What is Digg?142 Comments
- VtmnR, on 10/12/2007, -9/+158I am NOT saying that what Michael Richards did was right nor do I encourage it... I am saying that comedians should never be censored. What happened to the ideas of free speech? I'm not a racist, but I am a comic and without free speech comedy is watered down. I guess people can't take a joke anymore.
AND double standard... chew on that. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+61Damn, they're not going to allow any black comedians in there anymore now. They drop the N-bomb more than any white dude I've ever heard.
'Cept for maybe Bill Cosby. - Gir53457, on 10/12/2007, -20/+78Carlos Mencia should be censored. Not just saying 'beaner' but all his pathetic attempts at being funny.
- FoxtrotYankee, on 10/12/2007, -3/+44I would love to see the comedians band together, go up on the stage at the Laugh Factory one at a time, say "*****" into the mic, drop $20 on the stage and leave. If they could get themselves banned en masse then the management of the Laugh Factory would have to back down or spend 3 months with really lame comics.
- FoxtrotYankee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+39Maybe Kramer is a racist, maybe he's not. But what he did on stage isn't evidence of racism. When you're doing standup and someone is heckling you, you have to counterattack. That's just the basics of standup. And when the basic comebacks don't work, you trot out the most horrible thing you can say to the heckler to just try to shut him up. We didn't see what happened before that cameraphone started shooting. What we heard was a comic trying to shut down a few black hecklers. He didn't do it well but that's what was happening.
But this isn't about Michael Richards anymore. Damon Wayans was fined and banned for saying "*****" in his act. That wasn't a racist rant. That was his act. I've seen it and it's pretty funny.
If you go to a comedy club and find something unfunny or are offended you should choose one of these courses of action:
1) Don't laugh
2) Leave
3) Consider finding a source of entertainment that you can handle. If you're thin skinned, live comedy probably isn't for you. - snlildude87, on 10/12/2007, -1/+34*****, please!
- reddevil3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+31http://www.laist.com/archives/2006/12/07/black_man_yells_nigger_in_hollywood_gets_banned.php
Damon Wayans gets banned from the Laugh Factory for saying ***** again and again, and brought $20 bills and threw them on the stage as he said the word.
"I'll be damned if the white man uses that word last," Wayans said. - MrStylz, on 10/12/2007, -7/+34One crazy cracker doesn't justify censorship.
"...you have not seen the clip of what he did."
- I venture to say that you have no idea what the audience did/said to provoke him...not that his reaction was right, but no one has the full story. - BattleBaconXXL, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23I'm not saying what Micheal Richards said is ok, but it seems rather one-sided to impose a fine on the n-word. What about cracker or chink(if i spelled that right)? Those are slurs too. But again its also the private establishments right to do that.
- DBCA, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24Bitches ain't *****.
- slasherx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+24So what happens if your act consists around the word "*****" and not "*****"? Is that also a banishment? I don't understand why they would ban comedians for that. Such a weird world we live in.
- nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22Kinda like a vegetarian going to a steakhouse. I mean, if you have no sense of humor, don't go to see a comedy act.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19Doesn't this also mean they are being racist themselves? I mean... with a ban on the word "*****", they are preventing 99% of black comics from working there.
- drenader, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19and Sinbad... how can we forget Sinbad?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18@maiku00: maybe we just uncovered a conspiracy?
Laugh Factory is secretly racist against black people... so they pay Michaels to say ***** a bunch of times so they can ban the word ***** and thus... ban black people from performing.
Genius. - jcrewyayo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17$20 aint *****
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13I'm white. As a white person I have the right to call myself whatever I want to.
Potato cracker
Jive turkey
Haoule
Peckerwood
I would have done the same thing as wayans only with 10x more derogatives. GJ sir - cwalk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Well then you'd just be a Ni....... well never mind.
- LordSkywalker, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13If the blacks can still say "craka" and that other racist white crap, maybe someone will start saying things like "dirty black monkey".
It should be all or nothing, not one-sided. - TheWriteGuy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10"Get an education Diggers."
Seriously, for a brief moment, I read "Diggers" as... umm, you know.... - slaystench, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Let's all go have a good cry because someone used an offensive word. Because we all know that never happens.
- AeonTorpor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10*****.
- TheWorkz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8LOL.... $20 Bucks... I am sure for some comedians that is a drop in the bucket and well worth not ruining a joke for.
- VtmnR, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Yay for Communication Theory!!!! High fives!
- maiku00, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10how are black comedians going to perform now?
- vdog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8After so many Wii articles, it took me a second to realize that the N-word wasn't Nintendo.
- HoosbinPharteen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I see what the next episode of southpark will be about :D
- BenSerwa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Michael Richards was in front of a crowd, he was trying to perform his act and he was rudely heckled. He got emotionally upset, and didn't know what to do. So, he went back into his comedian playbook, which states, "When being heckled, heckle back so fiercely that you shut the heckler up." Michael Richards had no idea what to say to accomplish that, so he fell back on the most obvious thing... the man's race.
He panicked, and he made a mistake. It happens to all of us. But he's not a racist. He just made a ***** decision when under an extreme amount of pressure. He must've thought people wouldn't react as strongly as they did. He was wrong.
