Your Fave Is Problematic

this blog is great but i feel the need to tell you that Rob McElhenney’s use of blackface is condemned within the episode; the whole point of it being featured is to showcase it as unacceptable. also I do not know what “It’s Always Funny in Philadelphia” is but Rob is in/created a different, similarly-titled show. again this is a really cool blog but you should look harder into context before creating these posts

(in reference to this post: http://yourfaveisproblematic.tumblr.com/post/45662379818/rob-mcelhenney)

Mod Note: Oh, give me a fucking break with your condescending bullshit. I know the context. I watched the episode. In fact, I’ve seen every single episode of the show. Don’t lecture me about fucking context. 

1. His character’s use of blackface, while lightly and briefly condemned by the other characters, was not painted as particularly negative. If anything, it came off as more of a funny joke than an unacceptable racist action. I wouldn’t be surprised if people uninformed about the history and context of blackface came away from the episode thinking it would be fun to do for a Halloween costume or something.

2. I don’t give a shit if the whole episode had just consisted of each character yelling at the guy who did blackface and calling him a racist. That shit was strictly unnecessary. Even if you do blackface in order to point out how bad blackface is, you still did blackface. (See also: blackface on 30 Rock and on Mad Men). If you want to point out that blackface is racist, you can just say it’s racist without actually doing it and being fucking racist. If you want to say that murdering people is bad, you don’t need to shoot someone to make your point. You can just say, “hey, shooting people is bad, so don’t do it”. If people need convincing, you can say, “x, y, and z are some reasons it’s bad to shoot people”. Don’t whip out a fucking gun, shoot someone, and then say, “now you know that shooting people is bad”. Shooting someone to prove shooting is bad sends mixed messages. Doing blackface to prove blackface is bad does the same thing. It gives people an excuse to do blackface, because they think they are allowed to do it as long as they say, “I’m doing this, but it’s okay because I said it was bad ”. That’s like saying it’s okay to shoot whoever you want as long as you say “hey, murder is bad” afterwards. 

3. Get the fuck out of my face with your racist bullshit. I don’t care what the context is, I am equally offended at all blackface, whether or not it’s meant to be satire. It hurts just as much.

-COB