The Big Picture: Correctitude

[Slash47]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bob isn't fighting for PC, he's saying it's annoying how people hide behind the shield of 'oh you're just trying to be PC' or 'you're against free speech' when someone calls them out for being a dick. Right?

If so, I agree. I don't care who you are but if you're neglecting facts, opinions and moral values only because it's convenient, you're not -just- politically incorrect, you're also lazy/jealous/greedy/whichever of the seven sins you want to haul out of the Old Testament.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

It's always good to see a big(ish) geek icon calling out Resident Evil 5. Gamers like to think that all Games are exceptable. That's just bullshit, obviously Games are getting called out a lot these days by people who just don't get it but that doesn't mean people who shouldn't call out certain games too.

 

[geoflo1024]

I feel Bob was being a little too black and white on this issue. There are definitely people who do this thing, and several people who make offensive jokes are in fact @$$holes or bigots, but not all. I think it's perfectly possible to make offensive jokes or observe that sometimes politically incorrect assumptions have some element of truth to them.

I agree that Carlos Mencia is a joke of a comic. And that hurts for me to say, because I'm Mexican-American and as such want to see other Hispanic Americans do well. But he is terrible. He is the living embodiment of everything Bob seems to be hating on this week, and is stupid enough to tell you as much. Jeff Dunham is just not very funny. Seriously Jeff, I liked you the first ten minutes, but you really should've quit while you were ahead.

On the black Thor character, I'm against Bob. If you are indeed fighting FOR political correctness as you claim you are, and fighting AGAINST people who say "oh, you're just being PC," you will realize that there are no black Norse Gods. I have no problem with a black Spider-Man or Captain America because their "whiteness" is not central to their character. The fact that Spidey is white doesn't define him, so if a black, asian, or indian actor does a great job playing him, I'm all for it. But the Norse Gods are WHITE. That IS central to who they are. They are the WHITE gods of a WHITE people. This is one of the very few instances where a character's "whiteness" IS central to the character, so to make him any other race, IS in fact politically incorrect.

As for black Nick Fury, there is a more subjective topic that someone brought up. I personally think white Nick Fury is better. When Fury is white, he's tough as nails, gritty, and in your face. He doesn't take your crap, and he won't hesitate to tell you so. For some reason, black Nick Fury didn't just get a color swap, he got a personality change. Suddenly he's a smooth talking bad-@$$ mutha... etc. I'm not okay with that. I think it defeats the purpose of political correctness if you make a white character black for diversity, and then change that character's personality to match that of walking stereotype Samuel L. Jackson.

I guess my biggest problem was actually Bob's defense of a black Norse god, because as much as I don't like agreeing with people that would appreciate my support then call me a spic or wetback, they're right. Norse gods were white, and that's important to their character.

 

[person11]

You're of course angry at the misuse, but their are real problems with the obsession over PC. Like when their have to be a few 'white' zombies in an infected isolated african tribe, just so they are not accused of racism. It's disgusting.

 

[Treblaine]

Criticise liberalism "not politically incorrect"

Then lists liberal comedians as examples of Political correctness.

Wow, he had me till the end, that was SOOO transparent. Didn't list a single person of remotely conservative perspective and that is a shame because it utterly undermines his whole argument.

I mean the fried chicken joke... that is an anti-joke, I mean of ALL the negative stereotypes heaped on African Americans that has to be the most benign and trivial, especially considering we ALL like Fried Chicken. Who doesn't? Why is it so horrible to imply that black people like fried chicken? No one really thinks they like it any more than any other race, I mean foodstuffs, how petty is that?

Black people make fun of white people for being in love with mayonnaise, even though consumption is not actually that different between the demographics.

I mean IF I went to a restaurant and ordered fried chicken for everyone in my group and ONE of them happened to be black, is that incredibly insensitive? Or should I have bought him a separate meal after a value bucket for all my friends of different races. If I had mayonnaise with mine and he teased me over it would I get offended? No.

No, really that is political correctness that people have a problem with and it IS political correctness which is the centre of those jokes. Why can't you make a joke like that but yet get away with this:


How's this for a "politically incorrect joke":

"It's really sad when President Obama got inaugurated there was a sheet of bulletproof glass between him and the public. I mean just because he's balck it's not like he's going to shoot anyone"

-Frankie Boyle (UK)

Now that IS funny, the reversal of dismay over racist aggression against a black president playing off African American community stereotype for gun crime. But it is still politically incorrect and that's part of the reason why it is so damn funny.

Bottom line: just because they are being an ass does not mean they are "not being politically incorrect"

as if they are not being "incorrect" the they are being "politically correct"... huh?

Here is the process:

Politically correct -> Politically incorrect -> bigot

Being a bigot does not make you "un-in-correct", they are BOTH!

The only way I can possibly agree with Bob is that Political In-correctness is not IN ITSELF a protection which he seems to argue in the beginning then at the last minute change to say "politically Incorrect" is exclusively the protection of liberal comedians and does not apply to ANY conservative comedians!

I'm of the opinion that conservatism and liberalism need each other to keep each other in balance.

But Bob seems to favour want a power imbalance where liberal perspective can slaughter any sacred cows of the other side but no reciprocation.

 

[rorymclean12]

i feel like a dick when i say i think bill hicks is increadably funny

 

[k-ossuburb]

Along the lines of those comedians you mentioned, I'd like to add one more: Doug Stanhope.

Seriously, check him out, he knocks on everything from politics to race, from religion to gender and everything in between. I'd embed a Youtube video clip but I think it'll ruin the surprise, your best bet is to look up "Doug Stanhope, voice of America" where he did a few short pieces for a show on the BBC by Charlie Brooker that satirized the news.

If he doesn't make you laugh he'll at least be able to inspire you, I can't recommend him highly enough, I suppose the best I can come up with is that I've heard many call him "the new George Carlin".

