Concept T shirts Reviews

Have you seen the Michael Richards/Kramer standup video? It brings up a whole host of issues that are as intriguing as they are controversial.

Many people have immediately branded Michael Richards a racist - on the surface can this be denied? - but let’s not prejudge the issue and let’s make a deeper analysis of the situation.

So we have a comic who has made racist remarks. Does that immediately make him a racist? Are there any facts in his defense at all, or none at all?

The fact that he is a comic - a performer - is relevant. He is trying to make people laugh, a well-known way of doing which is to make outrageous and unpalateable statements. It is a basic position of satire that people pretend to be what they are not. This goes right back to the Roman satirist Juvenal, which brings up the question - was this episode racist or bad satire?

Good satire makes people see themselves from another angle, makes them glimpse a truth that they have hidden. It usually does this through humor - but not always. Parodying views that the writer or performer doesn’t hold is the first tool of satire.

So - Kramer speaks racist words. We have seen that that is not a de facto sign of racism. However, satire needs a point, an aim, it needs to puncture views and help people see things from a different - better? - perspective.

Does Kramer do this? The answer is no.  Kramer has let the satirical arrow slip and become merely offensive. Does that make him racist?
Only he can know that.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Art, Life & T shirts, Reviews, TV . You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.