Can you imagine how the world would halt if someone wished for a "vanilla city"???
Posted on 07/26/2007 10:19:56 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The producers of ABC's new sitcom Cavemen, based on a series of popular advertisements for the insurance company Geico, were ready to defend themselves against charges of rampant commercialism. But the charge that their show about put-upon Cro-Magnons in the modern world has racist undertones took them by surprise.
''I actually didn't know we would catch so much hell,'' Cavemen writer Joe Lawson ruefully told a room full of highly critical critics at a gathering of North American television writers here Wednesday. ``That's a pleasant surprise.''
Cavemen, which features shaggy Cro-Magnons trying to make their way through a hostile Homo Sapiens world, won't even air until October but is already drenched in its second wave of controversy.
The first came in May when ABC announced it was converting a handful of 30-second insurance commercials into a half-hour series. The Cavemen producers had to endure a seemingly endless round of cracks like the one on Saturday Night Live's satirical Weekend Update newscast, which announced NBC would counter with a new drama called 1-800-Mattress.
But as the show's pilot episode began circulating in Hollywood, so did a new round of criticism: that Cavemen trafficked in the very racial caricatures it was supposed to be lampooning. By depicting the Cro-Magnons as good dancers, great athletes and grand sexual partners, the show's detractors argued, Cavemen was using black stereotypes for cheap racist laughs. ''We finally get to laugh at all the stereotypes in the world directed at cavemen, without feeling guilty,'' wrote one Hollywood blogger. ABC's decision to reshoot the pilot didn't exactly help.
Wednesday's panel discussion here was the first time Cavemen producers have discussed the show in public, and they said people are reading too much into what they called a ''fish out of water'' story.
''Unfortunately, in our society, if you pick an offensive stereotype of any kind, it's going to bump into some ethnic group,'' said Mike Schiff, one of the executive producers. ``Is the show about race relations? No. Is that a background to the show? Yes, of course.''
Lawson, who wrote the original Geico commercials as well as the pilot, said that if the Cro-Magnons are an allegorical stand-in for anybody, it's not black people but outsiders.
''As human beings, we all have that need to fit in,'' he said. ``It's really a show about acclimation more than anything, and that's something that everybody deals with, doesn't matter if you're a minority or not.''
Not everybody -- in fact, almost nobody -- in the room was buying it, partly because some of the Cavemen story lines the producers offered as evidence the show isn't about race (for instance, one of the cavemen concealing the fact that he's dating a Homo Sapiens woman, for fear his Cro Magnon friends won't like it) sounded like race was exactly what they were about.
The cavemen are ''known for their athletic prowess, their sexual prowess, their dancing,'' complained one critic, to which director Josh Gordon deadpanned: ``They're Jewish.''
So many questions were about hot-button racial topics that the producers actually seemed relieved when anybody circled back to the subject of commercialism. When one critic sarcastically asked if the gecko lizard who stars in another group of Geico commercials would be making a guest appearance on Cavemen, Gordon replied that it ``depends on how ratings are.''
And he was sympathetic to the charge of another critic that Cavemen suffered ''a failure in anthropological verisimilitude'' by making its Cro-Magnons look more like Neanderthals and suggested that the show fire all its technical advisors.
''If we had technical advisors,'' Gordon conceded, ``we would probably fire them.''
Send your complaints to Warren Buffett.
Problem solved!
I always thought the geico cavemen were parodies of thin skinned blacks who walk around with chips on their shoulders just waiting to be offended by something.
If they type with both hands is that stereotype?
Listen in to the diverse voices of the United Kingdom, Channel Islands and Isle of Man – from Shetland to Penzance. Eavesdrop on Rotarians in Pitlochry and Travellers in Belfast. Drop in on skateboarders in Milton Keynes. Overhear pigeon fanciers in Durham.
The clips are drawn from the Voices recordings – which capture 1,200 people in conversation. Some of the clips are people talking about language – slang, dialect, taboo words, accents. Other clips cover all sorts of subjects and simply offer a flavour of how we talk today.
I haven't had a chance to listen yet. It could be interesting.
These cavemen look like Neanderthals to me.
Thank you - I thought I was the only one who noticed that. The artist's depictions of Cro-Magnon man I remember from anthropology show people that would pass un-noticed today if they were dressed in modern clothing.
The geico people look like or close to Neanderthals.
Can you imagine how the world would halt if someone wished for a "vanilla city"???
Maybe we should all go around in black face for a day of atonement.
Can't dance or play sports well, but the 3rd one is where I excel.
Hey, I was a poet and didn't know it.
Racial stereotypes? In our society? Oh my. What law can we make to outlaw this episode?
I’ve had alot of patience...but frankly across the whole board, I’m seeing racism out of Korans, Blacks, Latinos, Mexicans, El Salvadorans, Panamanians, Germans, Canadians, Bama-ites, Texans, British, French, Russian, and even the American Indians. So I really don’t buy any argument on stereotypes. I can showly episodes on CNN where racism occurs. I can show racism on the PTL club. I can show racism with advertisements. It doesn’t stop. So whats the use of fighting it?
I thought the cavemen were meant to be urbane metrosexuals.
The Offense Police have found a new target!
a cross dating plot line could easily be about two different religions.
This is just a shakedown B$
follow the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Sadly I think this is going to be a hit and they want one of their own paid to be a consultant of doing nothing.
It seems to track madison avenue’s bash men mentality.
Notice it is “stupid males” who don’t get “geico is easy”.
There are no female cave”persons”.
I sadly expect the series to be a left wing caveman propagandafest. Implying civilized cavemen tilt to the (savage) left.
“The cavemen are ‘’known for their athletic prowess, their sexual prowess, their dancing,’’ “
Yeah, but do they have rhythm?
Sounds like somebody got up on the wrong side of the rock this morning.
I look forward to their show too....
I think it's more because now that we've established a clear precedent that claims of racism - no matter how specious - can lead directly to payments of large sums of money, everybody wants to get in on the act. ;)
We’ve obviously never met...
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