Look, I’ve been hearing a bit of right-side OUTRAGE over Jamie Foxx’s opening monologue as host of SNL the other night, so let me take a moment to address it here: First, foremost, Jamie Foxx was hosting SNL. And SNL, whether you find it funny or not, is an adult comedy / variety show, one that has always trafficked in political and cultural humor, much of it in the service of the left wing political narrative and much of it aiming at an edginess it has often failed to reach (but also often hit upon quite effectively).
So what?
Jamie Foxx — and the SNL writers who likely aided him in crafting monologue — were constructing the gag for those ill-informed, wannabe-cosmopolitan viewers who take their serious news from PBS or MSNBC or the “Daily Show”; they were hoping to please the target audience and gain its approval by way of signaling a bit of confirmation bias — namely, that the hipper white folk can appreciate the growing cultural empowerment of the celebrity black culture, and an ostentatious and pseudo-aggressive show thereof.
And then there’s always the chance that even that was done ironically, poking a bit of inside fun at those hipster liberals who think they are as hip as the writers themselves for having “understood” the joke.
Too — and importantly to them — they were aiming for a second (or even third)-order joke, specifically, the vocal OUTRAGE of supposedly square white wingnuts who have since grown indignant over the Foxx monologue. This is the part of the joke that is aimed at you.
Why take the bait?
As with the (failed, lazy) Letterman joke years back that inadvertently targeted the wrong daughter, there’s nothing here but a bit of silly cultural bluster aimed at making faux-intellectuals on the left feel superior to the hidebound “racist” right-wingers who actually take Foxx’s black nationalism seriously.
If you want to take offense at race baiting — and God knows I do — there’s plenty of real and dangerous race baiting happening with the often open support of our current regime and its “post-racial” President.
Jamie Foxx is irrelevant. And besides: anybody who knows spaghetti westerns knows Django is actually white, anyway. Here, he’s just Shaft in a cowboy hat.
How black is that?
Like you say, it’s SNL. What do people expect anyway? Jamie Foxx was never very funny on “In Living Color” why should he change now?
Except for “Sukiyaki Django”, where he’s Japanese.
I don’t know, I thought Wanda was one of the funniest characters ever.
Wanda was pretty funny. I hated it when he used to sing, though.
And he ugly. Or at least he isn’t pretty like Daman Wayans.
I’ve been ignoring him since I realized he’s not related to Redd Foxx. Of course, I ignored him before that…
Franco Nero is Django. Like Walter Matthau is Buttermaker and Chris Barnes is Tanner Boyle.
All us need shut up and go away.
i love tarantino more than butterscotch puddin
No, Walter Matthau is Miles Kendig / James Butler / Mr. Hannaway / Leonard Ross. And sometimes Lt. Zachary Garber.
Outrage is a weapon.
Keep ya powder dry.
Even knowing that I was supposed to be offended, I had a hard time picking out the offensive line.
Nuthin’ wrong with that monologue, outrage-wise.
Besides, he’s right about Obama’s white-girl dance moves. He dances whiter than I do.
Obama does? He has the white man’s overbite when he dances.
I still can’t remember the last time I cared what Jamie Foxx had to say.
I think I may not see this movie. I didn’t watch Inglorious Basterds either. That’s on you Jamie. Try not to shit where you eat next time.
Probably around the last time you paid any attention to Morgan Freeman.
I’d be more worried about Quentin Tarantino turning out another wordy piece of shit that upsets all the conventions of the genre in completely conventional ways.
Like Inglorious Basterds
Morgan Freeman made good sense once. That was before the Coming of The Messiah, though.
“That man is Carson Dyle!”
Well since the 70’s are happening again we should have a blaxploitation conan movie next.
Jason Momoa too white for you?
“I’m going to kill a bunch of people you don’t like!” The principled thing to do is never laugh at that joke, even if they’re pandering to your bias.
Unless they find a way to actually make that funny. But so far, the “Obama as a black thug” meme can’t get past him flopping around on the Ellen show.
“Jason Momoa too white for you?”