What he said was uncool, yes. But he's apologized twice, in front of everyone. Let's give the guy a break. He's just someone who folded under a lot of pressure and said some stuff he didn't really mean. He's only human. - FoxtrotYankee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6For all of you typing "n-word", understand that it's not a different because you only reference it by the leading letter. When you write "n-word" we think "*****". When you write F**K, we think "*****". Editing out a few letters doesn't make it a different word.
Just use the word "*****" here. It's the topic of discussion. It doesn't make you racist to use it in this context. - MScrip, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8So... the Laugh Factory wants to keep the N-word out of its club. What's next? Will Comedy Central start removing the N-word from its programming? If the N-word is so bad, then why do I hear it almost every night on TV?
Is it OK to say the N-word (if you're black) but it's not OK to call a black person the N-word to their face (if you're white)?
Remember the rules on the South Park "*****" episode? It's OK to say "*****" if you mean poop... but you can't say "*****" as an expletive such as "oh *****!" - babayada, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Well, this proves that the Laugh Factory management is both spineless and stupid.
- appetite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7just chill out.
he's not racist. he blew up in a bad way. anyone with eyes and no agenda can see it for what it was.
a comedy club banning a word in 2006. what utter *****. the word will lose its meaning if we stop reacting to it. this whole incident just added another 20 years to the lifespan of the word. it's a goddamn word. please, stop being pussies.
thank you oversensitive people everywhere for making the world less humorous place. - HouseofEl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I don't know if Richards is racist or not. Saying the word doesn't automatically make you racist. The topic is not a black and white issue(no pun intended). There is a lot of gray area to be talked about here. What bothers me the most is Jesse Jackson basically being the front man for this circus. He shouldn't be so quick to pass judgment. I suppose he is just selectively forgetting his "Hymietown" remarks?
- sunimoto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6JJ is getting his airtime, he pops up anytime a situation can be exploited and he can have his face on TV. How about Al Sharpton? I wasn't following this story closely so not sure if he used it for self-promotion as well...
- itsxtian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Laugh Factory is just trying to run on the last leg of this story and get some more free press for itself.
- appetite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7and this gets them tens of thousands in more publicity.
plus twenty bucks here and there. - treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8^ I'd hit that
- aaaleman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6hmmm... speech codes are always fun
- EochaidRiata, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7So Chris Rock is banned? Lame.
- vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"This racism is killing me inside!" < massive laugh track >
...
Dave Chappelle was the best.. but in that single line out of all of his skits, I think he admitted that he didn't feel right with what he was doing. To me, when I heard that, I felt he was being really honest.. I donno.. - Andronicus1717, on 10/12/2007, -12/+17Maybe they should ban "not being funny" from the laugh factory instead of resorting to knee-jerk censorship.
- GeneralAntilles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5You got it backwards. Go back and watch it again. You can say ***** in expletive form, figurative noun form, or figurative adjective form, you can't talk about *****, as in poo.
Per Mrs. Chokesondick:
"You can only us it in the non-literal sense." - orbanj, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Honestly, I don't know why they would do this. The Kramer incident got them MILLIONS of dollars worth of free publicity.
- tdogg241, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Lenny Bruce is rolling over in his grave right now.
- FoxtrotYankee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@ZenMojo "The only proof we have of what they did is what they said, but notice that nothing Michael Richards or anybody else who was in the audience (and I heard testimony from a third-person eyewitness) says is that they said something worthy of his response."
So, your one, unnamed third-person eyewitness could speak for "anyone else in the audience"?
The black folks against whom Richards was railing had been disruptive all evening and on previous visits. So, again, Richards was trying to shut down persistent and disruptive hecklers who appeared to be there to spoil the comedy acts.
I got this info from an interview on the Opie and Anthony show that was on 11-20-2006 and referenced again 11-21-2006. I realize that O&A isn't exactly a news show, however they cover stand up comedy pretty well considering their third mic is a comic and they have a lot of comics who sit in on the show regularly.
The smartest stuff I've heard about the Richards incident was on the 11-21 O&A show from a very funny black comic named Patrice Oneal. He basically said that this is stupid because getting upset about saying ***** is the only thing that give it any power over him and he refuses to do that.
And, Stern fans, resist the urge to start an O&A vs. Stern flameout. I like both shows. I listen to both shows. O&A happened to have the relevant commentary in this case. - babayada, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Ummm, get a clue.
Freedom of speech is a broad subject. - appetite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It's good to know we're moving backwards.
- Whateveragain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Jesse Jackson may not be slinging crack rock, but he sure can push the B.S. Talk about flogging the donkey! Any donkey, at that.
- sunimoto, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9What's up with black people in US? Why is everyone always running around them, making sure they are not offended. How about Mexicans? How about Asians, etc? Every nationality/sexual orientation has its version of a derogative word. Why does it seem like only black people get offended...like small children. Or maybe it only looks like that and media blows it up? Personally, I think it's not a big deal what Richards said. The only victim in that story is him. He will now get less offers and will have trouble finding a nice job for some time. People in the audience could have taken it much lightly and maybe leave if they really were so offended. They provoked him, and the guy had nervous breakdown. Maybe he had a bad day or was high or drunk, who knows...
I think making a ban on any word is wrong. I'm sure in some time they'll add 10 more words to that list. Imagine those censored comedy acts. I believe comics themselves can decide what is right and what is not -- and if they make a wrong decision, they just won't be popular and audience will judge them w/ ticket sales on future performances (if audience really cares about the words, that is). -
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