To what extent does our society allow humor and the freedom of speech? Everything that is allowed always has certain limitations and barriers. Depending on society, jokes are perceived as humorous or dull. All of this is dependent on how one individual was raised and what culture background he/she comes from. If a Mexican joke was told by a Mexican; would Mexicans get offended or laugh? Same controversy arrives from a Canadian telling a Mexican jokes. Some would see this as unacceptable that promotes racial and a discrimination attitude toward those certain races also enforces negative stereo types. Does a joke have the same meaning if it originates from that origin or does it have more of an impact if it was announced by another culture? The prefect example of this question would be from the comedian Carlos Mencia. Carlos Mencia is a Mexican, comedian born in Honduras Mexico. Carlos with his aunt and uncle arrived in America when Carlos was only a year old. His mother let his aunt and uncle raise him as Carlos's house was already packed with family and couldn’t take anymore members. Carlos was an exceptional student, receiving high grades in all his courses of high school. However growing up in East Los Angeles where gang life was dominant had a very large impact on Carlos. Carols returned to Honduras to escape the violence of the streets. He only saw that his house was just as inhabitable in Honduras as the streets of LA. Returning to Los Angeles, Carlos finished high school and went to university to major in electrical engineering. One credit shy of a diploma, Carlos went in pursuit for a comedy career. Starring in many HBO specials, Carlos made the audiences laugh with tears. Portraying views based on cultures and races even minorities like handicap people, often promoting certain stereotypes which made certain people feel uncomfortable. Many people frowned upon Carlos's work, saying it promotes negative attitudes to certain cultures. Many people also accused Carlos to have plagiarized works from Bill Cosby and other comedians. When Carlos was confronted on a television show Jimmy Kimmel Live about himself telling racial jokes and negative slurs on feministic views, Carlos responded in a way that justified himself too many but left many in the dark. Carlos himself is interested to what degree is humor accepted. Carlos came out with his own show “Mind of Mencia”. He often goes onto the streets and confronts people about their views and beliefs on jokes. People differ from individual to individual. Many people say it is unacceptable to use some jokes and others are in full compliance. Carlos stated “Words only affect individuals if those individuals allow them to” this is an excellent statement. What does Carlos mean by this statement? Is he racist or just humorous? What do you think about Carlos’s jokes?
Video Clips
9 comments:
elle oh elle...hes funny. In the secong vid, i think its ok to joke about your own race because thats you. You would probably know enough about it to make fun of it other wise i suggest you not to. In the third vid, i think it was also for him to say "white" or the n-bomb because not many people care. Sure the n-bomb is linked to the whole slavery thing but its getting faded. Check out Russell Peters vid on racism.
http://www.desicomedy.com/desi-viral/russell-peters-debut-on-def-comedy-jam.html
You might want to consider putting some spacing in your post. It's kind of difficult to read. I don't think comment moderation is a good idea. People will have to wait until it is approved to comment.
That quote you said he said is really good! It's very true that nothing can affect your mind unless you let it. The thing is though, we let a lot of things affect us. We're human so that's the way we behave. I believe that stereotyping is a huge issue. People should never be made fun of just because they are a certain race, have certain cultures or have disabilities. Making fun of someone because of disabilities seems like the lowest thing to do. They've experienced pain and then see someone making fun of them. Making fun of races and cultures is bad too. Sure, it may make you laugh, but do you really have to make fun of others just to get a laugh? I don't think he's funny at all.
I think that Mencia is a poor comedian. He can't get people to laugh without using stereotypes. His quote is good, but it doesn't really apply to humans. Humans think about things. Most people can only ignore stereotypes for a little while. Stereotypes will eventually get to them.
