with respect? Oh boy.

     

    I half expected a "libtard" and "Nobama" to be thrown in your rant. And yeah, it figures....Florida.

    • Like 1

  9. Posted · Edited by Shariq Torres

     

    that's because that's just not true. they always give actors and character's random names or not remember their name at all as you pointed out with "not tom skerritt" as well as tons of others in every single movie they do. hubcap and turkey sub, baby helen hunt, etc. etc. etc. if i list every one i'll be here all day.

     

    No, it is true. They said "not Tom Skerritt's" name before giving him is bad-movie nickname. They say "hubcap" and "turkey sub's" name before they give them their bad movie nickname. Compare that to the Dungeon Seige ep where the only characters they don't name are the masked goblin extras and the only two black actors.

  10. Posted

     

    100% agree with you. I took "the other one" the same way. Her character was only in the movie to be a prop for Mariah's character. She was just a friend for the sole purpose of being lost and show the audience how Mariah's character was losing her way. I did not feel that calling her "the other one" was a slam or slight against her ethnicity at all. If anything it was a slam against the writer. Kind of like, "Why should I look up this character on IMDb, when you don't make her a character worth looking up."

     

    I said this in a previous post, but--unless I am missing something--Temptation does not have anything to do with race, so I do not see how the podcast will be racially insensitive. They have no reason even to bring it up. At no point does a character in the movie say anything like, "Being a black man in America..." or anything like that. It is the one thing I probably do like about the movie. Even at its worst, it is about people, their race is inconsequential to the story. Even the old white lady at the pharmacy isn't racist, just homophobic. Which isn't better of course, but I hope you get my meaning.

     

    I guess I am saying, I don't think they should avoid talking about a crazy, fucked up movie, with TONS of horrible things happening, just because the cast is primarily Black.

     

    If anyone cares, I see Harley as "Sexy Satan," Brice as "Nerdy Jesus," and Judith as "the Incompetent Counselor."

     

    They can talk about any movie they feel like. But consistently, they do not remember or even look up the names of black actors in the movies they skewer, even ones who have been in plenty of TV shows and movies. I just don't think its going to be funny because you'll never be sure which "that one" they are talking about, its like a bunch of 2008-era John McCain's when they talk about black actors.

     

    So, there is another podcast that makes fun of movies and they look up the actor's/actress' name, and because the hosts look at a shitload of movies, they make jokes referencing other movies the actors have been in. They do this for black and white actors, so its pretty funny.

     

    I think someone before mentioned racially insensitive and it comes from the fact that you'll have four white people making fun of a movie that wasn't really marketed to them. In the same vein where they brought on a comic book writer to make fun of the Daredevil movie, Kickpuncher made a point that they could do the same with this movie -- bring in someone black to give another perspective. They would have different jokes to make about the movie that wouldn't come from the rest of regular gang and atleast you would have someone who knows the names of the players in the movie.

    • Like 2

  11. Posted

     

    But isn't that exactly Shariq's point? If a person of color isn't already famous (although calling Da Brat famous is being rather generous on my part), we don't bother to identify them in a meaningful way.

     

    I should acknowledge that Casey Wilson's decision to refer to the friend as "the other one" is most likely the consequence of a terrible storyline and absent character development, rather than any underlying prejudice (much in the same way that all the dudes in LOL are known as Shit Dick. Not because we are biased against young white males, but because those characters are interchangeable and worthless -- please refer to the massive LOL thread for more on this essential matter). Nonetheless I still felt icky when I heard "the other one" over and over.

     

    And I know I'm going to get reamed for making a fuss about this. I'm well aware that an online forum for a podcast about bad films isn't the ideal place for a discussion about language and race. And I know everybody's got social justice fatigue. HDTGM isn't YITR (though Andrew Ti would be such an awesome guest!). But similar issues do come up on this show (for example, think about all the times that the gang or a guest has pointed out the problematic portrayals of minorities in so many of the films they cover). And thus I think it's reasonable to discuss such issues on the forums.

