A user compares Big Bang Theory to nerd blackface on /r/Skeptic. ShitRedditSays pays a house call, receives a skeptical welcome. (np.reddit.com)
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14 ups - 2 downs = 12 votes
36 comments submitted at 21:20:28 on Mar 24, 2014 by Carbon_Rod
Nerd blackface is not comparing Nerds to Blacks. It is comparing Nerdface with Blackface in that people who are obviously not nerds are being portrayed as such for entertainment value. Race is 100% not a part of the comparison.
You can't talk about blackface without talking about race.
I'm not a regular watcher of the Big Bang Theory, but last I checked it was about a bunch of guys with well paying jobs and varying levels of social awkwardness. I get some of them are freakishly socially awkward, but they can all vote and get fair wages for their labor.
I might be missing the joke, but you're doing the exact thing that David-me is talking about. Analogies don't have to be literal exact comparisons of two things.
Analogies don't have to be exact comparisons, but comparing something that was truly horrible and part of systemic oppression to something mildly unflattering is over the top.
Calling the Big Bang Theory "Nerd Blackface" makes nerds look out of touch, which is ironically exactly what the "Nerd Blackface" comments are complaining about.
Again, it's not comparing them. It's commentary on the fact that both are caricature comedic portrayals of a group.
It is comparing. There are other ways to express the idea that the show plays up stereotypes without using the word blackface.
> There are other ways to express the idea that the show plays up stereotypes without using the word blackface.
OK. Please provide at least two examples that are both equally succinct and contain the whole of the intended message.
Maybe, but the only reason to not use it is because a handful of people in an easily offended subreddit find it offensive.
From this day forth, no one may refer to a secondary hard disk drive as a "slave drive". or a transmission as a ... well, you know.
How To Fix a Transmission Clutch Slave Cylinder on a 1991 Toyota pickup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p77NuzSraUQ
>a handful of people in an easily offended subreddit
I don't use SRS and I get why blackface is such a loaded term. It isn't just an SRS thing.
>Maybe, but the only reason to not use it is because ~~a handful of people in an easily offended subreddit find it offensive.~~ you're a decent human being who doesn't feel the need to make cavalier and thoughtless use of historical oppression to get your point across.
FTFY.
> There are other ways to express the idea that the show plays up stereotypes without using the word blackface.
None as succinct that get to the heart of why it is problematic though.
'Problematic?'
Are you referring to the portrayal of nerds on TBB as 'problematic'?
edit: dang, I didn't realise this was such an offensive question. I thought SRD normally hated it when people called things problematic?
It's talking about blackface as a style, and decidedly not taking into context and historical significance of it.
There's no such thing as "nerdface", that's a word that was made up specifically to compare it to blackface, which is insulting at best and racist at worst.
So? Take the racism out of it and they are very similar. And don't say you cant take it out because it's as analogy. Analogies are comparing similar things not equating them. Similar: resembling without being identical.
You can't simply "take racism out of it." It's an inherent part of the blackface comparison, there is absolutely zero way to compare anything to blackface without taking historical racism into account. Unless you don't think about the words you use and then become extremely defensive about them.
You know what we call blackface that isn't about race? Caricature. BBT is nerd caricature, not nerd blackface.
It's not 100% of the comparison, but it's enough of the concept for the analogy to be flawed. An analogy is flawed, I'm sure we can all agree, when it introduces irrelevant concerns to the concept at hand. And when you're trying to compare insensitive jokes that portray unpopular portions of the population, it's not really a great idea to introduce concepts, even inadvertently, like slavery and lynching and Jim Crow, you know?
Basically, you're reducing the chances that your point is coming to come across clearly to almost nil if you accidentally touch a third-rail of racial controversy.
It's kind of like the pedophilia / homosexuality comparison. It's a bit hard to make the point that both sexual attractions are stigmatized, even when not expressed in action, when you're asking your audience to not touch that third-rail issue of consent and child rape.
Basically, shitty analogies aren't necessarily the marker of a shitty argument, but they sure as shit are the marker of a shitty argumentation style.
Unless you want to start drama. Because that's a great way to start drama.
So basically the analogy is correct, but it is simultaneously wrong.
>Nerd blackface is not comparing Nerds to Blacks.
Uh, yes it is? That particular phrase is used for a reason - it's emotive language in that it draws a direct comparison between them and a genuine form of oppression.
Think of words/phrases they could use instead which convey the same 'this portrayal of nerds is inaccurate/offensive!':
Faux nerds
Sockpuppet nerd
I also love how butthurt everyone gets over TBB in particular. Imagine if someone wrote a post about how 'Mike and Molly' is 'fat blackface' or whatever. Everyone would laugh at them, everyone would be piling in to spout 'OPPRESSION OLYMPICS' etc.
Use lazy sitcom stereotypes to 'attack' nerds? How long before they start lynching us and spitting at us in the street for wearing DOTA shirts!
I'm pretty sure the guy used the term "blackface" because it's a term everyone knows and it's directly related to show business. It fits in this case because in many ways BBT is like a nerd version of a Minstrel show. In both cases you've got people pretending to be something they aren't and exaggerating negative stereotypes for entertinment.
>It fits in this case because in many ways BBT is like a nerd version of a Minstrel show. In both cases you've got people pretending to be something they aren't and exaggerating negative stereotypes for entertinment.
Yeah, these four nerdy guys with high-paying jobs who live in a fantastic apartment, have lots of disposable income to spend on their favourite hobbies and bang good-looking women is such an offensive chariacture, it's almost equatable to someone giving themselves massive dehumanising lips and speaking in mock ebonics.
> 'Mike and Molly' is 'fat blackface' or whatever.
It would be it they got a bunch of skinny actors and put them all in fat suits.
You heard it here first, Fat Bastard from Austin Powers is fat blackface. Those inflatable sumo suits? Fat blackface. Weird how I bet if someone on Tumblr said that, there'd be a massive TiA thread mocking them.
As a style in a context that doesn't include the racial significance? Yes.
>blackface
-
>doesn't include the racial significance
Do you understand how words and connotation work? You can't just remove the racial significance from the term blackface, that's sort of the whole point of the phrase.