Racism in Vanity Fair
From Vanity Fair, February 2003, p. 116, in the “Ask Dame Edna” column:
Dear Dame Edna,
I would very much like to learn a foreign language, preferably French or Italian, but every time I mention this, people tell me to learn Spanish instead. They say, “Everyone is going to be speaking Spanish in 10 years. George W. Bush speaks Spanish.” Could this be true? Are we all going to have to speak Spanish? Torn Romantic, Palm BeachDear Torn:
Forget Spanish. There’s nothing in that language worth reading except Don Quixote, and a quick listen to the CD of Man of La Mancha will take care of that. There was a poet named Garcia Lorca, but I’d leave him on the intellectual back burner if I were you. As for everyone’s speaking it, what twaddle! Who speaks it that you are really desperate to talk to? The help? Your leaf blower? Study French or German, where there are at least a few books worth reading, or, if you’re American, try English.
Dame Edna
But I thought there was no such thing as racism any more?
February 17th, 2003 at 9:59 pm
As a non-leaf-blower Hispanic who took the trouble and went for the intellectual joy ride of obtaining a Ph.D in Spn Lit, I was initially fiercely offended by the Ask Dame Edna piece trashing the great Spanish language –when friends brought it to my attention. Since then, it’s been pointed out that the writer, an Australian comic, created the Edna character to show her senseless superiority and bigotry. The humour may not be the best, but in the new light its offensiveness only may belittle the insensitivity of the VF editors –and not much more.
February 18th, 2003 at 6:21 am
This column is not supposed to be taken seriously. Dame Edna (very famous in Britain and Australia) is a character invented by a male comedian. Dame Edna is quite a snob and believes herself to be the cream of high society, and her manner is very patronising. The article was written in character. Personally, I thought it was very amusing! But then I am very familiar with Dame Edna and understood what it was all about.
February 18th, 2003 at 9:44 am
I think the relation of humor to discrimination, prejudice, and racism is far more complex than this. Minstrelsy, which pretty clearly served as a pro-slavery representation of black Southern slaves in the UK and Europe, for example, was a largely comedic and sentimentalist cultural form.
Humor and comedy, even unwittingly, can play an oppressive role in a society in which larger oppressive forces are at play.
I know that Dame Edna is a character, but I’m not sure that removes all the sting or makes that (otherwise offensive) speech unobjectionable.
February 18th, 2003 at 9:19 pm
I think you miss the point. The comedian is not making fun of the Spanish language. The argument Dame Edna gives for not learning Spanish is clearly ridiculous. It’s totally absurd! What a silly woman! The comedian is poking fun at the kind of person Dame Edna is/wants to be. And if anything, he’s making fun of America!
February 19th, 2003 at 5:21 pm
I believe that the spanish speaking community deserved this apology. I’ve never seen or read a magazine in spanish insulting or making offensive comments towards the americans, or people that speak foreign languages. We deserve respect as any other human being. We help americans to build their businesses in latin communities, so we believe our language should be respected as well. Language should be a matter of communication and useful to unite not to break us apart.
February 20th, 2003 at 3:06 am
I think the relation of humor to discrimination, prejudice, and racism is far more complex than this. Minstrelsy, which pretty clearly served as a pro-slavery representation of black Southern slaves in the UK and Europe, for example, was a largely comedic and sentimentalist cultural form.
This article is a pretty obvious attempt at satire. Minstrelsy was not an attempt at satire. There’s really no comparison between the two.
February 20th, 2003 at 8:36 am
I think you miss the point. The comedian is not making fun of the Spanish language. The argument Dame Edna gives for not learning Spanish is clearly ridiculous. It’s totally absurd! What a silly woman! The comedian is poking fun at the kind of person Dame Edna is/wants to be. And if anything, he’s making fun of America!
Gee, I so don’t miss the point. I’m trying to make a different one, which is that despite the intentions of the Dame Edna character creator, these kinds of comments (which are too vague and subtle by half) won’t be heard as critical of whites-only or English-only political positions, but, rather, as reassertions of them.
Irony needs to be seen as irony, and I don’t think this will be, not by most people. For example, if it is critical of anything, it is critical of the kind of White Supremacist position which Rurik has advocated here consistently, and — surprise, surprise — Rurik comes to the defense, quite lamely, of this material:
This article is a pretty obvious attempt at satire. Minstrelsy was not an attempt at satire. There’s really no comparison between the two.
