Posts Tagged ‘Wayans Brothers’
3 items.
As you may have noticed, there hasn’t been a newspost on the front page for a couple of days. The reason behind this was due to a server outtage with our hosting company. As I understand it, a hardware problem and not a software problem and much more difficult to fix. The GOOD news is that there was no data loss, just interrupted service. So I can’t be too mad about it.
Still, this stuff always seems to happen when I have a bunch of news to share. As such, I’m going to hold off on some of that for tomorrow’s update when more of you are checking the site. For now, I’m just going to talk about Monday’s comic.
Making fun of The Wayans Brothers is a little like shooting fish in a barrell, so I thought I would extend the metaphor by rendering them as bottom feeders. I’ve never found The Wayans Brothers particularly funny. I mean, I respect Keenan Ivory Wayans for his success as a director. I still think I’m Gonna GIt You Sucka is one of the most inventive parodies ever. I even like some of the stuff Damon Wayans has done. And, of course, you can’t overlook the success of In Living Color for bringing a new perspective to sketch comedy.
But as far as I’m concerned, both Marlon and Shawn Wayans are complete hacks. The take the concepts that appeal to the lowest common denominator and then find ways to debase them further. I saw the trailers for Little Man and immediately found new respect for White Chicks. At least there you could say that the concept of a couple of black guys wandering around in "whiteface" was satirically absurd or hovering around the "so bad, it’s good" category.
Little Man comes off far worse because I can’t think about it without remembering that Bugs Bunny cartoon where a similarly tiny buglar lays low with the "wrascrawly wabbit" until the heat dies down after a heist. Baby Face Fenster was his name, I think. The sight of him shaving in the bathroom mirror with an electric razor, a tatto of an anchor brazenly displayed across his arm is one of those "WTF" pop culture moments from my childhood. An image I’ve yet to shake. I tried finding screencaps of the cartoon online, but couldn’t turn anything up. If you guys find anything or know what I’m talking about, let me know.
So Little Man becomes worse than derivative. It becomes plagiaristic.
As a side bar, if you guys disagree with me about Talledega Nights, you’d better get used to it right now. In my mind, Will Ferrell is bulletproof. I can admit that I’m a Will Ferrell apologist and I make no excuses for it. Talledega Nights is probably the one movie registering strongest on my radar for the summer and I can’t wait to see it.
I suppose that should make me more sensitive to the reasoning behind why others find The Wayans Brothers hilarious, but, well… it doesn’t!
Sorry that the art for Monday’s comic couldn’t have been a little better. An area that I’ve been trying to develop is celebrity caricature. I figure "What good is a comic that riffs on celebrities if I can’t draw them worth a squat?" But the truth is, I was painfully short on time.
Between finishing Monday’s comic and taking the weekend to prepare for Wizard World Chicago, I was also putting the finishing touches on a guest strip for my main main Joe Dunn and his site Joe Loves Crappy Movies. Joe is getting married on the 22nd and deserves some time off. Drawing 15 comics a week can be taxing!
I was also finishing up my contribution to the 2006 Web Cartoonist Choice Awards presentation. I was selected to present "Outstanding Comic," which I was very honored to do. There’s been some controversy about the winners being announced before the presentation could go on line. I don’t know much about it. But you should keep your eye on their site as well as Comixpedia for news when the show goes online. I had a chance to see some of the other contributions on a test site and there are some really funny presentations in there.
I meantioned Wizard World Chicago. I have some news about that and wanted to share it last Friday. Due to the server outtage, I couldn’t. So everyone be sure to come back to the site tomorrow for all the details of where you can find me and who you can find me with. Also, if you plan on being in the Chicagoland area this year, I’m putting together a big book release party and you’re invited! More details on that soon!
Until then, don’t forget that our t-shirt sale is still going on until July 31. All shirts are $9.99 (plus shipping and handling) and every order comes with a free poster! I’m prepping envelopes now and will be sending shirts out soon, so get your favorite shirt while you still can
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Before I get into today’s blog, I want to make sure everyone is on the same page first.
Be sure to read this article over at EntertainmentWeekly.com. It’s the same article about Ben Stiller’s new movie Tropic Thunder that’s being referenced in the strip.
To save a little time, here’s the photo that’s causing the controversy:
In the movie, Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black play spoiled actors making a Vietnam war film. Downey Jr. plays a method actor so serious about his craft, he surgically alters himself to look African American when he finds out the role he was originally hired to portray was written with a black actor in mind. Stiller and Downey Jr. aren’t making fun of African Americans. They ARE making fun of ridiculous actors. Personally, I think it sounds hilarious, especially if Downey Jr. plays it completely straight.
Of course, there are going to be some people out there who will reduce this down to it’s bare element – a white man in black makeup – and be offended. These people are looking for something to offend them. If you can’t see the potential for satire in this, you don’t see very many movies.
That said, is it bad that when I saw that picture that I thought Robert Downey Jr. looked like Don Cheadle? While we’re at it, I think Jack Black there in the background kind of looks like Philip Seymour Hoffman. If you kind of squint, Ben Stiller sort of looks like Tom Cruise.
Incidentally, I didn’t mean to imply that The Wayan Brothers making White Chicks was in any way equal to the decades of minstrel shows that depicted African American’s as lazy simpletons – reinforcing racist attitudes that still survive to this day. But rather it’s meant to reflect that blackface or minstrelsy is all but a dead art form all but abolished except for use in satire by a society that has is trying to shed the casual racism of our predecessors. The fact that The Wayans Brothers are able to pitch and sell a movie featuring them as white women speaks directly to how far black America has come. I don’t mean to assign to much importance to White Chicks (it was an awful movie, after all), but can you imagine a film like that being made 50 years ago? Even 30 years ago? Probably not.
Don’t forget about actors like Eddie Murphy, who has portrayed white characters in films like Coming to America and on Saturday Night Live. There is a latitude to how race is portrayed and by whom that didn’t exist before. Race baiting used to be a one way street. Look how much we’ve grown! ;-D
I don’t want to get overtly political about it. But when it came down to trying to write a joke about College Road Trip and Tropic Thunder, I went for Tropic Thunder.
What do you guys think about this controversy. Is it that big of a deal? Does it have the potential to blow up in everyone’s faces? Let me know!
Until then, I hope everyone has a great weekend. See you here on Monday!
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I’m probably going to make this worse, but here it goes.
I got into a pretty intense argument with someone in my LiveJournal feed regarding Friday’s comic and the entire issue of whether or not Tropic Thunder and Robert Downey Jr. in make up is racist.
I guess I can say it’s given me a lot to think about. As a white guy from the Midwest, I’ll fully own up to the fact that I am not the most well-versed person there is in regards to the subtleties and politics of racism. I just try to treat others as I’d want to be treated and go about my daily life.
Looking over Friday’s comic and the blog post, I realize that I may not have made the best case for myself. I already explained that, obviously, White Chicks doesn’t make up for minstrel shows, institutionalized racism and 400 years of oppression. But I was making an exaggeration for comedic effect and sometimes that doesn’t always work out the way you planned it.
So, if anyone was offended, all I can say is that I’m sorry.
It’s probably best if I leave it at that.
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