cancelling old tv shows and movies is it
helping to fight racism
recently the black lives matter movement
prompted streaming services around the
world to pull down some of their content
because it was seen as having racist
themes racist language or offensive
depictions of black people or other
minority communities
and just a heads up we'll be showing
some of that content to help explain
things
so what's been cancelled oh yes i'm new
here the list includes movies like
gone with the wind and tropic thunder
episodes from a bunch of tv shows like
little briton
faulty towers community and four of
australian comedian chris lilly's shows
when it comes to the use of blackface it
might seem obvious why some people are
all for taking it down
most people agree that blackface is just
really offensive
because it stems from a history of
mocking enslaving and
persecuting black and brown people
but what might seem less obvious is the
argument that some of the content is
pushing forward
racist stereotypes which can be really
harmful in a world where racism
is still a big issue to kind of have
these
stereotypes which are quite frankly
racist and
degrade minorities kids are seeing that
and thinking that it's okay
when i joined the abc in late 2013 jonah
from tonga the six part
jonah from tonga series i oversaw its
post-production you know
half the community that engaged with the
abc loved the show
and you know found it hilarious and
loved him but there was probably an
equal number of
members of the pacifica community in
australia who were very concerned about
that show and they felt that it was
you know take your pick they felt that
it was brownface they felt that it was
appropriation and they felt that it
poorly represented
their culture you know particularly they
thought it trotted out cliches that
every
you know tongan kid was a naughty kid
with a rat bag
when he survived at the end of year 12 i
doubt it
and it was something that went right to
the top you know even the managing
director of the abc at the time
was aware that this was an issue just so
you know the abc is now looking more
closely at its programs to see what
might be considered harmful
or offensive to its audience but when
you really think about comedy the
question of whether old content should
come down or not becomes
even more complicated i mean it's meant
to be funny
i know chris very well chris and i
started on the same tv show together in
2002 or three
you know he's not a racist he's not a
bigot um
you know he would say i think um that
he's simply reflecting a range of
you know characters that one finds in
the in the community
but of course you know people are
perfectly entitled
to be concerned about something even if
the person making the art
had no intention to cause offense there
are a couple of
pocs that are like hey like i'm from
this background
and i found it funny like that's fine
like it's just a comedy
but in saying that i don't think they
can speak on behalf of their entire
community
something that might be fine for me may
not be fine for another indian person
i'm sure there are plenty of things i
felt uh were funny at the time and now
would look at in 2020 and think are
horrendous
the difference is though i think that
what we need to do as a people is
move forward and grow and learn about
what our mistakes were and hopefully be
better tomorrow
the intention of comedy isn't always to
laugh with a character though
it can be to laugh at that character and
their questionable behavior to make a
point
hey neil this is gonna be awesome yo so
we're just gonna ignore that hate crime
huh
that's a big part of satire and why am i
in this movie
maybe i just knew i had to represent
because they had one good partner for a
black man they gave it to crocodile
dundee
i feel like everything has to be on the
table
in in art and in comedy it comes to the
point of like
of the artist who does want to use the
n-word
it's it's up to the artist on how they
do that and the level of intelligence
and the depth
of the content and the art but what they
need to understand is that's a very
loaded word and it can be weaponized
really easily
with some limits it's okay you know i
think for example it was probably a
mistake
for that particular episode of faulty
towers to be taken down
because the character of the major in
the episode about the germans used the
n-word
the point of that episode was actually
that the major is a terrible racist
not that racism is okay well you've got
to love them i suppose don't you
germans no no no women i hate germans
but not everyone agrees that because
something is satire or a statement
against racism that it gives you a free
pass to use racist language or imagery
this is worse than when you wore your
shorts to work you realize this is
incredibly offensive yes
for example tina fey who used blackface
in a satirical way in her show 30 rock
has asked for those episodes to be
pulled from streaming services
and scrubs creator bill lawrence has
asked for episodes of his show to be
pulled down as well
but some people reckon taking down
content voluntarily or otherwise
is kind of like trying to cancel history
or at least
edit history what my deep sense is
that to erase things or to or to somehow
um kind of put put a barrier on us
to access uh is not helping us sir
i'm asking you as a human being to
please stop
talking like that you're potentially
adopting a methodology that says
i'm in disagreement and therefore i
don't feel that there's a need to enter
into any kind of discussion we don't
want to just completely remove it and
not acknowledge that it happened
because that's just saying all these
experiences
all the suppression all this like racism
that people experienced
didn't exist gone with the wind for
example that's a movie that has
so much cultural significance because it
does have how to make daniel
just in case you don't know how you
mcdaniel aka mammy the slave character
was the first black person
ever to win an academy award
i shall always be a credit to my race
and to the motion picture industry
so i think in that sort of case it's
really important to
acknowledge the racial depictions in
that
but also the progress and how far we've
come from that
but there's also the question of where
do we stop i mean if we really start
looking
at representations of racism sexism
homophobia on our screens
we'd probably have to cancel a lot of
things made any time before the
past decade hi honey what is for dinner
are you gay
i get that a lot doing what i do if we
start taking things down
do we start asking questions in that
critical way about so much that
currently still up
that's weird i just wouldn't peg you for
mechanical keep ringing my bill
uh man talk i think we can also treat
people with
you know respect and and uh
assume that they're in a position you
know adults particularly
to make a decision about whether they
themselves want to continue to watch
things that they think
are inappropriate or they find offensive
and if they don't like them they don't
have to watch them
some people are also worried about the
threat of censorship
and where controlling what people can
and can't watch could take us
i would not want art to be bracketed
because who would do the bracketing i'd
be worried about are we talking about
authors are we talking about
distributors are we talking about
you know you know god forbid the state
in a sort of
you know neo-fascist sensibility that i
need to protect people watching
things i think that's really problematic
others say there's no real threat of
censorship when it comes to streaming
services removing their content
netflix is a private company netflix
gets to decide what is and isn't on its
platform just as facebook and twitter
and every other platform gets to decide
what's happening
on there you know in terms of service
and i think that's an example of what
netflix is doing there
is simply curating its collection and
deciding what
and what doesn't reflect its values
anybody who's worried about
not being able to to see the content or
who argue against it they can always go
and purchase it from
somewhere else so the content is never
going away
some of the stuff that streaming
services have taken down will be going
back
up but with a text or video warning to
help give context to when a tv show or
movie was made
and to acknowledge that society no
longer holds those same values
and the film's treatment of this world
through a lens of nostalgia
denies the horrors of slavery as well as
its legacies of racial inequality
while not everyone thinks it's necessary
some people say
it's a good but small step forward much
more important is any network in a
position of changing public perception
about any group in society is funding
their shows and advancing their position
in society
not just worrying about what's in their
back catalogue
i think what we need to move towards is
is creating
indigenous content on these subscription
platforms and a focus on
indigenous creators but the fact that
you're watching this video
and we're talking about this right now
some say that's also a good thing
what i hope happens and i think what
will happen is we no longer look at
things
at events or histories or ideas
um without considering that there are
really complicated contexts involved i
hope that people look at it differently
from now on
and that they don't try to kind of
repress that other side of it
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