#tw g slur
Mikey Walsh (@thatbloodyMikey) says, “I don’t know what I should be more gutted or disgusted by here… the kind of Racism that GRT people are forced to live with every day… that’s it’s still absolutely ok to demonise us & our demise as a joke… or the reactions of whooping & cheering from the audience..”
On video, comedian Jimmy Carr says, “When people talk about the Holocaust[…] they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis. No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives.”
The audience proceeds to clap and cheer.
******
This comes from Jimmy Carr’s 2021 Netflix special, Jimmy Carr: His Dark Material. No, I didn’t link to it. I don’t recommend you watch it. Don’t benefit Jimmy Carr financially. Don’t bolster Netflix’s decision to stream the special.
The entire hour is full of truly horrifying shit. He has an extended bit about people with dwarfism toward the beginning that is just awful.
At the end, he goes to great lengths to explain that he’s presenting “career ending” jokes. The Holocaust joke finishes out this section, 5 minutes and 40 seconds from the end of the hour-long special.
This joke receives the biggest reaction of the entire “career-ending” bit. The audience lovesit. People actually whistle in agreement.
Carr goes on to say, “That’s a very good joke for the following three reasons. Firstly, fucking funny. Well done, me! Secondly, edgy. Edgy as all hell. A joke about the worst thing that’s ever happened in human history. And people say, ‘Never forget.’ This is how I remember! I keep bringing it up. Third reason that’s a good joke is that there is an educational quality.” He then goes on to mock the murder of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I understand that Jimmy Carr’s comedy is, in general, not meant for me. I’m not white enough for it. I’m not rich enough for it. I’m not nihilistic enough for it. I’m not his target demographic.
That said, the joke itself–coupled with the audience reaction–is a fucking nightmare. It’s disgusting. Can I call it moredisgusting than the rest of his special? No. The whole thing is terrible. Can I honestly say I’m surprised by the audience’s reaction? No. People have been gleeful about murdering Roma for thousands of years. All that said…
You never really get used to hearing people cheer your own death.
Anyway, keep yourselves so safe for me.
XOXO, Earnest
Something’s getting lost in the response to this…
Non-Roma seem fixated on Carr, on his bigotry, on what an asshole he clearly is and apparently has always been. That’s all well and good. But I don’t give a fuck about Jimmy Carr.
It’s the audience. Look at the audience.
That’s a full house. It’s not a laugh track. How many of the people in the audience went home after that show feeling good, feeling happy? How many told their friends it was a great night out? How many laughed again, days later, thinking about some of his funnier bits?
Now let’s expand on that.
Jimmy Carr didn’t debut any new material at the taping of his special, friends. He’s been traveling around the country performing these jokes. He’s workshopped the shit out of it. Carr would never have taken a risk this massive, right at the end of his set, unless he was absolutely sure of the audience’s reaction.
This wasn’t about one particularly bigoted audience… but about audience after audience after audience, across the U.K. and possibly around the world.
He knew that the majorityof people would laugh at that joke. He was absolutely sure. That’s how deep the anti-Romani bigotry runs.
It’s easy to look at a man like Jimmy Carr and say, “He’s the problem! Eliminate the problem!” But the problem wasn’t really Jimmy Carr. It was the people clapping and cheering and whistling their agreement. It was their enthusiastic approval of Roma genocide.
So, yes. Fuck Jimmy Carr! But don’t get comfortable, thinking he’s the problem here. How many of your neighbors would’ve gone home feeling good, feeling happy? How many would have cheered?
XOXO, Earnest
Mikey Walsh (@thatbloodyMikey) says, “I don’t know what I should be more gutted or disgusted by here… the kind of Racism that GRT people are forced to live with every day… that’s it’s still absolutely ok to demonise us & our demise as a joke… or the reactions of whooping & cheering from the audience..”
On video, comedian Jimmy Carr says, “When people talk about the Holocaust[…] they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis. No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives.”
The audience proceeds to clap and cheer.
******
This comes from Jimmy Carr’s 2021 Netflix special, Jimmy Carr: His Dark Material. No, I didn’t link to it. I don’t recommend you watch it. Don’t benefit Jimmy Carr financially. Don’t bolster Netflix’s decision to stream the special.
The entire hour is full of truly horrifying shit. He has an extended bit about people with dwarfism toward the beginning that is just awful.
At the end, he goes to great lengths to explain that he’s presenting “career ending” jokes. The Holocaust joke finishes out this section, 5 minutes and 40 seconds from the end of the hour-long special.
