But I found myself swilling two beers and a Long Island iced tea--which, because I am frugal, alcohol intolerant, and unfond of ice cubes, I have almost never done before--during the second act of the performance, to help me last until the AMAZING BAND I came see took the stage. You see, I had arrived at a characteristically uncool early hour and had exhausted conversation with friends and aliens alike. The volunteer performers, bless them, were either inaudible spoken word poets or penis-waving transwomen who disappeared behind the sea of standing voyeurs blocking the stage or lit-from-below go-go dancers with bored expressions on their beautiful faces. In short, they were all kind of hard to pay attention to, and I found myself more than once admiring the pounded tin ceiling or looking around for people to start a fistfight with. (No takers on the latter.)
What really drove me to that Long Island iced tea, however, was the second act in the second set, an interracial comedy couple that performs under the name Epstein and Hassan: the black and the Jew. Neat, novel, and potentially interesting. But then they had to go and get my pantaloons all in bunch with some cheap jokes about Chinese people. Chinese people have lots of babies! They have sex fast and then deliver your food! They slip menus under your door! Haw haw!
Making dumb jokes about Chinese people: why the hell did they have to go and do that? I felt like what I imagine all the girlfriends roped by their knuckle-dragging boyfriends to see Andrew "Dice" Clay in the early '90s must have felt like: urinal cakes. I could sense that some segments of the audience, bless them, felt slightly discomfited by the tasteless humor, but equally large segments of the audience laughed uproariously at the jokes about the funny Chinee.
Epstein and Hassan then went forth and feigned fellatio twice, the second time with Epstein locking Hassan in a headlock meant to illustrate the funniness of oral rape. Haw haw!
I don't like it when people call out every offensive slight as an act of racism. It feels like crying wolf--well, that's not the best metaphor. It feels like someone's trying to use a sledgehammer to mend broken fence. Right? No? Like when one of my houseguests thought it was racist that my Polish-Irish lesbipet calls me her "heathen Chinee" and I call her my "kielbasa." How is that racist? Them overly sensitive anti-racists with their humorless sledgehammering.
So I asked myself, am I being humorless, unforgiving, and overly sensitive with Epstein and Hassan's act?
Fuck no! Those folks offended me! I won't drown myself now in the legitimacy-of-the-speaker ideas in which I've previously drowned, but suffice to say that Epstein and Hassan had no business making the jokes they did.
My first thought: I'm a get drunk and tackle both of them onstage.
My second thought: I'm a dress up in my panda suit and give them both a WWE smackdown after the show.
My final thought: I'm a write a respectful email using the social skills I learned during my 7th grade adolescent skills class: pulling, not pushing. "When you blank, I feel blank," not accusation. Assertive, not aggressive. Roses then thorns; first flattery, then criticism. Professionalism. Business letters. Dear Sir and Madam.
Here is the letter I wrote them. I'll post a response once I get one.
Dear Epstein and Hassan,
I saw your performance last night at the Slipper Room, and I wanted to
write you for a few reasons. First, I just wanted to thank you for
performing. You two put yourselves out there and that's always a
daring and admirable act.
Second, I regret to say, I found parts of your show racist and
offensive. Specifically, I'm referring to the unfortunate series of
jokes you made about Chinese people ("How do they have time to have
trillions of babies and still stuff the menus under your door?"). I
don't doubt that you did not intend to hurt anyone with your words,
but I just wanted to bring to your attention how your words were
hurtful: you made the explicit presumption that no one in the room was
Chinese, throwing a veil of invisibility over the Chinese and East
Asian people in your audience; and you seemed to know Chinese people
only insofar as they stuck menus under your door and brought you food,
a jab both classist and racist.
I understand that your act derives from the distinctiveness of your
interracial relationship, and so naturally you turn to racial and
ethnic humor. This kind of humor is tricky because it depends on the
authenticity of the voice speaking it; you can make fun of blacks,
Jews, and black-Jewish couples because you obviously live the
experience. But your license to satirize some racial stereotypes
doesn't give you license to mock indiscriminately. Perhaps you thought
your Chinese jokes were part of a larger effort to subvert often
stifling mores of political correctness, but the overall effect of
this part of your performance was to create a space where it was okay
for two non-Chinese people, and their overwhelmingly non-Chinese
audience, to have a hearty laugh at those wacky procreating,
food-delivering Chinese coolies.
I'm writing not to chastise you, but to suggest that you change this
portion of your routine. It would really be a shame if the interesting
and novel things you have to say are overshadowed by a few cheap shots
at people you ought not to be mocking. Thanks for taking the time to
read this.
Respectfully,
Mandy
Fuck the healing!
Next: I will describe how the social skills I learned during my 7th grade adolescent skills class came into play again recently, when a deranged old fart who liked to wear wedding gowns and rollerskates in West Village in the the 1970s who was the subject of my last grad school history paper decided that my paper misrepresented his character. Money quote: "What, Ms. Hu, is your definition of a nerd?"
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