He’s too “sucks” for me. Or maybe the movie sucked in general. Even Ron Perlman sucked in that. And Rose what’s her face Mcgoo. Rachel Nichols was alright I guess. Or maybe not. I no longer remember.
I even liked Battleship more than the recent Conan movie.
How did Jason Momoa get the Conan role anyway? Were they like “He was so good in “Stargate Atlantis!” or something?
Then again Conan is sort of like Dracula, Frankenstain, Tarzan, and Sherlock Holmes in that step one is throw the book/stories away and just do something else with a superficially similar character.
Frankenstain -> Frankenstein.
But I like Frankenstain better. Makes me think of Minnesota for some reason.
Not going to get outraged. However, Foxx’s comments in Vibe magazine make it sound like seeing life through a racial lens must be absolutely exhausting:
That’s Franc-en-Steen!
When Foxx called Obama his Lord and Savior the other night at some awards show, I knew he’s just another booger eat’in moron, so I made a bet a la Caddyshack on when he’ll eat the next. I picked the 25th, so I lost. Damn it.
“How did Jason Momoa get the Conan role anyway?”
Uh, have you seen him in the Conan costume? Yum
Stephen Lang was good.
Good things come in threes? First on SNL, Garrett Morris sang “Gonna Get Me a Shotgun and Kill All the Whitey’s I See,” second when Eddie Murphy sang “Until We Kill the White People,” and now Jamie Foxx. Garrett’s was best, followed by Eddie and then Jamie, IMHO.
I guess I’m not smart enough not to like Inglorious Basterds.
Libby, I wonder what he’d say if the Ritz & cheese places told him, “Shut up and like it. Everybody knows you’re too rich to be black anymore anyway.”
I forgot that bit of Murphy’s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClLWcQ6W6NU
Kill the white people, but buy my record first. lol.
McGhee – That would probably freak him out & yet totally confirm his suspicions that, yes, people most certainly are sending him subtle messages of disrespect via snack food.
I’ve decided the Jamie Foxxes and Morgan Freemans are really more afraid of being judged “inauthentic” by other blacks than anything from white people.
Garrett Morris to the white courtesy phone…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGBw8jS3sMw
I more or less enjoyed the first three acts.
My problem with the movie is that it’s a bunch of poorly connected dialogue set-pieces strung together with over the top action sequences.
I thought it worked in Kill Bill. In Basterds it didn’t.
I loved Kill Bill. I liked Inglorious Basterds.
Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs? Loved them.
Quentin got too full of himself later on.
I liked hearing Dimitri Tiomkin
More a From Dusk Till Dawn fan, myself.
What? You mean Tarantino’s role wasn’t autobiographical?
“Uh, have you seen him in the Conan costume? Yum”
Okay then. Let him ride a purple unicorn and give him a big ol’ case of the sparkles then. My mistake.
“Okay then. Let him ride a purple unicorn and give him a big ol’ case of the sparkles then. My mistake.”
Alright that’s not fair.
I forgot about the success of the whole Rome/Spartacus ‘rock n’ roll slow-mo throat slitting punctuated by five second topless sex scenes with a soap opera on the side’ formula.
“Let him ride a purple unicorn…”
Yeah, yeah, but can’t we just appreciate that they deviated from the current trend of casting some slight, pretty boy actor (who is barely 5’10” in lifts) to play the role of a barbarian?
True Romance was my favorite Tarantino collaboration
Speaking of OUTRAGEOUS OUTRAGE, Velociman strikes the right pose:
Why is no one ever mentions Tarantino’s best film: Jackie Brown?
Great Tarantino-dialogue, mature plot, and it was a first: a really well-made blaxploitation movie.
Why is it…. -apologies.
Probably because I forgot all about it. I agree, that was a great movie.
I’m sure that all of Conan’s opponents were so smitten by his yumminess that he was able to just sword their asses all over the place.
Probably that idea
will behas already been stolen by the gay porn industry.How about David Alan Grier’s poetic reply:
“I call this one ‘YOU BEST JUMP BACK OUT MY FACE, YOU STINKY BUM’…”