"I want to apologize to my fans and the gay & lesbian community for my choice of words at my recent stand-up act in Nashville. I’m not a hateful person and don’t condone any kind of violence against others,” Morgan said in a statement. “While I am an equal opportunity jokester, and my friends know what is in my heart, even in a comedy club this clearly went too far and was not funny in any context.""My friends know what's in my heart". Yeah, I think you revealed what's in there dude.
There will be people who hold cultural values quite strongly and those who hold them not at all. The attribution of cultural traits to individuals from a given culture is called ‘stereotyping’. The word has negative connotations but you should be aware that stereotyping is not necessarily bad. In fact, it is a natural consequence of the ways in which we communicate.I remember a good friend from high-school, who was a young blonde haired woman, she was very pretty, and, to half the people who knew her, and conversed, very smart (my experience of having classes together showed me she was miles beyond me, and many others in terms of intelligence). However, her voice had traits which could, with little difficulty be classified as "valley girl" like, and, of course, there is the "dumb pretty blonde" stereotype, so there was this stereotype of "dumb blonde", which was a label aplied by people who didn't know her well (or at all)... but to those who knew her and spent time, this was easily seen as a "wtf, that doesn't even make sense" thing, awww heck, it is so annoying, but Community actually made this precise point for me, without needing to use real people...
It is important to note the following about stereotypes:
• Stereotypes are automatic, and cannot be avoided. They are the ways in which we
organise our thinking in new situations.
• Stereotypes are derived from experience with members of other groups or from
secondary sources. In either case, they arise because we have too little accurate information
to go on.
• Stereotypes can be moved closer to reality by increased contact with the group that is
being stereotyped.
• If the stereotyper’s perception of another group is positive or neutral, the stereotype
will believe (wrongly) that the other group is ‘just like us’.
• Stereotypes, in and of themselves, do not lead to miscommunication. The problems
arise if they are inaccurate and are held too rigidly. The predictions made by them will
be wrong, and this will lead to misunderstanding.
• If we want to communicate effectively with strangers, we should not seek to avoid
stereotypes. What we need to do is to increase the complexity and accuracy of our
stereotypes. We can do this by constantly questioning them.
I’m glad to hear that Tracy apologized for his comments. Stand-up comics may have the right to ‘work out’ their material in its ugliest and rawest form in front of an audience, but the violent imagery of Tracy’s rant was disturbing to me at a time when homophobic hate crimes continue to be a life-threatening issue for the GLBT Community. It also doesn’t line up with the Tracy Morgan I know, who is not a hateful man and is generally much too sleepy and self-centered to ever hurt another person.posted by filthy light thief at 9:00 PM on June 10, 2011 [13 favorites]
I hope for his sake that Tracy’s apology will be accepted as sincere by his gay and lesbian coworkers at 30 Rock, without whom Tracy would not have lines to say, clothes to wear, sets to stand on, scene partners to act with, or a printed-out paycheck from accounting to put in his pocket. The other producers and I pride ourselves on 30 Rock being a diverse, safe, and fair workplace.
« Older The premise of HBO's hour-long special "Talking Fu... | "A short film chronicling the ... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Trurl at 2:47 PM on June 9, 2011 [37 favorites]