Is That Legal?

Mocking stereotypes by trafficking in stereotypes used to be risky business. However, the stereotypically clueless blowhard who stereotypes others has become a comic stereotype.

How could mistaking anyone for Jackie Chan be anything but flattery? A key component of stereotyping is hostility. None here. "Mocking" and "acknowledging" are not synonyms.

Funny how monotype means something else entirely.

I don't think Stepin Fetchit is the right example. Replace Jackie Chan with Samuel L. Jackson, and ask the law professor if he's tired of the mother*** bribers in the mother*** booths, and yeah, actually, that still seems funny.

Or replace him with a white professor named something similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger, and ask if he's so mad he's ready to terminate it and well, it'll be lame, but only because terminator jokes are lame at this point.

Yes I saw the segment. Actually - as I told my wife - I can no longer laugh at the Daily Show: the joke's just not funny anymore. There's nothing funny about how low we've sunk in this country, so I've stopped watching.

Still, I think you're wrong on this one Eric. The joke as I see it had little to do with Mr. Chin's ethnicity: it was that his name sounded like "Jackie Chan". The gag would have worked just as well for a congressman named "Albert Pools" and Bakkedahl gave him a bat and asked him to "go longball".

I have to agree with johna. The joke was that Jack Chin sounds like Jackie Chan, not that they're both Asian. I thought it was funny, especially when he asked him to break those boards.

I'm with you Eric. Even if the Jackie Chan joke was just a play on his name, what of the "split the boards" comment? The two combined were offensive. And, I'm a prety big fan of the Daily Show--but that skit just didn't do it for me.

Jack Chin, Jackie Chan ... those Chinese names are all alike.

I think it would be very disappointing to shoot an interview about an issue you care about, and then the only clips used are jokes about your name. But I don't think the clip is necessarily inappropriate.

You're right when you say Bakkedahl was the one who was made to look stupid. A main joke here is character based, that Bakkedahl is essentially an idiot/asshole. That context is important. If Bakkedahl was portrayed negatively enough, he could explicitly make a discriminatory remark and the audience would empathize with Chin while being disgusted by Bakkedahl.

But as dswift noted, the stereotype involved isn't as hostile as your black law professor example. And as johna said, the joke is prompted by the name similarity, not simply being an asian. I think the clip is a satire against thoughtless stereotyping, rather than encouraging it.

Do you really think they would have done this bit if they were interviewing some other Asian law professor with a totally different name? Of course not. It's the name that is the joke. And Jackie Chan really does do martial arts. I seriously do not get the problem. The joke would have worked just as well if Jack Chin were white, black, or Hispanic.

It's pretty much been considered normal to make fun of Asian Americans so easily. And because we're so used to it, most people aren't phased by it or consider it to be a problem, hence the few above comments. Even a lot of Asian Americans themselves consider these things funny. But I think a big part of it is because most Asian Americans have been on the quiet side (hense another stereotype). Since people have the impression that we're timid, it's not gonna be that hard to push us around. If my history's correct, I always thought maybe it was because Asian Americans only started coming to the U.S. toward the turn of the century. So we havn't been here long enough to cause a stir, or recognize what problems we're facing. I know there's a whole lot of other factors involved that even I'm not aware of yet. Anyone have ideas? My guess is something could happen within the next few generations. I'm really glad you mentioned this since this is something I've noticed in today's media for some time.

Btw, I've been reading your blog for some time now, and I do admire your work. I think I first ran into this site when i found that critique you did on "In Defense of Internment."

Well, not really Chinese - sort of melting pot/globalized, don't you think, upon a second's reflection?

Well, I guess you wouldn't want to watch The Mind of Mencia, since he makes a lot of jokes based on sterotypes. Welcome to the Comedy Channel...it's not for the thin-skinned.

ELM: I do watch Mind of Mencia occasionally, though I think it's usually just stupid. And of course I know that shows on the Comedy Channel trade in stereotypes. (Can you say "Southpark?") Hell, I went to see Jesus Is Magic and thought it was hilarious.

You've gotta admit that It's pretty rare for this particular show to do this sort of gag, however.

I think the skit most definitely plays off the "you can't tell one from another" stereotype. I'm not quite offended by the skit, but I definitely did not find it funny.

I disagree with Eric on this one. As many others have noted, it was the reporter that looked stupid, not the professor.

And while the Daily Show doesn't typically spend a ton of time on racial matters, this isn't the first time their jokes involve awkward questioning of an otherwise noble interviewee (for the same purpose of ridiculing the reporter). Recently, the new English reporter (Jon Oliver, I think his name is) interviewed a Hispanic attorney who represented the interests of immigrants, and Oliver's interview basically consisted of poking fun of poverty-stricken immigrants (such as Mexicans) coming to the country.

Other recent race-related jokes: They also have a new reporter of apparently Middle Eastern descent who has more than once portrayed himself as a ridiculous pro-war Iraqii who pretends that innocent Iraqiis ("we need to do a better job of winning the hearts and minds of the Americans"), rather than the U.S. foreign policy is to blame for the bloodshed there. Another black reporter lamented that George Allen's racist slurs weren't very good. Perhaps those segments, if you saw them, would have offended you as well, but I think the Daily Show can't credibly be charged with racism. Edgy, yes; racist, no. Perhaps insensitive. (It is a very white cast, though. It's only of late that they've had people of color as reporters. In that one segment, Jon Oliver even had a biting, but well received joke about how overwhelmingly white the cast of the show is.)

While the Daily Show doesn't trade mostly in race-related jokes, it's not exactly, rare, either. You only wrote about it when an Asian person was involved, but the show's sarcasm, idiocy, irreverence, insensitivity is wide-ranging. I suggest you avoid Stephen "I don't see race, people tell me I'm white" Colbert's show. Racial jokes, including running segments about Jews, show up way more often there. I also think Colbert is beyond reproach, as well.

Mind of Mencia, on the other hand, . . .

P.S. I take it Professor Jack Chin was upset at the segment?

You're still calling this political discourse? Didn't Stewart clear that up on Crossfire a while back? This is a comedy show first, Eric, and discourse in a distant second. It just so happens that politics happens to be so gosh darn funny. I mean, take a look at Stewarts reply after being questioned about his political responsibility on the show:

"The show leading up to mine is puppets making crank phone calls..."

Going on to "The Daily Show" is asking for it. Any and all of it. I'm sorry if I find it funny sometimes.

I didn't find that bit any more offensive than the bit in "Shanghai Noon" when Jackie Chan's character was accused of having a horrible cowboy name - Chon Wang, get it? It's a play off the name (didn't Senator Paul Simon once show up on Saturday Night Live and get asked to do "Kodachrome"?), nothing more.

The commenters above are correct - those bits are usually done with the reporter coming out looking like the idiot, not the interviewee.

Unbelievable. Some of these comments are really mindboggling. Anyone who thinks that there is nothing racial going on in Jack Chin-Jackie Chan comments is seriously deluded and should get their heads examined. Bill Lan Lee-Bruce Lee joke draws upon racial stereotypes; Robert E. Lee-Bruce Lee joke doesn't. Some might find both funny, but they are "funny" for different reasons, and that's the point.