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Time to discuss racism and humour! aka how about them mildly infamous icons?
Hey, it's time to stop drawing wolf butts and variously gendered people touching each other and time to have another tl;dr chat!
Today's topic is more like a topic-train. It looks like this: Racism in fantasy works --> stereotypes in jokes --> kyriarchy and humour --> are we allowed to be funny ever?
(The answer is of course: No! No humour allowed! What did you think this was, real life or something?)
To make clear whither and whence this post: I have recently seen some icons of Sazh (dark-skinned character from Final Fantasy XIII) that I found objectionable, as did![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
heebee [here] and ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
renay [here]. The icons can be seen below this cut — I did say they are uncomfortably racist, right?:
I prefer not to name the iconmaker or link to their work, though many folks might recognize hir anyway. Rather, I want to take part in a general fandom discussion of this topic, rather than call out and dogpile a single iconmaker. I'm attempting to engage the iconmaker, not neglecting that part, but I hope to minimize the extent to which zie feels attacked in hir own space. And while I can't really tell anyone what to do, I do ask that please, no one go over there and call hir racist. That is not productive. (If that seemed self-contradictory — hey, this person did something racist and by the way don't tell hir zie's racist — please listen while the ever-awesome Jay Smooth of Ill Doctrine explains.)
If you are confused as to why these icons might be offensive, I recommend taking a look at the collection at the Authentic History Center, as well as some rebuttals of common responses to this imagery.
That said, let's try to get this party started!
Race and Racism in Fantasy Worlds
First up, a common cry: But these are fantasy worlds, they don't have our history of race and race relations there, they might not even have an idea of race! Fantasy depictions — or fanworks based on fantasy depictions — can't be racist!
The simple answer: Okay, I will grant that within a canonical world, by canonical standards, something we might take as racist/sexist/otherwise offensive is not taken as such within the context of that world.
But you know who isn't in the context of that world? You and me, buddy. And the creators of the canon. And pretty much all the consumers of that canon. So while the characters embedded in that world might not be engaging in racism by the rules of their own world, we do not have that excuse.
We who create and consume media, we live in this world, with all its sorry and glorious history. It's possible to go in circles forever around the subject of fantasy depictions and their effect on real-world issues. I would prefer not to go there; I would get dizzy. I hope we can at least agree on this: whatever the creators' intentions and whatever the rules of the fantasy world, we, because we live in our world, are justified in viewing and analyzing the fantasy through the lens of our real-world experience — the experience through which it is created and consumed.
Using Stereotypes in Jokes / Kyriarchy and Humour
Okay, so can we at least poke fun at racist stereotypes and make other plays off prejudice in an ironic way using those fantasy characters (who by the way are imaginary and can't be hurt)?
Yes and no.
The relationship between humour and kyriarchy is... pretty complicated. It's quite easy to fall into a trap here: attempt, with the best intentions, to deride things worthy of derision, and yet in making the joke end up perpetuating those same ills.
Here's the thing — when you make a joke using a stereotype, you're still using that stereotype.
In order to find the joke funny — actually, in order to even understand the joke, funny or no — we must first acknowledge the stereotype it's playing on. Enacting the stereotype also serves to normalize it.
Another point to consider: when you release a joke into the public wilds, you have very little chance of determining its audience. A very disturbing number of people might find your joke funny not in the way you meant it (ironic, poking fun at a stereotype), but for the sake of the stereotype itself.
And that's the thing: "Is X funny?" is an incomplete question. It doesn't take into account the audience. And what, exactly, are public jokes for if not audience? As such, there's a difference between private jokes and public jokes. Private jokes, in a closed and familiar audience guaranteed to understand the irony, are often ugly, dark, and cathartic. And that's just fine, because humour is an essential tool in Dealing With Shit.
However, when you can't know and guarantee your audience in advance — when your joke is public — that doesn't fly. You can't guarantee that your ironic joke isn't giving some racist/misogynist/otherwise oppressive jerk somewhere a good laugh, thinking "haha yeah them black folks, they like chicken and other cheap greasy things, lols."
And you know what? Neither can you guarantee that your audience doesn't include members of the stereotyped group who, you know, might not find any single part of that funny. (I hope this point takes care of the "imaginary characters can't be hurt" argument, because sure, they can't, but we real folks can. A lot.)
