Posted on 11/17/2019 6:08:39 PM PST by Impala64ssa
In Portland, Oregon, at Reed College, a small liberal-arts school, a 4 decade old old ‘Saturday Night Live‘ skit by comedian Steve Martin recently caused an uproar over cultural appropriation.
In the classic Steve Martin skit, he performs a goofy song, “King Tut,” meant to satirize a Tutankhamun exhibit touring the U.S. and to criticize the commercialization of Egyptian culture. The skit is felt to be full on racist! Watch for yourself.
Steve Martin performs his funky musical parody “King Tut,” which satirizes the popularity of the King Tut exhibit. [Season 3, 1978]
Students in a humanities class at Reed College blasted the inclusion of the ancient skit in their coursework, branding it a vile racist example of cultural appropriation. They demanded that it be removed entirely. One student called the performance, which includes African-Americans clad in faux ancient Egyptian attire, as racist.
“The gold face of the saxophone dancer leaving its tomb is an exhibition of blackface,” the incensed student told The Atlantic. The Atlantic explains:
But many students found the video so egregious that they opposed its very presence in class. “That’s like somebody … making a song just littered with the n-word everywhere,” a member of Reedies Against Racism (RAR) told the student newspaper when asked about Martin’s performance. She told me more: The Egyptian garb of the backup dancers and singers—many of whom are African American—“is racist as well. The gold face of the saxophone dancer leaving its tomb is an exhibition of blackface.”
Such outrage has been increasingly common in the course, Humanities 110, over the past 13 months. On September 26, 2016, the newly formed RAR organized a boycott of all classes in response to a Facebook post from the actor Isaiah Washington, who urged “every single African American in the United States that was really fed up with being angry, sad and disgusted” over police shootings to stay home on Monday. Of the 25 demands issued by RAR that day, the largest section was devoted to reforming Humanities 110.
A required year-long course for freshmen, Hum 110 consists of lectures that everyone attends and small break-out classes “where students learn how to discuss, debate, and defend their readings.” It’s the heart of the academic experience at Reed, which ranks second for future Ph.D.s in the humanities and fourth in all subjects. (Reed famously shuns the U.S. News & World Report, as explained in a 2005 Atlantic article by a former Reed president.)
As Professor Peter Steinberger details in a 2011 piece for Reed magazine, “What Hum 110 Is All About,” the course is intended to train students whose “primary goal” is “to engage in original, open-ended, critical inquiry.”
I always think of Steve Martin and King Tut when I hear Walk Like an Egyptian on the radio
“Your mama sews socks that smell!”
What is offensive about that video? I don’t get it.
That video was so funny 40 years ago! It still is. Those kids are insane.
The gold face was to replicate.....gold! As in the part of the song talking about golden idols.
Exactly.
A lot of things from the first years of SNL could not be done today. How about Garrett Morris interpreting the news for the hearing-impaired: TONIGHT’S TOP STORY.... How about Belushi’s Samurai skits? Now, “this just in from Madrid — Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead” would make it because he was a fascist.
The schools and the PC parts of the culture have committed huge crime against young people — they have robbed them of an essential part of their humanity — a healthy sense of humor, which includes an appreciation for some pretty outrageous stuff. It’s going to be a gray world if PC and SJW’s prevail.
They’d love The Jerk....
“I was born a poor black child”
Hoss
“Well, excuuuuuse meeeeee!!!”
My sister’s little grandson gets hysterical when she says that to him. He almost rolls on the floor laughing.
They would take mood levelers by the handful!
And the Bond girl (Bond, James Bond) that was full body, painted gold?
Was that racist?
A great YouTube video. And Steve Martin can flat play bluegrass banjo. The fit he threw in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles at the St Louis Airport is classic.
I watch it every Thanksgivig eve.
Same here! That and the WKRP “Turkey Drop” episode are a Thanksgiving ritual for me.
Does ANYONE take this seriously???
I'm just glad these nimrods have never heard "Ahab the Arab".
Reed College has been a hotbed of leftism for more than half a century. In 1965, my father, a math teacher, attended a summer program for math teachers at Reed College, so my family moved into an on-campus dormitory.
When my mother sent me out to buy a newspaper from a news rack, she told me to be sure not to choose the People’s World, a Communist Party rag. Seeing this paper for sale is was my first encounter with Communist propaganda. And the biggest entertainment event on campus that summer was a concert by the Stalinist balladeer Comrade Pete Seeger.
In 1968, my family returned to Reed College and again took up residence on the campus. I didn’t accompany them, but my brothers told me that the anti-Vietnam War movement was very much alive there.
How stupid can these morons get!
Other examples of the harebrained concept of "cultural appropriation":
grits (Native American)Don't you DARE use/eat/wear/play or listen to/paint your walls/ or otherwise appropriate ANY of these!
the violin (Italian)
the color turquoise (Turkish)
pajamas (Pakastani and Iranian)
the toilet (English)
tattoos (Tahitian, Tongan, and Samoan)
potatoes (Peruvian)
You're a vile racist if you do!
(I used to think millennials were merely maleducated, but now it's obvious that they are actually stupid!)
Flip Wilson, Eddie Murphy, et al would be screwed. They had humor and used it. Sammy Davis Junior was a talent most don’t remember. Now they try to knock those entertainers. I’ll have none of it. It’s a total shame. Blazing Saddles was a great spoof of racial stereotyping. It isn’t education, it’s indoctrination.
“Yo, Incensed Student, you ever heard of this song called Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves by this woman called Cher?”
I heard that it was originally “White trash, Tramps, and Thieves,” but they were afraid that “white trash” would be too offensive.
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