This joke receives the biggest reaction of the entire “career-ending” bit. The audience lovesit. People actually whistle in agreement.
Carr goes on to say, “That’s a very good joke for the following three reasons. Firstly, fucking funny. Well done, me! Secondly, edgy. Edgy as all hell. A joke about the worst thing that’s ever happened in human history. And people say, ‘Never forget.’ This is how I remember! I keep bringing it up. Third reason that’s a good joke is that there is an educational quality.” He then goes on to mock the murder of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I understand that Jimmy Carr’s comedy is, in general, not meant for me. I’m not white enough for it. I’m not rich enough for it. I’m not nihilistic enough for it. I’m not his target demographic.
That said, the joke itself–coupled with the audience reaction–is a fucking nightmare. It’s disgusting. Can I call it moredisgusting than the rest of his special? No. The whole thing is terrible. Can I honestly say I’m surprised by the audience’s reaction? No. People have been gleeful about murdering Roma for thousands of years. All that said…
You never really get used to hearing people cheer your own death.
Anyway, keep yourselves so safe for me.
XOXO, Earnest
Guess what, friends? When people with dwarfismtell you that stories about dwarves (the fantasy variety) are harmful, your job is to listen and validate. Not to argue.
I wish I was surprised to see all the Book Girls and Fantasy Bros jumping in to defend dead authors… J. R. R. Tolkien doesn’t need you to defend him. Terry Pratchett wouldn’t even wantyou to defend him.
Authors are just people, and people aren’t perfect.
Dwarves don’t exist in some kind of literary vacuum.
If this statement bothers you*:
“When I say ‘gypsy,’ I mean the magical, fantasy kind. You know like fortunetellers who live in wagons. Magical powers, not real people. 'Gypsy’ in literature is just like a trope at this point. Not real Romani people. That’s not what anybody means when they write about that.”
(*Actual Ask in my inbox.)
Then these statements should bother you**:
“Not that I give a fuck, but the Dwarfs in Snow White aren’t humans with Dwarfism. They’re mythical glorified coal miners.”
“Dwarves in Tolkien are a fantasy race based on Norse mythology and not the same as a human with medical dwarfism. But you already knew that. You’re just being a snotty little contrarian for the lulz.”
“Aren’t the dwarves in Snow White mythical creatures?”
(**Actual Tweets I just saw.)
The oppressors don’t get to decide what oppression looks like. Oh, maybe I should repeat that a bit louder…
The oppressors don’t get to decide what oppression looks like!
Peter Dinklage knows more about anti-dwarf bigotry than I do. Probably more than you do, unless you are also a little person. So we can just take his word on this one, okay?
XOXO, Earnest
I think it’s interesting to see the reactions to today’s Dracula Daily that are like, “He did a racism! He used the g-slur!” and don’t go deeper than that. I was born in the early 80s and didn’t know the g-slur was a slur until like between 5 and 10 years ago. I mean, there was a whole Disney movie that used the word like it was no big deal when I was in middle school. I’m not saying Disney wouldn’t do a racism, I’m saying Disney wouldn’t have put language in a 90s kids’ movie that wasn’t considered “politically correct” in mainstream America at the time. Anyway, my point is that until sometime in the mid 2010s, I honestly thought G****** was just what that group of people were called, or was a term for nomadic people in general. I guarantee there are well-meaning Americans in the year 2022 who aren’t tuned into online antiracist discourse who still think that. Stoker could’ve easily used the word thinking it was no different than calling someone an Englishman or a cowboy.
The blatant racism here is how the Romani are portrayed. They are “without religion, save superstition,” i.e. Godless heathens, i.e. their religion isn’t a version of Christianity so it isn’t a legitimate religion. They’re ignorant for only speaking their own language, even though Jonathan doesn’t speak or understand it and doesn’t understand most of the foreign language he’s encountered on this trip. They act overtly deferential and subservient to Jonathan. They take his money and then sell him out to the Count.
If this narrative had only used the word Romani or the name that this particular group of Romani used for themselves (I’m seeing meta that Szgany is a slur, too, but I haven’t looked into it), this depiction would still be racist. While it is important to update our language as we gain better information, I think terminology is ultimately less important than whether a marginalized character or group is being portrayed as an offensive racial stereotype. I see all kinds of writing by modern writers, professional and amateur, that uses all the correct 2020s terminology but still portrays characters as the invulnerable black woman, the submissive Asian woman, the predatory brown man, the Jewish moneylender, etc. Again, I’m not saying terminology doesn’t matter and shouldn’t be critiqued in older writing, I’m just saying we shouldn’t let terminology distract from content.
