Rev. Al might be right
I was watching the news today, when the anchor starts a lead in for the next story: "Presidential candidate the Reverand Al Sharpton is upset that a new game reinforces negative racial stereotypes."
Now, my first reaction was, "what is the little tubby bastard exercised about now?" After the commercial break, it was revealed that the offensive game is called, and I am as serious as a heartattack,
The game is a stolen property fencing game. The one property I remember was "Tyrone's Gun Shop." Reverend Al might have a point here.
Since the the game's site is not working, here is a link to a story about the game.
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Buckethead
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It's true, Rev. Al does have
It's true, Rev. Al does have a point. But how is this different from the old In Living Color sketch where Damon Wayans fenced stolen toaster ovens, broken TV's and "rolex" watches?
Or the one where the same Damon Wayans played an "educated" convict who didn't understand anything he'd read and spouted meaningless gibberish: "The [em]cunnilinguity[/em] of the negrocious race must be [em]cauterized[/em] with [em]perspecuity[/em]"?
Or the "Friday" movies? Suuure, they have heart and all that, but Smokey, Dee-bo, the hotpants-wearing affair-having neighbor across the street, and the crack dealers were allll played for big laughs.
I thought those things were funny as hell, and I actually think the IDEA of "Ghettopoly" starts out on the road to funny, before it runs totally off the rails into dumb, ugly, and offensive.
So what's the difference? Is it because Ghettopoly crosses the line between clever and stupid? Is it because we don't know who put the game out? The same company does have "Redneckopoly" and "Thugopoly" in the works, so it's not like this is some KKK plot. If anything, this is the work of morons like put out Vice magazine in New York--- white-supremacist hipsters with that smartass conservatism that grows up to be like David Duke. Offensive to all, with specific malice toward, erm, all.
I wasn't thinking so much
I wasn't thinking so much about the offensiveness of the game - but rather my surprise at being in agreement with the Rev.
Perhaps the game went too far, although it seems that they got the stereotypes dead on. Stereotypes are useful mental shorthand, and can be both good and bad. This game seems only to use the bad kind.
We can't know what was in their minds, but it didn't seem like this was either good natured ribbing, or an effort to point out unhelpful stereotypes, or even a kind of illconceived social satire.