No, the problem is that it isn’t very obvious, not in a political and cultural context in which many people actually believe that the only reason to learn, say, Spanish is so that one can speak with one’s help. As a lifelong White resident of Texas, I know this to be the case for nearly all the White people I’ve known or met.
And, as usual Rurik, you don’t read very carefully or charitably; I wasn’t suggesting that minstrelsy was satirical (though I’m not sure it wasn’t, either): the point is that comedy and humor can be oppressive forces, to wit, minstrelsy. The main defenses of the Dame Edna stuff here so far have been along those lines: “hey, it’s only comedy or humor, what’s the harm?” You could have said the same thing about minstrelsy and been dead wrong; in fact, Nick Tosches, a very highly esteemed music critic, argues precisely that about minstrelsy, namely, that it isn’t and wasn’t harmful or objectionable because, after all, it was funny and entertaining.
As I said, the relation of humor, comedy and related speech acts to politics is far more complex than that.
February 20th, 2003 at 10:40 am
Irony needs to be seen as irony, and I don’t think this will be, not by most people. For example, if it is critical of anything, it is critical of the kind of White Supremacist position which Rurik has advocated here consistently, and — surprise, surprise — Rurik comes to the defense, quite lamely, of this material:
Well, I’m hardly a “white supremacist”, unless you regard separatism and white supremacy to be equivalent, which would be a curious position to take as it would turn Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, and many other African-American leaders into “white supremacists”. Regarding the article, I wasn’t so much “defending” the fictitious Dame Edna as I was pointing the error in your reasoning: you’ve taken what obviously is a piece of “anti-racist” satire and portrayed it as an act of racism. At worst it was an unsuccessful attempt at anti-racism. I disagree that the article was “too vague and subtle by half”; if a person can’t tell that phrases such as “There was a poet named Garcia Lorca, but I’d leave him on the intellectual back burner if I were you” are not intended to be taken seriously, he shouldn’t have been allowed to graduate from high school. I suppose one might also read “A Modest Proposal” and think that Swift was some kind of sicko for actually wanting to eat children. But I thought there was no such thing as cannibalism anymore?
Though, perhaps you’re right. Our culture has been dumbed down to the point where most people aren’t capable of comprehending anything expressed with any degree of subtlety or sophistication. People need to be beaten over the head with a point before they’ll get it. Perhaps the article should have just said “racism is bad!” and left it at that.
February 20th, 2003 at 11:10 am
Well, I’m hardly a “white supremacist”, unless you regard separatism and white supremacy to be equivalent, which would be a curious position to take as it would turn Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, and many other African-American leaders into “white supremacists”.
No; I regard, as do other sane people, white separatism and white supremacy
to be politically indistinguishable, given the relevant history of the US since before the founding of the republic. I’m not surprised to learn that, again, you rely on a faulty (and unstated) symmetry premise to suggest that black folks trying to escape oppression are equivalent to white folks trying to preserve it.
Regarding the article, I wasn’t so much “defending” the fictitious Dame Edna as I was pointing the error in your reasoning: you’ve taken what obviously is a piece of “anti-racist” satire and portrayed it as an act of racism.
That’s an error of interpretation, not of reasoning, if it’s any error at all. What I’ve suggested, clearly, is that while I see that this was meant as a kind of satire, I don’t think (as an empirical question) that it will be read that way by many white people. And, since there are people who flatly hold those positions, insofar as it isn’t read that way, it does the work of those who hold those positions literally.
Whatever you may want to say about that line of response to Dame Edna, it’s hardly an “error of reasoning”. But then I’ve grown accustomed to your responses having the glint of reasonableness, but none of the substance.
if a person can’t tell that phrases such as “There was a poet named Garcia Lorca, but I’d leave him on the intellectual back burner if I were you” are not intended to be taken seriously, he shouldn’t have been allowed to graduate from high school.
That’s simply absurd. I suspect there are a great many college graduates who haven’t heard, much less read, Garcia Lorca.
I suppose one might also read “A Modest Proposal” and think that Swift was some kind of sicko for actually wanting to eat children. But I thought there was no such thing as cannibalism anymore?
