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Michael "Kramer" Richards racist tirade (1 Viewer)

Richard Kim

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I disagree. All the negative publicity and people offended by Richards' words is definitely not a good thing for the 7th season DVD. Why else would Jerry Seinfeld schill for Richards on the Letterman show?
 

Carlos Garcia

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What's interesting is that most people are saying his career is over and we'll never see him again...Um, let's not forget folks, there are still 2 more seasons of Seinfeld yet to be released on DVD. You can bet your life that Sony will once again employ Michael Richards for his participation on the extras of those DVDs.
 

Patrick_S

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Big surprise the targets of his tirade are looking for some money from Richards. I don't see anyway that they could possibly win any legal action but I could see him settling just to have this go away as quickly as possible.
 

Sam Davatchi

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Yes, they are already shot. Wasn't there a controversy about them wanting more for doing the interviews?
 

John_Lee

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Not sure what you're saying.
You seem to posit that whether Richards possessed racial animus is irrelevant, and the only interesting aspect is the mechanism of calling upon cultural pinchpoints that we are all aware of.
But since being called a racist is one of the most d@mning charges you can level, and as in this case it can be a career-ender, how can it be irrelevant?
I think it's broadly agreed that most everyone is aware of the power of the term. What Richards failed to connect, in the heat of the moment, is that the very fact that it was such a singularly effective weapon is the reason that it has such far-reaching implications beyond the initial exchange.
 

Mark Kalzer

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I think what he was getting at is that the game of improv requires both vast background awareness of pop and mainstream culture, and the ability to turn to it on the fly almost instinctively. I've had limited training at Second City, famous as a school of improv and indeed one of the things drilled into us is the ability to call upon ideas seemingly at random and run with them.

That would be what Richards was doing and unfortunantly, he called upon the wrong thing. I don't think that necessarily makes him a racist. We all remain very much aware of racism, what was done in the past, and what continues to happen today in North America, and it remains part of the cultural mosaic we all share a part in.

Problem is the line of appropriateness is ever so thin, yet we push it so often. I think Family Guy has crossed it on a few occasions, but still find that show funny. (I have objections with an early show where Peter is shown noisily eating chips in the company of Ann Frank thus giving away their location to the Nazis) On the spot, Richards crossed the line, and was not able to stop himself in time. It just seemed to him at that exact moment, to be the funniest thing he could think of to say and he ran with it. Characters like Stephen Colbert and Borat thrive on thinking of the worst possible thing to say at every moment, but they do it as characters. Richards it seems was still playing as himself in a comedic manner. I don't think it makes him racist. It's a very different thing then what Mel Gibson committed.

Perhaps what this will do is force all comedians who've been riding the envelope so carefully to evaluate how close they come, and how easy it is to cross that line. I am not at all justifying Richards comments as appropriate. They were not. It's part of the huge risk all comedians who improv take when they go on stage and perform spontaneously.
 

John_Lee

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I agree, just was confused by the "it doesn't matter if he's racist" part, since that is the crux of Richards' future prospects.
What's ironic, is that even as jaded as I am by being daily inundated by the rants on Howard Stern [on, not by], where the N-word is tossed around with aplomb, and much worse goes on as well, by the likes of Dice Clay, Elliott Offen [sp], Artie sparring with Crazy Alice and Maryanne from Brooklyn, Sal's malopropisms about Miss Howard Stern and her black baby, and the monthly 'Roasts,' I was still immediately shocked an appalled at the poor note Richards' struck.
 

Mikah Cerucco

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I, on the other hand, yawned.

I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid his future work, but I wouldn't look for it either (I never did before). I don't conclude he's racist based on what I saw. He may be or he may not be, which is pretty much the same as before I saw the video. And really, it's a shame that society has lost the difference between bigotry, prejudice, and true racism. I don't see Kramer out in front of a voting booth with a shotgun anytime soon.

Dictionaries have to change to represent usage, but racism was really about oppressing a race of people. He did nothing other than try to ridicule someone who was trying to ridicule him. Comedians have been saying offensive things since the beginning of time. I'm all for stamping out racism, but I also get the impression we overreact to the easy targets because we have neither the concentration nor energy to deal with the real (but difficult) ones.
 

