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How racist/controversial would this skit from the 90's be today? (feddit.nl)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by neidu@feddit.nl to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

To summarize, this scandinavian comedy trio from the 90's made a parody of Miami Vice. This being 90's scandinavia, you can probably guess that the actors/comedians didn't exactly have the melanin-credentials of parodying the black guy from Miami Vice, so one of them instead wore blackface (well, brownface would perhaps be a better description, due to the color tone).

As far as I can recall, the skit didn't really make race much of a punchline, except from when they're fixing their hair before the final showdown (which one of course have to do, this being a Miami Vice parody), and the white guy asks the black guy to borrow some hair gel but gets the response: (roughly translated) "I'm black, I don't use hairgel. I use chocolate pudding."

So yeah, asking because I'm a middle aged extremely white guy, and I found this skut funny as shit when I was a kid, and I stumbled across it recently, and I got curious.

EDIT: Found it. Turns out it's from 1989. https://youtu.be/GDpLUXtA-4M
I can't be arsed translating, because in retrospect it's not really that good, but you can see the blackface and its origin in the beginning.

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[–] federalreverse@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I am almost sure I heard the word "negre" in there after the white guy asks for hair gel.

[–] neidu@feddit.nl 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes. The word is "Neger", and up until very recently, that was the common term for people with darker skin tone, as "afro american" doesn't really make sense outside of america. It was used up until maybe 2000ish in a similar way to how "negro" was used in the US in the 40s and 50s (and probably later), but more broadly.

It was later replaced by "African", which doesn't really work, as the old term could mean more than just people of african heritage.

I'm not entirely sure what's the appropriate term is today - it's not like i need to refer to peoples heritage through their skin tone a whole lot.

EDIT: I just remembered from when I was a kid my aunt (who married a guy from Ghana) referring to him as "neger" some time in the 90s, so it was at least at that point in time not considered offensive.

[–] federalreverse@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

Huh. Google Translate gives me the translation I'd expected:

my colleague is a Black guy

min kollega er en svart fyr

In Germany, we used to have the exact same term with N, but using that term hasn't been ok since at least the early 90s.