     

    You should listen to the Devil's Advocate episode where they don't even say Tamara Tunie's name? She's been on SUV for 15 years at this point and they called her "the one that would be in a yogurt commercial". Now, that same episode they make a point to say the name of the actress who plays the secretary in the film -- an actress is who is not currently on a long-running TV show.

     

    So, I do kinda feel that this episode is not gonna be that funny, because everyone in the film -- save for Tyler Perry, if he makes an appearance -- will be called "the one who...."

  13. Posted

    Without ruining it, I'll say this: there isn't much comedy to be found in the twist ending and I hope it sparks a legit debate about how fucked up of a morality-based sociopath Tyler Perry is. His crossdressing movies are one thing, but a drama that posits the moral that this movie ends on is dangerously bigoted. I'd like Jessica Chaffin on this just to hear her and Jason potentially rip TP a new asshole.

     

    Chaffin spent the last episode she was on calling the lone black kid, "Blackie". Jason thinks that there is a distinction between regular weddings and "black" weddings. They have very little room to stand on calling something bigoted.

    • Like 1

  15. Posted

    I kinda call bullshit on this call. There is always a discussion on what photo to run of a person in regards to a story. I used to work as a reporter and whenever you run art with a story there is discussion about it -- technical and aesthetics and how the photo fits within the story. What I'm saying is that it is a conscious choice to run one photo over another; there is hardly ever a lack of choice.

     

    There is also the need to find the "right" photo that drives this shit as well. The "right" photo being whatever the angle the editors want to play up. We had a former county commissioner that was arrested for child abuse. He is slowly starting to make the news again, and the photo that is used is not his mugshot -- it's the portrait he took while in office. The news around here could have used that mugshot photo, but CHOSE not to. Apparently, his mugshot wasn't the "right" photo for the story.

     

    With Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown newsrooms across America were not satisfied with the photos provided by the family. That wasn't the "right" photo for their story. The "right" photo was a picture that made them look scary and intimidating because white people in this country are scared of black men, black women and black children. And as long as they didn't have those "scary" photos, they could be accused by Howard Kurtz of not being objective and telling both sides of the story.

    • Like 4

  16. Posted · Edited by Shariq Torres

    When Bill started talking about hitting women, I kinda wished his girlfriend was there to give him shit about that. She sometimes pops in on his Monday Morning podcast and will give him hell for his stupid ideas.

     

    But I will give Burr one thing -- he knows he's an idiot. He knows he's been wrong and is wrong on so much shit and says so. You'll never get such candid confessions from Alex Jones.

  17. Posted

     

     

    She was chosen because she was a young, cute, innocent kid in a kids movie.

     

    Southern Beasts of the Wild is not a kid's movie. Abgail Breslin was a young, cute, innocent kid in Little Miss Sunshine, yet the brilliant comedic minds at the Onion didn't write an article where they called her a cunt. It appears that the inspiration happened upon them when the cute, innocent kid was black. Because like I said before, these people think black children and sexual slurs go hand and hand.

  18. Posted

    Apu was actually one of the most developed side characters on the show. There were plenty of one note characters--Wiggum, Comic Store Guy, Otto, Superintendant Chalmers. Most side characters got zero stories that centered around them. Apu got 5 that I can think of off the top of my head, and played a significant role in more stories than that. And aside from the voice, the only thing I can think of that was really, blatantly racist was the time they went to Kwik-E-Mart headquarters, and even though they had established it as a white-run corporation at the beginning, they still had the headquarters be some stereotypical Indian yoga guy living in the mountains. Basically for one "Homer acts stupid" joke. That shit was definitely wrong. But overall I think Apu was treated fairly well, and not just an empty one-note stereotype.

     

    The "you never see his family" criticism is really weird. He's an immigrant, with a family halfway across the globe. Of course he would rarely be able to see them. He does of course have a wife and kids that we see later on in multiple episodes.

