Racist - The Bear and Badger

LivDiv

Is he using it as a promotional tool or is it just something that came into his mind?

It's impossible to say.

RedDave2

Yeah, I find myself agreeing with Roujin in the promotion of taken version 57 being maybe not being the place to bring up the racism or the rape.

SpaceGazelle

You probably do 200 interviews with the same questions. Maybe it drove him mad. I think the point is more about the black killing rage thing then it is about timing. If he's sincere he's sincere, if he's not he's not.

Moot_Geeza

The latter I'd guess, surely, but deciding to go ahead with it anyway is kicked out the Big Brother house levels of stupidity.

Edit: livdiv

SpaceGazelle

Also, actors take their roles seriously, even the shit ones. Weird bunch all round and who knows why he brought it up then, but it's still getting off the point imo.

Roujin

He's on the promotional circuit or whatever you want to call it for the film, he said it during an interview. I'm not saying it was intentional, I'm saying that even if he said it off his own back it demonstrates just how fucking poor his judgement must be if he thought that it was in any way something he should be saying at this point in time.

The media have gone straight for the OMG RACISM OUTRAGE angle as expected, when really, imho the bigger issue here is that Neeson thinks it's okay to just bring up a story about his friend getting raped (which I'm sure they really appreciate being reminded about every time they go online, turn on the TV, listen to the radio for the next week) and him pretending to be a shit, racially motivated batman in the context that he thinks it's somehow going to make us really believe his performance in his new film.

What colossal, thundering dunce.

It's a real clanger, he best have got on the blower to his friend and apologised profusely for the now ongoing dredging up of some really unpleasant memories in his attempt to give himself some acting cred.

Armitage_Shankburn

Roujin wrote:

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

He's an actor talking about a role, and pointing out an experience in his life, which he regretted, helped him to play the role of a cunt after revenge. I don't see that it makes it worse, it is entirely to the point. He's not condoning revenge, racism or owt - quite the opposite.

Right but like we've all seen Taken and the role of "angry because someone killed my son" is hardly a nuanced and complex place for an actor to go is it?

That said, even if you don't have an issue with his language and actions because he's talking about a historic experience with different attitudes it still doesn't really address the fact that he's using the rape of a friend as part of the promotion for the film. Which is fucking rank.

Well yeah it's a Neeson film post 2000

Can we talk about the real culprit here: George Lucas

cockbeard

SpaceGazelle wrote:

The Irish do have a legitimate grievance tbf. I'm not condoning it but it's more understandable than white English racism.

legitimate maybe, valid no

Someones words or attitude are never going to bother me, except when I respect someone and see a side (maybe through laziness) that is ugly. It only ever makes me feel pity for them. When I was younger I would let most things slide, with the recent rise in the right wing, even the soft right wing, I can;t do that any more. Discussing past mistakes is cathartic, but often only for the perpertrator. I think of when I was a kid we got an anti drugs leaflet which described Snide-Es and all the random stuff that might be in your pill. It was supposed to put us off, but I saw ketamine in there and wondered what that would be like to take, it was a fair few years before that drug gained traction on its own. So whilst he might feel better for getting it off his chest and asking the world for forgiveness, there's a tiny percentage of folk who will use that as a mandate for their own hatred

LivDiv

Like Space says, they do hundreds of these things, maybe it slipped.
Maybe he looked at the way things are with knife crime revenge etc and thought his story may do some good.

Nobody knows why he said what he said at the time he said it so dragging him across the coals on assumptions seems shitty. Like it really even matters that much to the greater conversation anyway.

The argument is a distraction from the important points.

Maybe listen and discuss rather than jumping to outrage. It feels like because he said something racist half the world has been triggered, then when they thought about it they really shouldn't be triggered by the thing that set them off and are trying to hang their hat on something else.

SpaceGazelle

I blame Brexit.

LivDiv

@Rouj

How do you know he hasn't discussed it with her in the past. Maybe she suggested he talk about it at the time or more recently.
You are basing a lot of outrage here on a lot of total unknown quantities.

Roujin

Well I'm just guessing, but if it were me, I would not use a story about my friend getting raped if I was a global celebrity and what I said was getting published all over the place in the run up to my new film.

Just try and put yourself in either the publicity team shoes, Neeson's shoes or the shoes of his friend and try and conceive of the conversation between any combination of parties in relation to the use of this story in an interview that doesn't sound completely absurd.

Moot_Geeza

Neeson toying with the idea of racially motivated vigilantism 40-odd years ago is actually less surprising to me than the fact that he admitted this in an interview in 2019.

