In Living Color: Season 04 Episode 19 & 20

The shows opener is with an effeminate captain of a US navy submarine who is dropping all kinds of innuendo. First, a sailor returns from the boiler room shirtless, and the captain denies the sailor asking, “permission to put on my shirt, sir” Following this, he is “Going down the hull” when he learns the torpedoes wont load” The skit ends with the captain riding a torpedo yelling, “ Here I come you Nazi bastards” The skit is largely stereotypical: Gay Men are effeminate is an example of this and the hegemonic norm of him going down “to the hull (pronounced ‘hole’) presents a kind of [reverse?] hegemonic norm that all gay men are interested in back door types of sex. My own research has found that this is not the case; there are as many ways that LBGT men relate intimately as there are ways in heterosexual interactions. 

 

Let us move on…Please, Drake!

Although the next skit can be said to foster racial stereotypes as well implement the process of assimilation. Men on Film is a reoccurring feature of the series and once again exhibits stereotypical. The skit is that follows has Jim Carey as Richard Simons offering tips on eating to the survivors of a plane wreak in the Andes [Alive]. The foreground is littered in bodies. The black character is seen to be eating brains which reinforces or exudes exoticism, relying on what earlier generations may have viewed Blacks as: primitive and animalistic. The woman likes dark meat, and this is an example of othering. 

Moving to a skit that is an take-off of one of Bob Hopes USO tours. “What if Bob Hope was Black?” was pretty humorous, but he is the only person who is Black on the stage, so this is an example of tokenism.

Next, we see Carey as Sargeant Stacey Coons of LAPD Rodney King LA Riots fame [or infamy] His job is to “right the wrong” when he tails a black youth on skateboard. I those days—supposedly—are not skateboarders; this is an example of assimilation.

Lastly, an example of ideological differences has exotic men dressed in a leopard suit contrasting the exoticism that the Waynes Brothers do not have.  

In closing, Chris and I had watched a black mirror episode of Black Mirror involving a woman chipping her daughter and the nightmarish app that allows the mother to see through her daughter’s eyes. The show is raved about by my classmates for a reason! For our purposes, it provided one black man for about two seconds; admittedly, that nailed tokenism, again, and exclusion! 

I think I must be suffering from Senior-ite-ous as my usual strict adherence to getting everything done to the best of my ability, hit the wall from burn-out due largely from being overworked on my internship by unreasonable demands on my time from the boss; luckily, the situation has been resolved and I will be glad to walk at graduation, make some money and see friends in Oregon over part of the summer, and hopefully return to finish my last six units and find a job with a local media company or get an agent, join the union and start my voiceover career.