Thanks for making my point; since there clearly isn’t cannibalism, it is impossible to misread Swift’s satire (to say nothing of the fact that Swift is the acknowledged and canonical master of satire, and Dame Edna is a hack at it) as actually setting forth a real option. But it is clearly the case that a great many people in the context of Vanity Fair believe precisely there is nothing in Spanish language culture which is worth reading, that “English Only” is a viable policy option, and that Spanish would only be useful in speaking with domestic servants and other economic bottom feeders.
In fact, these are positions which I suspect you actually hold, Rurik. So your point is not only faulty but made in bad faith.
Though, perhaps you’re right. Our culture has been dumbed down to the point where most people aren’t capable of comprehending anything expressed with any degree of subtlety or sophistication.
Sure and obviously the solution to this is to make “our culture” more White, right?! That is certainly the import of everything you’ve ever posted here.
February 20th, 2003 at 2:09 pm
I’m not surprised to learn that, again, you rely on a faulty (and unstated) symmetry premise to suggest that black folks trying to escape oppression are equivalent to white folks trying to preserve it.
White separatists don’t want to preserve oppression, that’s an error in reasoning interpretation on your behalf. If they did, then I doubt that black separatist groups would ally with them or vice versa, as they have done historically and continue to do. White separatism and white supremacy are necessarily incompatible.
That’s simply absurd. I suspect there are a great many college graduates who haven’t heard, much less read, Garcia Lorca.
That wasn’t my point. My point is that the phrase I cited was obviously satirical, as is the entire letter.
Thanks for making my point; since there clearly isn’t cannibalism, it is impossible to misread Swift’s satire (to say nothing of the fact that Swift is the acknowledged and canonical master of satire, and Dame Edna is a hack at it) as actually setting forth a real option.
Just as it is well understood that no one advocates cannibalism, it is also well understood that overtly racist statements are not printed in mainstream publications. Given this fact, and the completely over the top manner in which the letter was written, and that apparently the entire premise of the Dame Edna advice column is that the advice is supposed to be atrocious, I don’t see how any even mildly observant person would fail to recognize this as a satire.
But it is clearly the case that a great many people in the context of Vanity Fair believe precisely there is nothing in Spanish language culture which is worth reading
All the more reason to satirize their opinions, wouldn’t you say? Or should people merely preach to the choir?
In fact, these are positions which I suspect you actually hold, Rurik. So your point is not only faulty but made in bad faith.
As I’ve already said, my point here was to point out that this letter, however poorly done, does not constitute racism, as the intent was obviously anti-racist (or at least anti-anti-Spanish language). Regardless, your suspicion is incorrect. I’d bet there’s lots of good literature written in Spanish, although I’m not fluent in Spanish, so I can’t tell you for certain. As far as “‘English only’ [as] a viable policy option”, this was not an issue raised in the article, so I fail to see how my opinion on this matter would be relevant to our discussion here.
Sure and obviously the solution to this is to make “our culture” more White, right?!
Sounds good to me - I think white people ought to have a white culture that suits them. Blacks and Hispanics and whoever else should be free to have their own cultures too, of course.
February 21st, 2003 at 8:55 am
I’m kind of amused by the furore Dame Edna has caused (not just on this website). A common critism of Americans is that they do not ‘get’ satire and this seems to back it up. [Sorry, that IS racist!] I think if American people were familiar with the character (as they are in the rest of the English speaking world) and knew how silly, snobby and superficial she is, many of those who have been offended probably would have laughed instead, because they would have seen it in its context. It was VERY obvious to me and my friends that he was not dissing the Spanish language…he was using it as a vehicle to show the old dame being daft again.
Bear in mind that he is familiar with Australian/British culture…and probably wasn’t sensitive to Hispanics being underdogs the way you are. You are looking at him through American eyes, and thinking he should know better. In American society, Hispanics are seen by many as somehow inferior. In other societies where there are very few Hispanics, that particular brand of racism is not really existant. I suspect he hadn’t realized he’d be seen as insulting Hispanics.
As for the comment that Dame Edna is a ‘hack’ at satire…I think you might change your mind if you saw Barry Humphries (the comedian) in action. He is highly regarded and is probably the cleverest comedian that Australia has on offer. You might find you really enjoy him! In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever seen him involved in such controversy.
