ok WTF with all these celebrity gaffes?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20925557-2,00.html

HOLLYWOOD director Oliver Stone has shocked a celebrity crowd with an off-colour joke about the murders of five suspected sex workers in eastern England, as it was reported women's clothing had been found near where some of the bodies had been dumped.

Police have so far found the bodies of five women - three prostitutes and two others believed to be those of missing sex workers - in woodland around the quiet eastern port town of Ipswich in the past 11 days.

In the latest development, Britain's Sky News has reported that women's clothing has been found in the river Orwell, 4.8km downstream from where the first two bodies were dumped. A handbag had also been discovered in Ipswich, it has said, although police have not confirmed the finds.

The discovery of so many victims in so few days has raised fears another "Ripper" targeting prostitutes is on the loose.

That climate led Stone to quip to the British Comedy Awards audience in London: "It's great to be back in England. I feel like Jack The Ripper days are back. Nothing ever changes here."

The stunned crowd responded with jeers, gasps and boos, with one audience member quoted as saying the remark was in "unbelievably bad taste".

― latebloomer's mayan name is tapir ballz (clonefeed), Friday, 15 December 2006 03:31 (seventeen years ago) link

That reminds me of the time, at one of the more important shows we ever played (opening for someone pretty big), that our lead singer told the crowd "Yeah, so we're from New Brunswick. Yeah. There's been a lot of rapes there lately."

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Friday, 15 December 2006 03:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Has there been a thread yet about this?

― walterkranz (walterkranz), Friday, 15 December 2006 04:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I didn't think that was all that offensive - about on the level of someone imitating a Jewish guy by going "Oy gevalt! Vadda you nuts?"

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Friday, 15 December 2006 04:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Worse than bad taste, it wasn't funny. Booooo.

― milo (milo), Friday, 15 December 2006 04:46 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, it definitely wasn't funny.

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Friday, 15 December 2006 04:48 (seventeen years ago) link

It's no more awful than any other moment of Rosie O'Donnell.

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Friday, 15 December 2006 04:48 (seventeen years ago) link

not on a Kramer/Gibson level, but anyone under the age of 65 trying that ching chong shit is an asshole

― bill sackter (bill sackter), Friday, 15 December 2006 04:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh come on. Rosie's ignorance is 100x worse than Stone's comment which is only bad in a "too soon" kinda way and even then is hardly anything to get worked up about.

― walterkranz (walterkranz), Friday, 15 December 2006 04:57 (seventeen years ago) link

anyone under the age of 65 trying that ching chong shit is an asshole

http://www.miamibeach411.com/ee/images/uploads/shaq_police.jpg

― PPlains (PPlains), Friday, 15 December 2006 04:58 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean "I feel like Jack The Ripper days are back" is basically what the media is saying anyway isn't it?

― walterkranz (walterkranz), Friday, 15 December 2006 04:58 (seventeen years ago) link

i don't know what that's referring to - did shaq say some tomfool shit re: asians?
xpost

― bill sackter (bill sackter), Friday, 15 December 2006 05:00 (seventeen years ago) link

Being crazy has been part of Stone's public image for a long time, he's like the least surprising source for something like this.

― 31g (31g), Friday, 15 December 2006 05:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Rosie O'Donnell was imitating what a newscast in Chinese sounds like to her, not making fun of Chinese people. It's a really really lame joke and mildly offensive, but I don't think it's worth much thought, and I don't think it'd be getting attention if not for the Michael Richards thing.

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Friday, 15 December 2006 05:05 (seventeen years ago) link

i don't know what that's referring to - did shaq say some tomfool shit re: asians?

Some Yao Ming shit-talking.

― nathan explosion (natepatrin), Friday, 15 December 2006 05:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Detailed here. Yao's response cracks me up.

― nathan explosion (natepatrin), Friday, 15 December 2006 05:09 (seventeen years ago) link

She was "imitating what a newscast in Chinese sounds like to her" by using a voice that has traditionally been used to make fun of Chinese people. What's so hard to understand about that?

― walterkranz (walterkranz), Friday, 15 December 2006 05:09 (seventeen years ago) link

I understand it, and it's mildly offensive. Like I said, it's about the equivalent of "Oy vey" schtick, and it's the kind of thing that, unfortunately, is on T.V. all the time.

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Friday, 15 December 2006 05:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Another appearance of the legendary anonymous "one member of the crowd" eh? Too bad they didn't have anything more tabloidy to say.

― StanM (StanM), Friday, 15 December 2006 05:43 (seventeen years ago) link

And I'm not sure about those gaffes, but in general the public is VERY easily offended these days. It's political correctness gone you-know-what.

― StanM (StanM), Friday, 15 December 2006 05:46 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha, you know I think there's actually this weird crossover point where something becomes offensive just by virtue of being totally tired, and bad "ching-chong" imitations of Chinese fall pretty much directly into that category. I mean, no matter how innocently and non-pejoratively you mean it, yeah, it (a) makes you come off like a xenophobic old man, plus (b) everyone else has agreed that there is nothing amusing about the Chinese language, as it's just the way about a billion people speak, and so maybe we should quit annoying them by going "ching chong" all the time. I kind of like this process, cause it's basically a matter of etiquette -- everyone deciding to quit bugging people with the same moronic joke. (Same goes, for the most part, about fake Spanish where everything-o just-o ends-o in-o O-o.) Cf if Rosie had had the knowledge / improvisatory skills to do any kind of realistic fake-Chinese, the joke would have sailed along nicely.

― the pony-poop paradox (the pony-poop paradox), Friday, 15 December 2006 06:14 (seventeen years ago) link

makes you come off like a xenophobic old man

That's funny because I've only ever heard young people do it, and always in a spiteful, mocking way. I think I probably stopped doing it around the age of 8 but if I had known it was only mildly offensive I could have been ching chang chonging it up all of these years.

― walterkranz (walterkranz), Friday, 15 December 2006 06:23 (seventeen years ago) link

chang chang chang went the trolley
ching ching ching went the bell

― kingfish in absentia (kingfish), Friday, 15 December 2006 06:46 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.asianguy.com/shaq/shaqboard.jpg

― bill sackter (bill sackter), Friday, 15 December 2006 06:47 (seventeen years ago) link

I dunno about Stone's comment being the least funny thing to have occurred at the British Comedy Awards in any case.

Cf if Rosie had had the knowledge / improvisatory skills to do any kind of realistic fake-Chinese, the joke would have sailed along nicely.

Yes, then it wouldn't be any worse than doing playfully mocking British accents or whatever (which I do all the time of course).

― sede vacante (blueski), Friday, 15 December 2006 10:45 (seventeen years ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.