This slides over into another point: the oversensitivity/can't you take a joke defense. Kate Harding had an interesting post titled Gratitude — referring to the ridiculously disproportionate gratitude she felt at a really very slight acknowledgement of her humanity (as opposed to piece-of-meat status) by some guy. Into this post she tied a narrative regarding what it is to live as a member of an oppressed group and get that kind of nonsense, that disrespect, all the time. And then, one day, it's too much, and you speak out, you call someone out. And maybe that time, that person, didn't mean anything by it, and you end up snapping at an ally, and then they call you oversensitive and that is just kind of the icing on the cake. Because you weren't oversensitive that one time — you were drowning in an entire world, an entire life experience, and you finally said something. Please, read the post before you ever call someone oversensitive again — I've personally found it to be extremely helpful to me in just understanding people and improving my relations with them, regardless of Big Issues.
As for the "can't take a joke" defense — people, that is hella silencing technique. Hella. It's a great way to shut down the conversation, and what's worse, it's a great way to ask oppressed groups to participate in their own oppression. Liss, as ever, sums it up well:
Liss has a few more choice observations. For example, she's not against all rape jokes ever, and in fact makes rape jokes herself — but the key difference is that her jokes are for rape victims, not rapists — it's survivor humor, that instead of normalizing rape draws attention to the ubiquity of rape and rape culture. Liss also discusses humour as a coping mechanism in this context, again emphasizing the distinction between public and private jokes. Though she does have a great, concise summary of resistance humour — "Jokes that minimize the severity and ubiquity of rape (e.g. prison rape jokes) perpetuate the rape culture; jokes that underline the severity and ubiquity of rape (e.g. Wanda Sykes' detachable vagina bit) challenge the rape culture." — she still acknowledges that even then, public jokes run the risk of triggerring or otherwise adversely affecting audience members.
In short? Consider your audience. Consider your context, which audience is part of. Coming back to those icons in particular: sure, maybe in their original context, in the icon post in the maker's journal, it's pretty clear they're meant as a joke. But it's a post full of icons explicitly meant for public release and use. They are explicitly meant to lose that context, and when someone sees those icons in use, all they will see is a joke about Black people and chicken.
Are We Allowed to be Funny EVER omg
Okay, so I hope we are clear that using stereotypes as part of a joke is at least problematic and merits some serious thinkings. What in the world are we ALLOWED to make jokes about then, geez?
Black people and fried chicken, of course. Hat tip tojabbberwocky [here], who has also posted on the issue, for this one:
Again, what's the difference between that and the Sazh icons?
In the icons, the joke operates around the fact that Sazh is Black — something he has no choice in.
In Chapelle's bit, the joke is about the employee's actions — something the employee does have a choice in.
I recently read another post that discussed humor in relation to oppression, this time regarding ablism. One section discusses how to do disability humour right: the butt of the joke doesn't have to be the disability. The author provides some examples of disability humour she found both acceptable and funny, and I liked a couple of them enough to share some here, using Anna_Palindrome's summaries [she kindly wrote transcripts as well]:
I know a lot of people try to make lists of acceptable and off-limits topics for humour. I think that's a pretty fraught discussion. Liss made a pretty neat post on off-limits humour, breaking down why certain subjects are more off-limits than others. But she also makes the point that no topic is really off-limits: it's all about context. It's about your audience. It's about thinking hard about how your humour will be received, and by whom. And if necessary, it's about summoning up the creativity to make new jokes, jokes that do not perpetuate the very things we try to fight.
And back we are in a grey area, context context context. But I hope we at least have some more things to think about, and some tools to discuss this disturbing trend in fandom. It's not just a few Sazh icons — it's everywhere, in jokes about female characters, older characters, characters of colour... It's quite saddening. I'd love to discuss how this problem relates to fandom in general, or Final Fantasy fandom in particular, since we have such a fun history (see: Barrret). It's a big issue, with too little tl;dr. Open the deer pens, prepare the aquamarine paint cans! Or, you know, just drop a word or two.
A note on where to comment: I'm posting this from DW to LJ, so it's available on both services. However, I would prefer if people commented in the LJ copy, to make it easier for me to keep track of the discussion. I'm keeping commenting open on both sites, so this is just a request =)
Today's topic is more like a topic-train. It looks like this: Racism in fantasy works --> stereotypes in jokes --> kyriarchy and humour --> are we allowed to be funny ever?
(The answer is of course: No! No humour allowed! What did you think this was, real life or something?)