February 21st, 2003 at 9:01 am
Come to think of it, you probably wouldn’t be able to appreciate Barry Humphries unless you had lived in Britain/Ireland/Australia/New Zealand for a few years and become really familiar with the culture. His humour works in a cultural context.
February 21st, 2003 at 10:06 am
His humour works in a cultural context.
Or, more to the point, fails to work in some other cultural context, like the US one.
Look, I’m tired of repeating this: I “get” that it’s satire, I just don’t think it works as satire in the US, as you seem to agree. The Vanity Fair editors should know, if anyone should, that putting forward as satire actual political positions (which everyone except Rurik would agree are harmful and unjust) kills the satirical effect. For example, you can’t satirize (and thus criticize indirectly) George Bush’s proposed invasion of Iraq by suggesting that Bush’s military will send 800 cruise missiles into Baghdad in the first two days — a veritable overkill!! Why can’t that be satire? Because there’s actually a proposal floating around to do precisely that.
The editors of Vanity Fair are at least as responsible for any harm that’s been done as the comedian, who may or may not understand how this will play here (though he’s responsible for finding out before trying risky approaches like this, it seems to me).
February 23rd, 2003 at 1:06 am
I see people commenting on the humor of this column. It’s not funny to everyone as nothing will ever be funny to everyone but, sadly, this is a far cry from funny, at least for any other person than peoples who would understand the character. Even at that point it only becomes funny to the people this character is immatating general position; regarding the issues. To everyone else it stinks of the actual crude behavior that is imposed towards topics as such. In other words, others will see this as blatant racism and even label the party in which is making light of this topic, racist and discriminatory. So the joke will eventually backfire and it will make the party who made light of the topic seem to be what they aren’t. Anyway, one would hope no one actually believes learning a language to communicate is dictacted by such an idiot ass character for idiot ass reasons but I digress. The long and short is that you can’t make light of certain topics that really need to be taken seriously. Surely learning English in foreign countries is a requirement in schools and not something that I’ve ever seen made light of.
February 24th, 2003 at 4:14 pm
A Theory of Humor, by Thomas Veatch, says:
In satire, a situation containing a violation is presented without any explicit acknowledgement of the existence of the violation(s). The violations are presented deadpan, as though there were no violation at all, so that the reader must detect or miss the violation on her own, actively using her own moral conscience. Those readers that do detect the violation may find it hilarious, because of the humorous structure: a moral violation is juxtaposed simultaneously with the deadpan view of the situation in which it appears normal or unremarkable. The special feature of satire, however, is that the deadpan presentation is given to an implied audience of readers or listeners who do not detect the violation. The inability of this audience to detect moral violations is itself a moral violation, since people believe that normal people can and should tell right from wrong; this further violation contributes additional complexity to the humor, making it even more funny. Now, there may in fact be no readers fooled by some particular satire. It could be that noone missed the satirical nature of Swift’s A Modest Proposal, for example. But satire has a deadpan character, as if there were an uncomprehending audience, even if that audience does not actually exist.One of the most interesting features of satire is that it is almost universally believed to be a persuasive writing form. In actuality, it appears that most written satire actually fools most of its readers, so that, far from being persuasive, it is often not even understood. Gruner’s (1992) survey of the literature on the persuasive impact of satire turned up very little confirmation of it. Satire was found to have a persuasive impact only for those subjects that 1) understand the satire’s rhetorical point (apparently very few in most studies) and 2) share the opinion being communicated. The particularity of this result calls out for an explanation. The present theory of humor provides one.Raskin has insightfully observed that being persuaded of a satire’s rhetorical point is a prerequisite to understanding the satire of it, and the explanation provided here is an elaboration of Raskin’s idea. In terms of the present theory satire persuades only the previously persuaded because, in order to understand a satire as a satire, in the first place, a person must see it as presenting actual moral violations to an uncomprehending audience. To see actual moral violations in the situation, she must have a view of the way things are supposed to be in the situation, she must care about it, and she must see that things are not that way in the depicted situation. In short, she must agree that the situation is a moral violation. This amounts to already being persuaded of the satire’s point, which is nothing other than that the situation depicted is a moral violation. Therefore, indeed, communication is limited to those who agree. Since persuasion can have no effect on those who don’t understand, the persuasive impact is limited to those who already agree with the point of the satire. This provides a needed and otherwise absent explanation for the quite specific result of Gruner’s survey, an explanation which crucially uses elements of the present theory.
