but I won't risk appearing un politically correct so no text .

I loved the Frito Bandito. I didn't understand anything about the underlying stereotypes, I just thought he as a very amusing cartoon character who loved Fritos. I was young and didn't understand all the nuances. Clearly he was offensive to many outside of my own life narrative.

Eye of the beholder, and all that.

He was smart as hell and always made poor ol' Sylvester look like an absolute dullard.

A perfect example is item 8, when George pretended to have a black friend. The writer cluelessly (or intentionally) says "it insinuates that you can’t be racist if you can prove you have one black friend".

No, it says that GEORGE is so stupid, he thinks having a black friend will prove he isn't racist (which, by the way, he isn't).

Item 6 is just as stupid: "it is problematic because it reinforces the idea that identifying as gay is a phase that can be rectified with the right heterosexual."

If they had bothered to watch the episode, it clearly showed Elaine as a fool, who failed to "convert" the gay gay. In other words, it "reinforces the idea that identifying as gay is NOT a phase".

that episode is mocking racists who say "i can't be racist! i have a black friend!!"

It's as if the writer wants a rule that says every show must be a perfect cross-section of society, but no jokes can be made at those characters' expense.

Sounds hilarious.

but that's probably because I'm an old man over 1,000 years old and can overlook a lot of jokes that are to me more funny than mean-spirited. If it's genuinely funny I can overlook a lot, even if the joke is directed at me.

Just because I came across it somewhere and I remember it being a huge hit when it first came out.

Ooh boy..It would never fly today is about the best I can say about it.

I remembered thinking "He sure was funny back in the day" without remembering any of the specific bits.

My reaction was the same as yours.

I say "Now that's a fire!"

I was shocked when I went back and watched it.

Sanford & Son was offensive as hell when it was on the air, but that shit was funny

They'd make a grown man blush, today.

He sure was funny as hell, though.

at times, have to walk around with a roll of duct tape

'oh so offended'.

Don't like a certain comic? Guess what.....don't fucking listen.

Don't tell me what I should or should not like. I'm a grown damn woman, thank you, I can decide for my self.

though it has ebbed a bit of late after hitting a peak of unintentional drop-dead hilarity with last summer's unforgettable 600-post fracas over the cover of a limited edition Spider-Woman comic book. The unreconstruucted cement-headed idiocy on display in that thread may have exceeded even the Chicken Wars or the Moon Bombing threads.

Well, that's sure to jinx it.

Grown women must not be allowed to decide what.............I just can't.





I'm a woman, I am supposed to be outraged about some fucking thing. Wut..... Cuz I'm a woman and somebody told me so.....

I'll decide for myself.

in the same position were posted, some wouldn't give in or even acknowledge the mountains of evidence that they were as wrong as it is possible to be.

As a comic geek for 30 years, I could not begin to count or remember the number of panels with Spider-Man in exactly the same position or in one so close to it you'd need an anatomist to point out the differences.

Let everyone sort it out for herself or himself. The cosmos don't care shit about it.

"Fasten your seat belt. It's going to be a bumpy flight." Hilarity WILL ensue.

Maybe it's a toss-up between those two threads in terms of the sheer unhinged, querulous derangement of some of the arguments.

Too mean, too cynical. Yet too well measured.

I strive for the life I can say exactly what I think.

Sometimes I'm not sure how that will turn out until someone punches me in the face or kisses me.

Riffing on "Politically Correct," P.C. or not P.C., is not my favorite flavor of comedy.

I like silly frivolous naked comedy, or smacking the audience bloody with an aluminum baseball bat kind of comedy.

It seems to me the Seinfeld brand of comedy is the "nervous laughter" sort of comedy.

Blech. There's no frivolous nudity, no blood, except maybe for the very thin-skinned.

PG-13 rated.

PG-13 is the movie rating of maximum suck.

I find the Disney crap ridiculous. The 'ABC Family' channel is gross to me. I don't feel the need to wail about that garbage in a blog.

Our own family television plays movies. No cable, no satellite, no broadcast, no news, no sports, no PBS... nothing but movies. DVD sets of television series I consider movies too. No Advertising. The Star Treks, etc.

I have no idea what's on television these days, I just remember Seinfeld didn't appeal to me at all. I saw three episodes maybe, and bits and pieces of others, sometimes posted here on DU as YouTube clips.

There are many sorts of humor I simply "don't get." Seinfeld humor is one.