To make clear whither and whence this post: I have recently seen some icons of Sazh (dark-skinned character from Final Fantasy XIII) that I found objectionable, as did
heebee [here] and renay [here]. The icons can be seen below this cut — I did say they are uncomfortably racist, right?: I prefer not to name the iconmaker or link to their work, though many folks might recognize hir anyway. Rather, I want to take part in a general fandom discussion of this topic, rather than call out and dogpile a single iconmaker. I'm attempting to engage the iconmaker, not neglecting that part, but I hope to minimize the extent to which zie feels attacked in hir own space. And while I can't really tell anyone what to do, I do ask that please, no one go over there and call hir racist. That is not productive. (If that seemed self-contradictory — hey, this person did something racist and by the way don't tell hir zie's racist — please listen while the ever-awesome Jay Smooth of Ill Doctrine explains.)
If you are confused as to why these icons might be offensive, I recommend taking a look at the collection at the Authentic History Center, as well as some rebuttals of common responses to this imagery.
That said, let's try to get this party started!
Race and Racism in Fantasy Worlds
First up, a common cry: But these are fantasy worlds, they don't have our history of race and race relations there, they might not even have an idea of race! Fantasy depictions — or fanworks based on fantasy depictions — can't be racist!
The simple answer: Okay, I will grant that within a canonical world, by canonical standards, something we might take as racist/sexist/otherwise offensive is not taken as such within the context of that world.
But you know who isn't in the context of that world? You and me, buddy. And the creators of the canon. And pretty much all the consumers of that canon. So while the characters embedded in that world might not be engaging in racism by the rules of their own world, we do not have that excuse.
We who create and consume media, we live in this world, with all its sorry and glorious history. It's possible to go in circles forever around the subject of fantasy depictions and their effect on real-world issues. I would prefer not to go there; I would get dizzy. I hope we can at least agree on this: whatever the creators' intentions and whatever the rules of the fantasy world, we, because we live in our world, are justified in viewing and analyzing the fantasy through the lens of our real-world experience — the experience through which it is created and consumed.
Using Stereotypes in Jokes / Kyriarchy and Humour
Okay, so can we at least poke fun at racist stereotypes and make other plays off prejudice in an ironic way using those fantasy characters (who by the way are imaginary and can't be hurt)?
Yes and no.
The relationship between humour and kyriarchy is... pretty complicated. It's quite easy to fall into a trap here: attempt, with the best intentions, to deride things worthy of derision, and yet in making the joke end up perpetuating those same ills.
Here's the thing — when you make a joke using a stereotype, you're still using that stereotype.
In order to find the joke funny — actually, in order to even understand the joke, funny or no — we must first acknowledge the stereotype it's playing on. Enacting the stereotype also serves to normalize it.
Another point to consider: when you release a joke into the public wilds, you have very little chance of determining its audience. A very disturbing number of people might find your joke funny not in the way you meant it (ironic, poking fun at a stereotype), but for the sake of the stereotype itself.
And that's the thing: "Is X funny?" is an incomplete question. It doesn't take into account the audience. And what, exactly, are public jokes for if not audience? As such, there's a difference between private jokes and public jokes. Private jokes, in a closed and familiar audience guaranteed to understand the irony, are often ugly, dark, and cathartic. And that's just fine, because humour is an essential tool in Dealing With Shit.
However, when you can't know and guarantee your audience in advance — when your joke is public — that doesn't fly. You can't guarantee that your ironic joke isn't giving some racist/misogynist/otherwise oppressive jerk somewhere a good laugh, thinking "haha yeah them black folks, they like chicken and other cheap greasy things, lols."
And you know what? Neither can you guarantee that your audience doesn't include members of the stereotyped group who, you know, might not find any single part of that funny. (I hope this point takes care of the "imaginary characters can't be hurt" argument, because sure, they can't, but we real folks can. A lot.)
This slides over into another point: the oversensitivity/can't you take a joke defense. Kate Harding had an interesting post titled Gratitude — referring to the ridiculously disproportionate gratitude she felt at a really very slight acknowledgement of her humanity (as opposed to piece-of-meat status) by some guy. Into this post she tied a narrative regarding what it is to live as a member of an oppressed group and get that kind of nonsense, that disrespect, all the time. And then, one day, it's too much, and you speak out, you call someone out. And maybe that time, that person, didn't mean anything by it, and you end up snapping at an ally, and then they call you oversensitive and that is just kind of the icing on the cake. Because you weren't oversensitive that one time — you were drowning in an entire world, an entire life experience, and you finally said something. Please, read the post before you ever call someone oversensitive again — I've personally found it to be extremely helpful to me in just understanding people and improving my relations with them, regardless of Big Issues.
