The Big Picture: Correctitude

[gphjr14]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF1NUposXVQ

I completely disagree with you on this one Bob. what you are asking for is tantamount to censorship. Who gets to decide what is within reasonable limits of politeness? You? Our mother? Muslims?

He's not saying you can't say what you want, he's saying if you say something knowing its fucked up with the full intent to offend, and someone calls you out on it your retort shouldn't be "Oh get off your high horse and stop trying to be politically correct"

Its usually children (not saying you) that live in a world where their words don't hold weight. Its usually a stance that comes from people who don't have anyone to hold them accountable because nothing is expected of them yet/ at all. How you communicate and express your ideas has a profound effect on how far you go in life.

And Dunham never was funny, the fact he got a show only marks the further decline of Comedy Central and American television in general. The politically incorrect comedians you mentioned are funny them plus Dave Chappelle and Ralphie May.

 

[Squeaky]

I would agree with most of what you said but luckly i live in england and we insult any and everyone and hopefully they give as good as they take as i find making jokes like that ,aslong as you dont believe in what your saying can make for some funny conversations (with the ethnicty your making jokes at and aslong as they arnt the type to take it seriously).

 

[Donbett1974]

I like how P.C. fighters where Democrats but the Republicans where jerks. Someones bias is showing.

Not really, saying that Republicans were against PC is just correct. Hell they also made up some PC boogeymen that still exists. Take the "War on Christmas"

Well take the Grey Anatomy actor calling co-star a ******. He should never been fired because he didn't say as a representative of the show when he said it. Or South Park Allah controversy. P.C. is real.

 

[Throwitawaynow]

Completely wrong, but w/e. The one god they chose for the Thor movie to be black was, "The White God." by description. PC has gone so far out of control that anytime a black and white person is shown together it's called racist. Look at the pepsi max commercial and the black congresswoman's speech. Here's a big picture, you don't see it Bob.

 

[EscapingReality]

anc[is]Carlos and Jeff are really funny :'(

please don't quote me just to tell me they're not, waste of everyones time

They really are... I like the Achmed skit, it works on the international cohorts that sit on the sidelines while the US dukes it out with half the planet.

 

[Nosense]

Man every new video in this series is just as good as the last!

 

[Shjade]

No, it isn't. Political correctness softens "offensive" terms into more palatable ones.

Would it have offended anyone anyone if Superman was played by a white male? Probably not. Therefore, casting Ving Rhames as Superman is not political correctness as it's not softening any potentially offensive item into something more socially acceptable. There was no offensive item in the first place.

It's something completely different.

Which is?...

Stupidity would be my guess.

Thank you!

Pretty much, yeah. Note that stupidity != political correctness, and vice versa. They CAN be the same thing (in that there have been instances of stupid application of political correctness), but they don't mean the same thing.

Race/class/politics/religion-related stupidity does not automatically relate to political correctness. It's often just something dumb that happens to involve the aforementioned topics, like obvious (from the point of view of audiences or fans, at least) poor casting choices.

Maybe another example will help, and hopefully I don't screw this up - hey, I'm not perfect: casting Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury (and for the sake of argument let's say Ultimate Nick Fury doesn't exist in this example) is just a casting choice, not political correctness. Censoring his dialogue including racial epithets for certain minorities and re-dubbing it in the TV release of the Avengers movie to use more neutral descriptive terms (or just writing the script to be "softer" in its forms of address and insults in the first place) is political correctness in action. Whether or not it's a good thing is subjective.

 

[Zoroastres]

Geh.

Now I really feel like watching "The Jerk."

Shame I don't have the time this week.

Damn you, Bob, damn you!

 

[MightyBobzilla]

nice to see you getting this "involved" with the show, i mean that completely sincerely as your obvious drive behind this particular episode made it much more enjoyable and informative to watch.
I would however like to make two..ammendments to the show. One a minor gripe, the other a little bit more meaningful.
1. the controvery surrounding RE5 didn't come out in one big go. first we found out that it was in Africa (now i should have seen it coming but..) at that time i was on the "why is this in itself a problem" side. Then we found out about the tribal zombies then the alternate costume and then, well, then we got the big picture that was the final release. egg was on my face for defending the game in the first place at this point.