 

[Maur DL]

Hmmm, another Big Picture I don't really agree with Bob on, or at least don't share his enthusiasm for. Feels like this is kind of turning into a platform/soapbox for his (from what I can gather) liberal/leftist ideology rather than discussing any kind of broader all-encompassing objective analysis. Or at least that's sort of what I was expecting from something called "The Big Picture". I agree that you should call out douchebags when they are being douches, but things like how Shirley Sherrod was fired because of what she said and not what she meant make out-of-control political correctness a more legitimate issue than some internet troll's rhetorical defense.

 

[Saint of M]

Wow, one of your videos I don;t completely agree with.

While I agree with alot of what you said, including most of the political correct crap just being that from a few nutters, its still a very real thing out there.

The fact is if someone was going to call Capcom out for being racist they should have done it with a Resident Evil 4 for the depiction of Spaniards. After all is it any better to kill people of European nations then it is people from African ones?

Another issue with being politically correct is the fact that people are afraid they will be sued because they offended someone.

For crying out loud, there was a kid at my old high school in Castro Valley CA that got suspended for bringing an American Flag on Cinco De Mayo because bringing the flag was racially insensitive. he brought an American flag, that was it.

 

[Maur DL]

I'm of the opinion that conservatism and liberalism need each other to keep each other in balance.

But Bob seems to favour want a power imbalance where liberal perspective can slaughter any sacred cows of the other side but no reciprocation.

Yeah, I think I was trying to say something similar. Everyone has their own beliefs and perspectives but this is beginning to feel a little heavy handed.

 

[Treblaine]

I'm of the opinion that conservatism and liberalism need each other to keep each other in balance.

But Bob seems to favour want a power imbalance where liberal perspective can slaughter any sacred cows of the other side but no reciprocation.

Yeah, I think I was trying to say something similar. Everyone has their own beliefs and perspectives but this is beginning to feel a little heavy handed.

Yeah, liberalism has a lot to do, both in general and for America in particular, but wherever you think something is "too much" as in "you can't joke about that" that is the path to injustice.

I think it weird that MovieBob gets so worked up about fried chicken jokes then brings up George Carlin who is a known as a champion for freedom of speech by arguing you can even make jokes about rape. Rape is a word, that MEANS something but how can you joke about that but not fried chicken?

AH but it was conservatives who argued that George Carlin couldn't joke about sex, Rape being the most extreme example. So maybe that's why MovieBob glossed over it but Carlin's argument is universal! If you can joke about something as horrible as that then you can joke about black people eating fried chicken.

I think towards the end MovieBob just got angry and lost focus, started lashing out without thinking about how extreme he was going, how he contradicted his poignant initial argument. But then again, he did say this was his format, no editing, not assessment, jsut throwing his thoughts out with all the human fallibility that comes with that.

 

[punipunipyo]

so... afro-man for Loki in Thor? is Bob trying to defend? I don't mind... infect... I didn't even notice that... Perhapes i was just not sensitive enough to catch all that stuff... I did hate all that negative stuff that the media put up now days...

 

[Orekoya]

Not bad, but I don't remember the resident evil 5 racism scandal being quite like how you portray it. I'm pretty sure the complaints were "whitey killing blacks" and not "misuse of tribal imagery" But hey, I could be wrong.

Edit: Before the MovieBob defense force comes to crucify me, here's a quote from a group of the complainer's since the original article has been taken down.
http://gamepolitics.com/2007/08/01/african-womens-blog-critical-of-resident-evil-5-trailer

What really got me during that whole trailer scandal is that they raised a fuss over that because it was about whitey killing darkies because he had to; meanwhile, Uncharted came out and was about white killing darkies to steal their shit and nobody batted an eye.

 

[Semi-Human]

I like how P.C. fighters where Democrats but the Republicans where jerks. Someones bias is showing.

Not really, saying that Republicans were against PC is just correct. Hell they also made up some PC boogeymen that still exists. Take the "War on Christmas"

Well take the Grey Anatomy actor calling co-star a ******. He should never been fired because he didn't say as a representative of the show when he said it. Or South Park Allah controversy. P.C. is real.

Of course he should be fired. It doesn't mater whether or not he was acting as a representative of the show or not. Why on earth would they let some asshat ruin the work environment for every one?

If you think its any different then call your boss a asshole and see how long you keep that job, is that P.C as well?

 

[Cabisco]

It's nice to see someone point this out, theirs a British comedian Stewart Lee who summed it up brilliantly.

Sense someone all ready posted that I will simply counter it with someone mentioned in the Bob's video.


(I couldn't find the stand up version so it's an audio book version).

You know when listening to this the thought occurred that some people would mistake Carlin for a huge conservative and Bob's "Fair Game" show immediately came to mind.

(Captcha: We're actiev)

Thats a pretty interesting audio book, I'm in fact considering listening to some more. I also can see why people would think he is a massive conservative from the audiobook, just for the repeated mention of 'Liberal'.

Political correctness has always intrigued me, it's a safe bet theirs always one side overeacting to a situation involving it.

 

[Dak_N_Jaxter]

This episode has really befuddled me.
Throughout I was so sure that the overall point was how some people use political correctness as a form oppression, or as Jeff put it, "Not being racist is the new Racist".
I've never really spoken to anyone who's used it as a barrier in that way.

I guess pretty much anything can be a two way street and get exploited. Just like how the KKK can get away with saying that non-whites are bad because of free-speech.

I can definitely agree with the fact that anything goes, so long as you're not being a dick. I mean, even I make Racist jokes sometimes, but I've never looked back on it and thought anything of it.

 

[RTR]

The whole "storming the gates/ spitting off the overpass" analogy pretty much sums up troll behavior.