Men at Work in Blackface

A lot has been said about the Australian Jackson Five-in-blackface parody sketch. Of course, I'm pretty sure nobody would have even noticed if Harry Connick Jr hadn't been there, but whatevs. But for all the furor kicked up about it, nobody's asked the question of "was it funny?" And, more importantly, was it funny enough to be worth the charges of racism? I haven't seen the whole thing, but since it seems like people are mostly just offended, I'm guessing the answer is "no."

Hey, there's been PLENTY of times on this blog I've known something I've posted to be considered racist, but have decided that it's SO funny that it's worth it should someone see it and say "this shit's fucking racist!" I assume my regular readers know me enough to know I'm going purely for the funny, and don't intend on offending. Of course, that's what anyone telling a racist joke would say. But for someone casually dropping in and seeing the same post, it's not like I can go "oh but wait, if you read every one of my 6500+ posts you'll come to understand my tone and verbal inflection and blah blah blah", ie the blogging version of "but I've got friends that are black!!" They'd think "this is racist!" and what can you say, of course they're right. So in those instances, before I click on "POST," I hafta weigh how funny it would be to people that get it vs. how offensive it would be to the casual reader, and proceed thusly. If I think it's too funny to pass up, I post. If I'm not sure, I don't. Is this wrong? I dunno, maybe. Of course my intent is always "boy I hope this makes people laugh," and not "I'm gonna stick it to black people, who are inferior!!" Of course I hope my readers are smart enough to recognize what things like stereotypes reveal about ourselves and not whom they're projected upon, but once the post is posted it's in the reader's hands, and not much I can do about it. The best comedy isn't always the safest, and usually that's what MAKES it the best. It's all a gamble; hell, THIS post makes me look like a racist, and I'm writing about racism!

Did these people think this before performing the Jackson 5 sketch? I dunno. I also have no idea what Australians consider to be racist. But I doubt they went into the skit thinking "we're gonna stick it to black people, who are inferior!!" They probably honestly thought what they were doing was more funny than racist. From the bit of the clip I've seen, I can't say it's particularly funny enough to withstand any heat. But then SNL has had 2 funny sketches in 10 years, so maybe I not only don't know what's racist, but what's funny either. Hey, fuck me.