February 25th, 2003 at 6:08 pm
Wow. You guys have taken an obvious satire of casual bigotry and turned it into an endless intellectual argument. For all the big brains at work here, it seems to me Mr. Clark is just spending hours trying to defend the fact that he didn’t get the joke before he posted it.
February 25th, 2003 at 7:59 pm
Mr. Clark is just spending hours trying to defend the fact that he didn’t get the joke before he posted it.
Well, you have to say more about me than that; you also have to claim (and somehow validate the claim) that I have lied, repeatedly, here when I said I got that it was meant to be funny, but found it racist and offensive anyway.
February 26th, 2003 at 12:35 am
Ok, so maybe it was just a joke. That doesnt mean that everyone is supposed to think it was funny. I didnt think it was funny. I’ve known people who thought watching someone get run over by a bus was funny. We dont all have the same sense of humor, and when it comes to things such as this, we need to be extra careful. In the constant crusade against racism, I think we should realize that sometimes, so called jokes can inflict more harm then they intended to, resulting in everyone taking one step forward, and four steps back. This could be something to remeber just in case you ever happen to “get run over by a bus”. There just might someone laughing at YOU.
And anyway, I dont believe there is a such thing as “casual” bigorty. I suppose that also is an opinion-based term, seeing as how “casual bigotry” to someone else could mean taking part in a lynching.
February 26th, 2003 at 2:36 pm
I think everyone who has posted an opinion
on this matter should revisit the classic
Larry Flynt/Jerry Falwell case that
was decided by the Supreme Court in 1989.
The core of the case was that Flynt,
publisher of men’s mag HUSTLER, ran an
ad in a December 1983 issue that was
a parody of a liqour ad describing a
person’s first time of tasting the liquor.
The parody had Falwell describing his
first time as being drunk and having sex
with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell
sued and won in the original verdict
but that ruling would be overturned in
the Supreme Court ruling that stated
free speech was for the speech we
hated as much as it is for the speech
we agree with.
VANITY FAIR is a private enterprise
and we as a society grounded in
free expression and an independent press
cannot engage in censorship or
attempts to dictate to people uses
of their private and/or personal
endeavors because our sensibilities
may be offended. As a society, people
can engage in boycotts, letter writing
campaigns, responses/counter-responses,
etc to convey a point.
For example, I have some Italian heritage.
Shows such as THE SOPRANOS often give
peoplle an impression that most Italian
Americans are entangled in organized
crime in some way; even the restauraunt
owner is a friend of Tony Soprano and
this probably leaves people the
impression that an Italian American
businessman is connected with the
Mafia. However, Italian Americans
don’t cry foul and want to censor
the show or stamp on people’s rights to
enjoy the program. Most Italian
Americans just want people to be
somewhat informed that the show
is purely fictional entertainment
and that the Mafia only constitutes
0.0002 percent of the total Italian
American population.
If VANITY FAIR wants to fire Mr. Humphries,
that is their perrogative. If they
wish to retain him, same deal.
People who are offended should
exercise their rights to encourage
others not to buy the publication
and to write letters and to
not make the publishers richer. But
never cry for government censorship
or act as though the consuming
public should be DICTATED to as
far as choice is concerned.
“Responsibility to the responsible…”
Anton LaVey
March 6th, 2003 at 5:41 pm
I dont know if this was brought up or not, but if anyone has read any other articles, or seen Dame Edna you would know that this is her style of humor and she is not a specifially racist person, but rather anti- anyone who isnt her.
If you dont like it, dont read it. Simple as that.
March 7th, 2003 at 9:29 am
If you dont like it, dont read it. Simple as that.
Actually, as the editors apology concedes, things are not as simple as that. You can give offense unintentionally and humor is often a source of such failings.
As we’ve discussed here already, it becomes harder to be heard as being ironic when the positions one is espousing, figuratively, are actual political positions. Dame Edna’s “over the top” bias and prejudice is hard to hear as satire because so many people actually believe as she merely pretends to believe.