The Marx Brothers crack me up, and on the darker side of the humor spectrum, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Robin Williams could be brutally knock-you-on-your-ass funny when they were not limited by television censors, and even when they were censored.

ever heard Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory, Lenny Bruce or Richard Pryor. Their heads would have exploded on the spot. Carlin would have destroyed these schmucks with two or three devastating one-liners.

The Fox News on the left side of the spectrum. They publish troll articles thinking it will save them from their low readership numbers

and watch Blazing Saddles every once in a while.

the West Wing was super sexist. it's shocking when I watch it now

She was the cheapest date ever because we went to comedy clubs and concerts several nights a week and she had her network AMEX card in hand at all times. Basically she was to find up and coming comedians, raconteurs and musical acts in L.A.

Eventually she had to move to New York and that was it.

I think back to some of the people we saw, some of them are now or were at one point pretty big names who's standup routines in the 90's would today have them ostracized and banished for all time if someone happened to record some of them.

And indeed, some of them were extremely offensive, but some of them were both extremely offensive and absolutely hilarious.

One that stands out was a female comedian who in character as an awkward virgin (with very limited knowledge of male anatomy) unwound a long-winded plot to "fuck the gay" out of her roommate. It was hilarious, but if anyone recorded that and sends it to Gawker I suppose everyone attached to her will have to publicly disown her and she will have to go cry in shame on the Today Show.

Humor should have some leeway to push boundaries, but those boundaries shouldn't be set by the most hyper-sensitive of people.

One of the contributors wrote that any tv show that depicts a traditional family is sexist, since a child necessarily implies piv sex, which in turn indicative of "the patriarchy"

So yes, you could say that.

calm down, you're just joking. Oh, many's the time when a good ni**er, or a sp*c, or p*ssy or c*nt joke could keep you laughing all night. I mean, if women don't like the secretary under the desk routine, that's their problem. And how about those J*ws, am I right? LOL. But seriously folks...

in general, not just Seinfeld. So, wrong much?

What is a better term the left can use to call out the extremists on our own side? I'm a liberal/progressive, but heck, I can take a good old joke. I think the "PC" police, anti-humor leftists, word police, etc., are annoying.

The RW has co-opted the term "political correctness." Do you have a better term for rational progressives to use to distinguish themselves from irrational leftists?

The absolutists?

Actually, I don't need a name to bash real lefties, even if they are humor-challenged.

I have a hard time pinpointing some people's agendas, even if they use lefty language.

If you're around DU very long, you'll find plenty of people who are lifelong liberals, but who also have no sense of humor and who believe strongly in censorship of words and ideas that they disagree with.

I'm sure there are some real lefty people like that, but most? That agenda thing.

the ability to see facial expressions and body language. So much is in HOW something is said. It is not so much WHAT is said as it is HOW it is said.

So much is conveyed with human emotion.

It is coupled with our internet narcissism which makes it all the more sensitive to things that impact us and our group alone.

10 “All In The Family” episodes in which Archie Bunker's behavior is racist, sexist, and homophobic (in retrospect).

The people who've been getting stepped on in American culture are more able to speak up. Thankfully. There are some things we should not have ever put up with in the first place and our society will be much better for it when we rid ourselves of them. We can deal with the perpetually outraged, the fake whiners that just make it hard on everyone. But slapping PC on any and every complaint doesn't serve us well either, IMHO.

About humor..... Part of the progress we make is thanks to humorists who are willing to shine a spotlight on our collective mistakes and shortcomings. Humor is a very tricky thing though. It doesn't often translate to another time or culture. My Dad really laughed with Don Rickles. I think his humor is bully humor and not funny or offensive.

So know your audience, do your thing... but don't expect everyone to like it. It's the beauty of America. Jerry Seinfeld can do this thing... and I am free to not laugh.

At least according to other people. They'd never say so themselves.

Almost entirely unfunny...

so yes, racist, sexist and homophobic.

I am all in favor of a constant argument about what is and is not acceptable. This kind of thing is constantly in flux. Personally, I would much rather be more politically correct than more bigoted. If we were to apply the line of thought presented here to recent events then the confederate flag would still be flown on taxpayer supported property.

if you have a black friend" is so mindnumbingly clueless that they have no business ever writing an article about "Seinfeld". In fact, I can't help wondering whether this article is actually a parody of extreme political correctness.

not that there's anything wrong with that...