As for the "can't take a joke" defense — people, that is hella silencing technique. Hella. It's a great way to shut down the conversation, and what's worse, it's a great way to ask oppressed groups to participate in their own oppression. Liss, as ever, sums it up well:
It's a terribly effective silencing strategy, which is why the conveyance of patriarchal norms is so often closely associated with humor. Anyone who dares complain is just No Fun—hence, we find ourselves mired in a culture in which women who don't laugh at seeing parts of their body routinely used as demeaning gags, and the men who are disgusted by such objectification of people they're meant to love and respect, are the ones considered weird.
[...]
"Geez, can't you take a joke?" That's all it takes—the implication that the woman who objects to public expressions of misogyny, who doesn't find funny the means of her own subjugation, or doesn't find amusing being triggered by careless "jokes" about a brutal event she has experienced, is humorless. Uncool. Oversensitive. Weak. (As though standing up to bigotry is the easy way out, and laughing along is somehow strong.)
Humor that exhorts its targets to participate is even more insidious[...]
[source]
Liss has a few more choice observations. For example, she's not against all rape jokes ever, and in fact makes rape jokes herself — but the key difference is that her jokes are for rape victims, not rapists — it's survivor humor, that instead of normalizing rape draws attention to the ubiquity of rape and rape culture. Liss also discusses humour as a coping mechanism in this context, again emphasizing the distinction between public and private jokes. Though she does have a great, concise summary of resistance humour — "Jokes that minimize the severity and ubiquity of rape (e.g. prison rape jokes) perpetuate the rape culture; jokes that underline the severity and ubiquity of rape (e.g. Wanda Sykes' detachable vagina bit) challenge the rape culture." — she still acknowledges that even then, public jokes run the risk of triggerring or otherwise adversely affecting audience members.
In short? Consider your audience. Consider your context, which audience is part of. Coming back to those icons in particular: sure, maybe in their original context, in the icon post in the maker's journal, it's pretty clear they're meant as a joke. But it's a post full of icons explicitly meant for public release and use. They are explicitly meant to lose that context, and when someone sees those icons in use, all they will see is a joke about Black people and chicken.
Are We Allowed to be Funny EVER omg
Okay, so I hope we are clear that using stereotypes as part of a joke is at least problematic and merits some serious thinkings. What in the world are we ALLOWED to make jokes about then, geez?
Black people and fried chicken, of course. Hat tip to
jabbberwocky [here], who has also posted on the issue, for this one:Dave Chappelle: Chicken | TranscriptCheck it out, dude is being funny, and he's talking about chicken. What's the difference? Well, what exactly is funny about this situation? It's the employee's reaction — Dave Chappelle is making fun of the employee's actions after being called out.
Again, what's the difference between that and the Sazh icons?
In the icons, the joke operates around the fact that Sazh is Black — something he has no choice in.
In Chapelle's bit, the joke is about the employee's actions — something the employee does have a choice in.
I recently read another post that discussed humor in relation to oppression, this time regarding ablism. One section discusses how to do disability humour right: the butt of the joke doesn't have to be the disability. The author provides some examples of disability humour she found both acceptable and funny, and I liked a couple of them enough to share some here, using Anna_Palindrome's summaries [she kindly wrote transcripts as well]:
How clueless people can be about blindnessIn these strips, the jokes center around people's actions, not their states.
Getting a bad 'terp (featuring a deaf character)
I know a lot of people try to make lists of acceptable and off-limits topics for humour. I think that's a pretty fraught discussion. Liss made a pretty neat post on off-limits humour, breaking down why certain subjects are more off-limits than others. But she also makes the point that no topic is really off-limits: it's all about context. It's about your audience. It's about thinking hard about how your humour will be received, and by whom. And if necessary, it's about summoning up the creativity to make new jokes, jokes that do not perpetuate the very things we try to fight.
And back we are in a grey area, context context context. But I hope we at least have some more things to think about, and some tools to discuss this disturbing trend in fandom. It's not just a few Sazh icons — it's everywhere, in jokes about female characters, older characters, characters of colour... It's quite saddening. I'd love to discuss how this problem relates to fandom in general, or Final Fantasy fandom in particular, since we have such a fun history (see: Barrret). It's a big issue, with too little tl;dr. Open the deer pens, prepare the aquamarine paint cans! Or, you know, just drop a word or two.