SpaceGazelle

He was with his co-star when he said it and I think he was like, "Wtf?". Who knows why he said it then but I'm not sure it has any particular significance but he was clearly uncomfortable doing so, according to the journalist.

davyK

He's an actor.

As much as the popularity, voice and screen presence that the big man has can give him gravitas, ultimately he is playing at dress-up and speaking someone else's words for a living.

So when he drops a clanger in an interview and we see him as a human being who is as likely to be a dick as the rest of us despite his position of privilege it only confirms that there isn't a great deal of difference between us all.

Skade

LivDiv wrote:

@Rouj

How do you know he hasn't discussed it with her in the past. Maybe she suggested he talk about it at the time or more recently.
You are basing a lot of outrage here on a lot of total unknown quantities.

She has been dead 5 years apparently.

davyK

Maybe it was his wife? She must be dead that long by now.

Edit - nope she died 2009.

b0r1s

The actors thing is an interesting point. I’ve been watching a lot of the Hollywood reporter round tables lately. That and my previous love of Inside The Actors Studio makes it clear a lot of successful actors really believe the bullshit of how challenging their lives are. Perhaps it’s some of that. When you are told day after day how brave you are for delving into yourself and being vulnerable etc it starts to become the norm. Perhaps he felt putting it out there was another brave move. I have no idea.

Lord_Griff

I bet he pissed himself after he said it.

RedDave2

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/feb/07/gucci-withdraws-jumper-blackface-balaclava

Given the recent discussion here about people getting enraged over things, does anyone here see this as racist or (in my case) just a really stupid looking bit of fashion.

Yossarian

The resemblance to racist caricatures is pretty obvious to me. Whether that makes it racist or stupid, I don’t know, nor do I think it really matters.

pantyfire

b0r1s wrote:

The actors thing is an interesting point. I’ve been watching a lot of the Hollywood reporter round tables lately. That and my previous love of Inside The Actors Studio makes it clear a lot of successful actors really believe the bullshit of how challenging their lives are. Perhaps it’s some of that. When you are told day after day how brave you are for delving into yourself and being vulnerable etc it starts to become the norm. Perhaps he felt putting it out there was another brave move. I have no idea.

I've always thought this.

RedDave2

Yossarian wrote:

The resemblance to racist caricatures is pretty obvious to me. Whether that makes it racist or stupid, I don’t know, nor do I think it really matters.

Well, you see racism, my initial thought was rocky horror picture show. Does that mean I'm blinkered or you are looking too hard?

afgavinstan

https://www.punknews.org/article/69092/koji-accuses-frank-turners-mongol-horde-of-having-racist-implications

Facewon

RedDave2 wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

The resemblance to racist caricatures is pretty obvious to me. Whether that makes it racist or stupid, I don’t know, nor do I think it really matters.

Well, you see racism, my initial thought was rocky horror picture show. Does that mean I'm blinkered or you are looking too hard?

Pretty obvious connection for me. Given the number of dumb fuck bogans still doing literal blackface out here, seems a pertinent issue still.

Folks don't seem capable of having a bare minimum of understanding.

Also, 890. Fucking lol.

Yossarian

RedDave2 wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

The resemblance to racist caricatures is pretty obvious to me. Whether that makes it racist or stupid, I don’t know, nor do I think it really matters.

Well, you see racism, my initial thought was rocky horror picture show. Does that mean I'm blinkered or you are looking too hard?

I wasn’t looking hard at all, it was my immediate reaction. Having said that, the headline and URL did prime me for such a reaction, but even without that, I think that large, red lips on a black face or part of a face will always put me in mind of that. Golliwogs were around when I was a child (still now, I would guess, but I haven’t seen one in years), the problematic nature of them was something I definitely encountered in my teens.

hunk

Yossarian wrote:

The resemblance to racist caricatures is pretty obvious to me. Whether that makes it racist or stupid, I don’t know, nor do I think it really matters.

It's both plus added brand exposure equals free publicity. Meanwhile the designers are having a chuckle.

Diluted Dante

Yeah, I couldn't work out what a racist balaclava would be, then I loaded the picture and full on lolled.

Yossarian

hunk wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

The resemblance to racist caricatures is pretty obvious to me. Whether that makes it racist or stupid, I don’t know, nor do I think it really matters.

It's both plus added brand exposure equals free publicity. Meanwhile the designers are having a chuckle.

I doubt that this is the sort of brand exposure that any large company would deliberately court.

g.man

I dunno lads. If someone dressed me up like this, I'd be just glad for anything that was covering my face...

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