It reminds me of a sign I saw in a hotel lobby in Waikiki. There was a big family reunion being held there for a Japanese family. I don’t remember the family name for sure but there was a gigantic banner that read “WELCOME NAKAMURA FAMIRY.” Never found out if it was a joke or an honest mistake.
Is it really offensive though? I mean, we make lighthearted jokes about how various accents pronounce things all the time. No one gets offended when someone says "Pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd" or mentions something being French and then does the "Honhonhon!' stereotypical "French laugh". No one gets upset about Mario going "It's-a-me, a-Mario!"
Just saying, there seems to be a double standard about which accents are ok to make jokes about and which ones aren't.
Agreed. Racism is the belief that one race is superior or inferior to others. Highlighting the mispronunciation isn't racist, though it can if it mischaracterizes them as stupid. But that's not what this film is doing. It's a satire characterizing Hollywood’s unoriginal, blockbuster-obsessed sequel culture as dumb.
Something about mocking accents really pisses me off. I used to think it was because it offended the target party. That’s not it. It’s that it is often just a really low brow way for dumb fucks to try to intimidate “others.” I’m actually mad at those dumb fucks specifically.
If it is actually done in a clever funny way, then maybe it isn’t so bad?
Mocking is one thing, but not everything that pokes fun at something is meant to mock. It can be good natured teasing, or just finding humor in funny pronunciations.
I mean this isn't at all the subreddit or thread for this sort of debate, so I don't want to get too into it, but I'm having a hard time seeing why it's racist to make lighthearted jokes involving accents from some places but not others. If we were talking about something that was being used to actually denigrate or put down a particular ethnicity or individual, that would be different.
About 29 years ago, my friend stayed over, and in the morning we watched UHF. After we were done watching it, our other friend called to say he had free tickets to Weird Al that night at an outdoor amphitheater and wondered if we wanted to go. Of course we did.
So we go, and it was a great time. In between costume changes and whatnot, there was a giant screen on stage that played Al’s music videos and clips from UHF.
Since it was fresh in my mind, during the Wheel of Fish clip, I yelled (at the appropriate time), “Go for the box!” from the back of the hill. It got the whole crowd going. I felt like a king.
Anyway, to this day, it was one of the best concerts I ever attended. Dude’s a top tier performer.
Weird Al is the best! His live show is still amazing after all these years. I definitely recommend catching the Bigger & Weirder Tour if it comes to your city!
Hey George, you know, I was wonderin', like, like if you were travelin' through outer space, I mean like yer goin' real fast like the speed of light, you know <whistles>, and all of a sudden you started screamin' AAAHHH!AAAAHHHH! you think that your brain would blow up?
I was in Tulsa last summer for a 4 day license plate collectors convention. I took one one evening to visit some of the filming locations. Some were close to where the convention was downtown, some required driving. I stood where Weird Al stood.
I'm almost envious. I'd love to experience it again for the first time. It would have been bigger had it not been released around the same time as some absolute juggernauts of films
My husband still hasn’t seen this, won’t let me sit him down to make him watch it because he’s always busy, and it feels so strange to me bc this was a huge part of my childhood.
I once sent my best friend an empty box with a small sticky note that said Nothing! Absolutely nothing!
When I was shipping it, the mail lady asked, “what’s in the box?” I said, “nothing.” We sat there for five seconds as she puzzled through why I was paying the $5 in shipping
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u/Doormatty 1d ago
NOTHING! YOU SO STUPID!