March 15th, 2003 at 4:54 am
I am spanish and I understand that Dame Edna column is suppose to be a nonsense-ideas, but still, It made me sick and bad to feel my language being discriminated; and I am offended by Vanity Fair for publishing it, and even worse with an spanish icon on the cover.
March 18th, 2003 at 5:40 pm
The question is, do we create a superstate
regime or ask Big Brother to clamp down
on private/personal property rights and the
right to free expression because some
columnist in Vanity Fair is an idiot?
Speech that is only free for that which we
find favor with is not free speech at all
and property that belongs to everyone
belongs to no one. As it is, the
government is accumulating more power
than it should ever be allowed to have
and is willing to stifle speech if it
is in disagreement with the government’s
present aims. So, one must ask, is there
really a great deal of difference
between the far left and far right?
One side of the spectrum wants to
suppress speech if it jars some
egos or feelings and the other side
wants to criminalize the right to
question policies and authority.
Either way, both sides are filled with
their fair share of whackjobs and
God save us when either side actually
has a supermajority in the political
power arrangements.
As for Vanity Fair, the final resolution
will lie in the consumer reaction. If
there is a negative reaction to the
Dame Edna issue and it actually affects
the bottom line (which is why VF exists
in the 1st place), they will likely
deep-six Barry Humphries. If it’s just
a lot of hot air from a small but
loud group of people, they likely will
carry on regardless.
March 19th, 2003 at 7:50 am
I find this wingeing about ‘discrimination’ in this instance to be both pathetic and dangerous. It is dangerous because it trivialises real discrimination by making it easy for racists to ridicule ‘political correctness’. It is pathetic because it is based on the false claim that all cultures are in some magic sense ‘equal’, so that it is somehow necessarily prejudiced to say that Spanish literature is not as important as English literature.
Whether this claim is true or not may be disputed, but it is not ‘racist’. Firstly, Spanish and English are languages, not races. Secondly, it is quite common to compare the achievements of different nations in cultural history. Have the ‘English’ achieved anything comparable to the French or Italians (or Spanish for that matter) in visual art? I don’t think so. Have the English had great composers comparable to the German-speaking peoples (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Mahler)? Not a chance. It is not ‘racist’ against English-speaking people to say this, and it is not racist against Spanish-speaking people to say that English-language achievement in literature is greater.
You can argue that it is not. Fine. But race isn’t the point.
This is only an issue because of the perceived Anglo/Hispanic ethnic hierarchy in America. Such a thing does not exist in Britain, where ‘Dame Edna’ writes her column, so no nerve is touched on the subject of ‘White Privilage’. In Britain, the idea that Dame Edna’s words were an attack on ‘non-whites’ would, I suspect, seem absurd.
It’s about context. But it’s also about what we mean when we bandy about words like ‘racism’.
April 30th, 2003 at 11:12 pm
She probably used or generated the query to
draw attention to her column and herself and
the editors supported it to sell the magazine.
Pathetic.
April 30th, 2003 at 11:12 pm
She probably used or generated the query to
draw attention to her column and herself and
the editors supported it to sell the magazine.
Pathetic.
May 12th, 2003 at 2:57 pm
Racism, Discriminition,ect.. Is getting the better of all of us. We will never know unless we get Dame Edna’s point of view.
July 29th, 2003 at 4:42 pm
“However, Italian Americans don’t cry foul and want to censor the show or stamp on people’s rights to enjoy the program.”
I find it amusing when people put their own spin on the truth to make a point. Normally, I would not get off point this much, but I just discovered this site and this discussion is pretty much over. Hey, Mr. Curtis, get in touch with how your fellow Italian Americans feel before responding on their behalf.
“HBO Network and The Sopranos defame Italian Americans
The HBO network and its series “The Sopranos” are guilty of defaming and assassinating the cultural character of Italian Americans by using their religion, customs and values in a violent and immoral context that damages the image and reputations of an estimated 20 million Americans of Italian descent, the nation’s fifth largest ethnic minority.
Italian-American Groups Rally Against HBO’s Sopranos
The Second Coming Of The Sopranos
Another Slap In The Face
http://www.italianamericanonevoice.org/iahbnews.html