Yee-Ming

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Also, considering that the Borat character is anti-Semite, Sacha Baron Cohen is himself a devout Jew, which sort-of isolates him further; much as it seems acceptable for African-Americans to call each other by the N-bomb, but never for a white man to do so.

Having seen the clip, I think the real problem is he kept going. Having dropped the N-bomb once, if he'd backed off thereafter and simply reverted to "generic" expletives regarding the hecklers, I don't think the fuss would be quite as big. But he used the N-word several times in succession, and the reference to lynching was pretty much beyond the pale.
 

Brian Perry

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I'm interested in learning the details of what transpired immediately after the rant. It's possible or even likely Richards didn't know it had been captured on video. Did he initially try to pass it off as a joke-gone-bad? Did the person with the camera phone offer the video in exchange for money or did he/she go right to the media? I believe Richards was on the same stage the following night but did not feel obligated to apologize...was that because he didn't realize there was evidence?

I can't imagine the shock Richards must have felt if he thought he had dodged a major bullet, only to later see the entire incident played back on the internet.
 

TravisR

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Yeah and it's funny that the hypocrites running the club were so offended that they've banned him for life. However, they only seem to have only been offended after the story got picked up by the media since he was allowed to do his act the next day. Normally when I'm offended, it doesn't take 24 hours to set in. :)
 

Adam Lenhardt

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It's not like Cohen is getting away with any great feat just because he's Jewish. Borat may be racist and an anti-semite, but blacks and Jews get off really easy in the film. The one blacks you can see are Alan Keyes, one of the most intelligent and eloquent people in the D.C. area of any creed, a gang of what the film tries to get us to thing are dangerous street thugs who have a good laugh at him and teach him some lingo, and Luenell the good natured prostitute. Granted, Luenell isn't the most positive role model one could aspire to, but she comes off much better than the Southern whites who can deal with feces in a bag but can't deal with a black prostitute at their dinner table. The only explicitly Jewish people in the film were a sweet elderly couple who bring him into their home and prepare a nice meal for him. The only people "Borat" really targets are whites and particularly Southern whites. Was that because they were the ones who were most rampant in their hypocrisy? I don't know. I do know that neither minority has much to complain about in "Borat", the main character's atrocious behavior aside.

I don't know what if there was greater context for what we saw in the Michael Richards video. I do know that it's pretty damning footage. There was nothing terribly ironic or anything of the sort in what I saw. It was mean, it was angry, and it was cruel. And racism aside, as a professional it was horrendously unprofessional.
 

Rex Bachmann

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Yee Ming wrote (post #51):


The problem isn't just his use of the tabooed word, but his preceding not only to a reference to lynching, but to the absolute glorying and glee he seems to take in the nostalgia for the "good old days" when "N . . . .s" who got out of "their place" would find themselves dangling from trees, being tortured. This sort of takes the sails out of any attempt to "explain away" his intent.
 

Chris

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Rex -

Interesting rhetorical take.. I'm waiting for some college kid to come up with a rhet crit, based on David Proctor's Dynamic Spectacle as a review of Michael Kramer's outburst and follow up actions.
 

Chris Lockwood

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> Why else would Jerry Seinfeld schill for Richards on the Letterman show?

Uh, supporting a friend?


> Yeah and it's funny that the hypocrites running the club were so offended that they've banned him for life. However, they only seem to have only been offended after the story got picked up by the media since he was allowed to do his act the next day.

I take it you didn't watch their press conference. He promised to apologize on stage the second night, but didn't.

Do you think the club should have ANNOUNCED this incident to the press? That would have been pretty dumb on their part.

I think it's sad you call them hypocrites, as if you think they support what he said.
 

Holadem

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I am glad someone else agree with this. I feel like this movie pulled the wool over everyone's eyes, making them believe it was some kind of particularly daring and offensive comedy.

--
H
 

Nick Martin

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Now Jamie Foxx has chimed in, publicly threatening Richards...such class.
Since Foxx wants to sink to that low, he can shove that Oscar up his ass.

At least it rhymes.
 

TravisR

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So saying something deemed bad enough for the club to give him a life time ban would have been smoothed over if he said 'Sorry' the next night? Of course, they don't support what they said but they didn't ban him until the shit hit the fan. They only banned him to save face.
 

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