2.Racial differentiation is obviously something to strive for in tv,movies, and games, when said racial apperances are applicable. For example please no one off asian characters in a show about life as an ancient viking. But the main problem i have with something trying to emulate "PC" is the well known phenomenom know as the token black guy. For those unaware, the token black guy is a terrible atempt, normally made in the final draft of something that shoves in a single character of racial diversity to try and not piss people off. It's these sorts of times when overaching rules of PC don't seem to work.

 

[Escapefromwhatever]

I have a friend who is not into gaming and who did not know the Escapist existed before today link to this on her Facebook because a friend told her about it. Bob is like Nintendo- he broadens the audience. =)

 

[jthwilliams]

Nice to see a Big Picture on a "Big Picture" issue per se. Go Bob Go.

 

[Hyperguyver]

Wasn't expecting something so...angry. I must say though, you're pretty much spot on Bob. Political Correctness itself wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but the backlash and perverting of it is. Kinda like 'liberal' became a bad word over the last few years. Although, Carlos Mencia isn't funny because he's a bit of a hack, not because he's mean. He has his moments, and I'm sure some of those moments are actually his, and for his part the "mean-ness" does point out that differences can be embraced and not shyed away from. It has all been done before by Pryor, Carlin, etc. And it was done better. And Dunham, it is pretty obvious he just uses the puppets as an excuse to be an out and out racist.

Once again, I love the thought provoking stuff.

 

[Hyperguyver]

Geh.

Now I really feel like watching "The Jerk."

Shame I don't have the time this week.

Damn you, Bob, damn you!

I always feel like watching "The Jerk". I have to stop and watch every time it's on. "He hates these cans!!" HA!

 

[Denamic]

PC is shit when enforced and taken to extremes.
It's tantamount to social censorship.
Being polite and/or 'sensitive' should be optional, not imposed.

 

[Boba Frag]

Whoah! Much anger I sense in you, Bob!!

Righteous, totally justified anger, I might add. One of your best yet, I might add. The idea of politically correct isn't something I've really devoted much though to, to be brutally honest. It was always a rather vague, fuzzy concept on the margins of discussion for me.

Glad to hear it's rather simple and as easy as being courteous to different groups/ people from different backgrounds to me etc.

Loved the panning of the Fox network .... (remembers to be nice about them) morons.

That was me being nice about Glen Beck.

Never played that Resident Evil game... Kinda glad I haven't...

Keep 'em coming, Bob!

 

[MrGone86]

First of all, it frequently goes way too fucking far to demonize something for no reason. Why is it now that it's politically incorrect to refer to a black person as black? "African American" doesn't always fit because black people aren't always from Africa or American. "Minorities" I find to sound extremely condescending and personally if I were black I would find it way more offensive than "black." What was wrong with black? Pretty much the only thing that sets them apart from white people is the color of their skin, so when referring to the difference in skin tone wouldn't it make sense to use a color? Everyone was fine with it until it just randomly got deemed as politically incorrect one day and suddenly for some reason it's tabuu to say it.

I refuse to refer to black people as a whole as "African American." I realized how meaningless the term is when, more than once, and from different people, I started hearing the phrase "Egyptian American." Now the phrase just annoys me in general for a lot of reasons.

 

[Laughing Phoenix]

It always strikes me as terribly funny when people complain about minorities bullying the everyone else by voicing their opinions when they hear something hurtful. Sorry, it's hard to play the misunderstood rebel card when you are in the overwhelming friggin' majority.

 

[leviadragon99]

Well-said sir, I grow weary of running into such tactics myself...

 

[elvor0]

It always strikes me as terribly funny when people complain about minorities bullying the everyone else by voicing their opinions when they hear something hurtful. Sorry, it's hard to play the misunderstood rebel card when you are in the overwhelming friggin' majority.

The thing is it's usually not the minorities complaining, it's the people in charge that are complaining on their behalf because one of them may be offended, and in the cases where people cry "PC gone mad" its usually because no one in the minority actually cares or isn't offended in the slightest.