A note on where to comment: I'm posting this from DW to LJ, so it's available on both services. However, I would prefer if people commented in the LJ copy, to make it easier for me to keep track of the discussion. I'm keeping commenting open on both sites, so this is just a request =)
Transcript of Dave Chappelle: Chicken
That happened to me, I was— I was in Missippi [referring to the title this time, I think]. I was in Missipi, doing this show, and I go to a restaraunt to order some food, and uh, I say to the guy, I say, "I would like to have..." [thoughtful menu-browsing face] and before I even finish my sentence he says "The CHICKEN!" [mimicks accent, eyes wide, mimes the employee pointing his index finger in certainty].
What— the fuck? [looks around at audience in consternation, laughter.]
I could not believe it. I could not believe that shit. This man was absolutely right [hand gestures emphasize the man's rightness]. I thought, "How did he know [audience claps, laughter] that I was gonna get some chicken?"
I asked him, I said, "How did you know that? How d'you know I was gonna get some chicken?"
He looked at me like I was crazy. "Come on buddy. [On repeat, he mimicks a local accents, and the accent thickens as he continues to quote the guy.] Come on buddy. Everybody knew soon as you walked through the goddamn door: you were gonna get some chicken. [Audience laughter] It is no secret down here that Black [pause] and chicken [pause] are quite fond of one another." [Audience laughter, claps.]
Then I finally understood what he was saying, and I got upset. I wasn't even mad, I was just upset. [Enunciates] I wasn't ready to hear that shit.
All these years I thought I liked chicken cause it was delicious. Turns out I'm genetically predisposed to like chicken! Cause I'm Black! [Lots of audience clapping, laughter]. I got not say in the matter! That guy ruined chicken for me, now I'm scared to eat it in public, I don't want— I don't want someone to see me and say something— you know, I'll be some chicken [pretends his microphone is a tasty drumstick, mimes munching on it, snarfing noises.]
[Mimics another guy staring at Dave's chicken-eating self, waving over others to come and stare also, and point. Audience laughs Speaks in a very deep voice — perhaps as though miming an announcer on a nature show, commenting on the animals on display.] Lllooook at him! He loves it. [Done with deep voice, audience laughs, back to casual irony.] Just like it said in the encyclopedia. Look how happy he looks.
[Again mimes himself eating microphone-chicken, eying sidelong his imaginary onlookers. He turns/scoots away a little protecting his chicken, and continues munching. Laughter, clapping.]
Re: Transcript of Dave Chappelle: Chicken
Re: Transcript of Dave Chappelle: Chicken
Transcript of Dave Chappelle: Chicken [slightly edited for fewer embarrasing typos]
That happened to me, I was— I was in Missippi [referring to the title this time, I think]. I was in Missipi, doing this show, and I go to a restaurant to order some food, and uh, I say to the guy, I say, "I would like to have..." [thoughtful menu-browsing face] and before I even finish my sentence he says "The CHICKEN!" [mimicks accent, eyes wide, a mimes the employee pointing his index finger in certainty].
What— the fuck? [looks around at audience in consternation, laughter.]
I could not believe it. I could not believe that shit. This man was absolutely right [hand gestures emphasize the man's rightness]. I thought, "How did he know [audience claps, laughter] that I was gonna get some chicken?"
I asked him, I said, "How did you know that? How d'you know I was gonna have some chicken?"
He looked at me like I was crazy. "Come on buddy. [On repeat, he mimicks a local accent, and the accent thickens as he continues to quote the guy.] Come on buddy. Everybody knew soon as you walked through the goddamn door: you were gonna get some chicken. [Audience laughter] It is no secret down here that Black [pause] and chicken [pause] are quite fond of one another." [Audience laughter, claps.]
Then I finally understood what he was saying, and I got upset. I wasn't even mad, I was just upset. [Enunciates] I wasn't ready to hear that shit.
All these years I thought I liked chicken cause it was delicious. Turns out I'm genetically predisposed to like chicken! Cause I'm Black! [Lots of audience clapping, laughter]. I got not say in the matter! That guy ruined chicken for me, now I'm scared to eat it in public, I don't want— I don't want someone to see me and say something— you know, I'll be some chicken [pretends his microphone is a tasty drumstick, mimes munching on it, snarfing noises.]
[Mimics another guy staring at Dave's chicken-eating self, waving over others to come and stare also, and point. Audience laughs Speaks in a very deep voice, as if an announcer on a nature zoo, describing animal habits at a zoo.] Lllooook at him! He loves it. [Done with deep voice, audience laughs, back to casual irony.] Just like it said in the encyclopedia. Look how happy he looks.
[Again mimes himself eating microphone-chicken, eying sidelong his imaginary onlookers. He turns/scoots away a little protecting his chicken, and continues munching. Laughter, clapping.]