With Imus being fired for an off the cuff, racially insensitive remark I once again get alarmed at the continued death of free speech. If you've listened to the transcripts of his show that morning concerning the Rutger's women team, he just made a poor mistake in words. Now, I'm no fan of Don Imus but hasn't Howard Stern or for that matter other radio celebrities said worse things with malicious intention? Also, how does Al Sharpton get to call himself a "Reverend"? Shouldn't that imply some form of forgiveness and willingness to accept a way to seek redemption? Yet, he goes on a holier than thou crusade to influence the firing of Imus from not only his televised MSNBC show, but from radio via CBS. Apparently, the good "reverend" has forgotten that Imus has a ranch for terminally ill children with his wife. Finally, why does Imus get fired, yet Rosie can continue on air even after this?
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I think there is a worse loss than the loss of free speech. I think we're losing the ability to make mistakes. You look at Mel, Micheal Richards, and Imus. None of them to my knowledge(which is very limited) had a history of making racist remarks publicly. They make what I would call a mistake and they are forever marked by it. I also fear we are losing the ability to apologize for those mistakes. You look at the last 3 celebrity racist incidents and it's carzy the lengths they have to go to redeem themselves in the eyes of offended race. A public apology isn't enough, a meeting with "leaders" isn't enough. At some point, people have to be gracious enough to just accept an apology since time travel isn't an option.
Perhaps the cheese has mentioned this before, with the racist "dragonoly" expert guy, but the cheese agrees with suavo. Except that, in the case of Imus, he's been doing crap like this for YEARS. If CBS really wanted to ax him over semi-racist comments, they should have done so years ago, not when there was a media uproar. Honestly, the cheese would have been happier if the "nappy headed ho" comment would have been backed by CBS with some sort of statement like "Imus is a comedic personality on air to purposefully incite feelings." It would have shown balls on the part of CBS, and simultaneously made the point that Imus on-air persona is just that, a persona (as opposed, to say the Mel Gibson incident that was a drunken tirade, which can be seen as alcohol influenced, or his real feelings only let out thanks to the alcohol, but that's another matter).
The cheese and momma_cheese saw George Carlin last week and he told two successive jokes about a father molesting a young daughter and three family members engaging in incest. Would anyone rush out to condemn Carlin as a molester or part of an incestuous relationship? Of course not. Now racist remarks and jokes about rape ARE different, but the cheese is willing to bet that even if Carlin were to make a joke about "nappy headed hos" he wouldn't get near the backlash Imus got. The cheese thinks there are many reasons for this, but the first (and maybe most important) is that if Carlin told it, it would be funny.H
Think it's a meaningless point? Consider a joke from David Cross' first album. It goes like this. Cross finishes up a long diatribe on some unrelated issue, takes a pause and then says..."OK, but you know what really bothers me (slight pause) is (longer pause) niggers." Now that's funny. In part because anyone even remotely familiar with Cross knows him to be the furthest thing from a racist (which Imus can't say), but also because IT"S JUST FUNNY. It has the perfect turn on expectations that makes a joke work. It was probably possible for Imus to make a joke about what the Rutgers women looked like, and make it funny, but an old, wrinkled white guy (who wears a cowboy hat) saying "nappy headed hos" isn't funny so much as sad. If he'd have a made a funny joke, the cheese is willing to bet much of the furor would have never started. And the cheese really believes Imus didn't mean what he said, but he didn't tell it in a funny way. And Tengu, don't worry, Rosie won't be on long because, again SHE'S NOT FUNNY! Look, if Chris Rock weren't funny, he'd just be horribly offensive to me, a whiter-than-bread white guy, but he's not because he tells good jokes.
Now, back to the point suavo made, it certainly is CBS right to drop Imus for any reason, but again, it's not like this was new. The cheese would just like to see a little consistency. If you supported his psuedo-racist remarks last month, why not this month? Yeah, it's a business deal, they saw a hit in profits, blah, blah, blah, but 5 bucks says Imus is back on the air (somewhere) within the next year. He has a fan base, and most "advertisers" don't really care where they advertise so much as if that revenue is hitting key demographics.