     

    And again, I think a lot of the accusations of stereotyping are unfair because they are only stereotypes BECAUSE the Simpsons did it. It wasn't really a stereotype that Indian people work at 7-11. But then Apu did, and he became Americans' sole image of people from India, and people started applying that to other India. But that's the fault of pop culture overall for not having almost no other portrayals of Indian people throughout the 90s.

     

    Now Bumblebee Man, that's a much more racist stereotype. There is no excuse for that. I also remember seeing some offensive stuff with Native Americans after season 10 when I gradually stopped watching. And I think the show has become more blatantly racist with their treatment of him in things like promoting the Simpsons movie have been gradually more and more blatantly racist. So I'm not saying The Simpsons isn't racist. I just think that, relative to the context of society at the time, he was done pretty well.

     

    No, its not really weird because Apu is not a real person. Apu is a character that was created by a room of writers. They could had him be an alien from Mars if they wanted. It is a valid criticism because many real-life actors of color become frustrated that white script writers fail to show them with love interests or even families. It's the reason why Geordi on Star Trek never got busy, but the damned robot, Data, did. It's the reason why Eddie Murphy's "love interest" in Beverly Hills Cop is a Judge Reinhold. It's the reason why Raj on Big Bang Theory still doesn't have a love interest even though the perv and the tall asshole do. Writers DECIDE on these things; they are not "natural" outgrowths of anything.

  20. Posted

    There were portrayals of Indian people living in America before that, but they were nameless cab drivers in action movies who may say, "that'll be 2.50" to the white protagonist before driving off. Out of the 20+ years that show has been on the air, there are about a handful of episodes that feature Apu in a role that is central to the story, and there is only one episode where you see Apu has family and that is the one where Homer helps him study for the immigration exam. Other than that, he's WAY in the background.

  21. Posted

    Yay, Shariq's Onion critique is back!

     

    If it was so important for the Onion's "social critique" to call a kid a cunt, then its just as important that we keep talking about it. They're not just telling jokes, man, they're holding a mirror up to society, man. Speaking truth to power like Carlin, man....

  24. Posted

    I wish this guest would be a co-host on this show. She's great!

     

    All comedians do have off limit boundaries. For example, make a joke about Robin Williams suicide and you'll get them ruffled and in a huff.

     

    One of the things I wish you'd touched upon is the "you just don't get the joke" defense that these assholes pull out all the time. The underlying meaning of that is that the audience is just too damned stupid to get the "subtleties" of their rape jokes. Like when the Onion called Quevenzhane Wallis a cunt, to the site's defenders it wasn't that people were upset that you used a sexual slur against A 7-YEAR-OLD, no, it was that they didn't properly "get" the joke -- by calling her cunt, they weren't REALLY calling her cunt, you see. Isn't that funny? No reasonable person would call a child by that name (except for the Onion), isn't that funny? Calling her cunt was making a statement about the celebrity culture that we all live in (what is that statement? Who knows? Something something Kardashians are bad???) and funniest way to do that was by calling this little girl a cunt. Because black children and sexual slurs go hand and hand, its just inherently funny, right?

     

    And it is so damned transparent this "you can make fun of us too" bullshit is just that. Just look at the death threats...fucking DEATH THREATS that a female comic fan got for making fun of a comic book cover. Apparently, those are the jokes that cross the line for white guys -- making fun of drawings. But rape? Hey, what's the big deal? Racist jokes? Hey, its ok, all of that is over now.

     

    And of course Patton Oswalt is an asshole. Of course, Marc Maron is a racist prick. Comics, especially white ones, were picked on growing up. So to feel better about themselves and their situation, they look to pick on people who are "beneath" them -- and in a society where the white male is looked at as the personification of "ideal" and "normal", that leaves women (of all colors) and people of color as the targets.

     

    All of these bastions of "nerd" power -- comics, video games, the internet -- are not welcoming spaces for anyone but other white guys. It's not some hippie commune where there is peace, love and attempts at understanding; its antagonistic at best, dehumanizing at the worst.

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