Some comics can be controversial. In this case it took it to another level but yet people laught because they can relate to the situation. After watching some of the jokes, its not bad in my opinion.More than half the time, he is making fun of his own "culture"<--(mr.puley haha:P).He is steriotyping his own kind but yet its funny to many because they can relate to the situation.Another example is a comic name Russell Peters.He is of an east-indian decent even tho he has a (not be racist) non-tipical east-indian name.His jokes are mostly around people hes grown up around and relates to the culture.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Nn5jlrxcpkI
In my opionion its different when you laugh at the joke or you laugh with the joker. Laughing at the joke means you think of it as the exact same.But laughing with the joker is when that person is telling the story about his experience in a humorious manner. But if you are not of the same decent or culture, i dont think it is right for a person to make a joke about it.
When we hear the word “comedian” the first thing that comes to our mind is someone who uses racial slurs against various backgrounds to make the audience giggle about something. No matter what ethical background this individual may come from most comedians target other religions when making jokes about things that are relevantly different from the rest. For example “Russell Peters” is a great example of comedians whom target their own type of religious jokes. Some people are not directly affected by these humorous jokes yet; there are always some individuals out there that do not appreciate comedians targeting their own cultures. A joke can be a joke to an extent, but what extent? Some comedians don’t realize that the humour they are using could be hurting someone in a significant way or building up hatred against them. As Mico asked the question if a Mexican was to tell a Mexican joke; would a Mexican get offended or laugh. I believe they would laugh because they understand that, the person knows what they are joking about also in what type of manner the comedian could be targeting the humour. Some comedians use racial slurs in humour to target a specific audience but, at the same moment they could be targeting them in a negative manner. This is what could specifically separate a joke from a joke that targets a certain audience. I believe that the statement which Carlo’s stated is very true, as we know not everyone in the world is made the same, everyone reacts different accordingly. Therefore we must come to believe that jokes are told within a certain amount of extent, I believe that Carlo’s is a humorous individual which does not try to hurt anyone in any type of manner, he just makes humour jokes to bring smiles to the faces of other people =).
With humour it's hard to tell when and where it's good to do it. As it says "If a Mexican joke was told by a Mecican; would Mexicans get offended or laugh?" Most likely, yeah the Mexican would laugh, but if it were told by an American or someone else of another ethnic group, they may not find it humourous. In a way I do agree, yeah it's just humour, but on the other hand, it does still promote discrimination and racism like Mico says. I do believe that humour towards different ethinic groups should be "displayed" a bit less, because it does cause problems, rasicm still exists, people even get murdered over making a joke about certain races. For people who find it humourous, it's somewhat good that they can see that those are the only intesions by the joke (in most cases), and for the people who can't find humour in the matter at all, I can't blame them really because it still is discrimination and for a society that is trying so hard to elimate racism and discrimation, these humourous jokes aren't helping and are only making matters worse for others.
- Kayce
I don't think that there is anything wrong with his jokes. But, thats only cause I'm not as sensitive as some people, theres nothing wrong with laughing at ourselves from time to time. If a comedian has the ability to point out a specific trait of a culture and they can get people to laugh at it then it means that the culture is worth discussing. I don't think his jokes are that bad at all, like I found them funny, but I know there are so many people out there that don't, I think it all depends on how the person is raised and how much they have let western culture affect their ethnic pride. Alot of people have adapted to North America and they have just learned to cope with people who used jokes to break barriers and stereotypes of different cultures and races, but then again there are some people who take it all way too seriously and do not understand that not everyone has the same values and beliefs.
Why are people not posting to your blog? Any ideas?
i think that his racial jokes are taken too far. not only does he promote these stereotypes.. but he introduces them. half of the stereotypes he mentions in the clips i havent even heard of? so now these new ideas are in my head even though they werent before.
i dont agree with tanja's last remark, "half of the stereotypes he mentions in the clips i havent heard of" yes you probably have becouse all of his meterial is stolen so if he is too racial then that means bobby lee and jeorge lopez and many other comedians are too racial aswell, so its a common thing and at the end of the day it simply makes people laugh but check out this video joe rogan and him fight on stage over it all and carlos gets prooved wrong
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7841918711943453918
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