As for jezmon's comment about losing the ability to apologize. The cheese certainly understands where jezmon is coming from, but the issue seems more complicated. Again, with Mel, he had previously said some remarks that could be construed as anit-semitic in various interviews over the years, so he kinda shoulda been put through the ringer. Michael Richards....well, who the fuck knows....But anyway, people do make mistakes, of course, celebrities might be hit hard when they fuck up, but most come through alright in the end (again, 5 bucks says that if they made another Lethal Weapon 5, Mel'd be OK in the box office dept.) because people DO like to see celebrities redeem themselves. How many times you think Brittney Spears is going to go to rehab? Yeah, right addiction and racism, different. But still, we love to see contrite stars all "healed up" after whatever it was they did to get in the shit. But the ridiculousness of the apologies isn't so much, the cheese thinks, over the uproar so much as a pr thing. The further you go to prove you're sorry, the more sorry you must be. And sure, guys like Sharpton don't help. He, appartantly, had his "funny receptors" removed at an early age. And in some way, he seems to be as addicted to media attention as those he vilifies.
And Tengu, of course you were upset about what Rosie said because you're Asian (and, ya know, like Imus she's done her own charity work). But it's interesting that hardly ever do we see backlash against comments made about white people. Yes, historically whites have had the power (at least in this country) so comments might affect us very little. But wasn't the whole point of Political Correctness (and, as an aside, it hasn't all been bad, calling a person of African descent who is an American citizen an African-American just makes sense, doesn't it?) to be equally considerate to everyone, regardless of who/what/where they are.
All in all the cheese thinks his Racist Broadcasting System is still the answer. Of course, we all know that will never happen, but we can dream....
I'm just going to come out and say it. In the spirit of say things you believe, "Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are media whores." That, I think, is what is at the heart of the whole Imus vs Rosie issue. Anytime any thing that could be construed as an offense to any/all african-americans anywhere occurs, one or both of them have to have their face in the news "rallying the troops for war." That's difference between this and other incidents on imus's show. Add to it the fact that we are in the beginnings of the primary season and you have the perfect recipe for a media hoopla.
If there was an Asian equivalent to Al and Jesse, more would have been made of Rosie's comments.
Well, there are Asian equivalents to Al and Jessie, in that there are plenty of Asian activists working to eliminate bias against Asians. Of course, as you say, said activists aren't media whores.
There is something to be said for using media as a weapon against the war on racism/stupidity, though. Where would MLK or Cesar Chavez have been without it, for example?
But, again, part of the difference between Rosie and Imus is, Imus has a history of saying racially insensitive things (particularly about blacks), whereas Rosie doesn't have the same type of history in reference to Asians.
Again, not making a judgment, here. But the backlash against Imus is more understandable from a historical perspective, even though, as the cheese said before, it's really kinda retarded.
Though your point about the upcoming election is particularly salient, the cheese thinks. Maybe Al's going to make another futile attempt at the Democratic nomination and he needs to "fuel the fire" so to speak.
In some ways, though, this is mildly reminiscent of when Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect was pulled off because he was openly skeptical of Bush/the war.
At the time ABC claimed it was ratings (though the show was actually beating Letterman and Leno is something like 8 of the 10 largest markets in the country), but really, they wanted to cut bait on a controversial show and throw that advertising space to something more "corporate" friendly (which, oddly, is now Jimmy Kimmel) even though more people were actually watching PI.
When it comes down to it, really, there's a lot that factors into something like this. Does the cheese think were worse off without Imus, no. Does the cheese think he should have been fired, no. Does the cheese even like Imus, no.
But, like the cheese said, you'll see Imus back (maybe not syndicated, thanks to over concentration in media companies), but he'll be back.
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