tirade about really offensive MADTV skit
Jun. 4th, 2005 11:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmDid anyone just see that unbelieveably offensive skit on MADTV? I'm really appalled and may even write a nasty letter.
The gist of it was an Al-Jazeera version of the Price is Right.
And it was the most shockingly ignorant and anti-Muslim thing I've ever seen.
I can't even really begin to list the ways in which I was appalled right now because I am so shocked, but among other things it made a really crappy joke about female genital mutilation, and attributed the practice to the Arab world.
FGM is mainly performed by _Christians_ in _Africa_. And has abhorent as the practice is, it is not done to punish women. And somehow the skit misunderstanding these two things, and deciding it didn't need to try to be funny, because blaming Muslims for stuff is just funny in and of itself, just made me insane.
When I was in 6th grade I had an elderly white British woman as my sixth grade homeroom teacher who taught us about Islam because she said that as the world got smaller we'd eventually understand that we were and had alays been the minority. She explained to us about Islamic art, the reasons for Islamic dress and the Arab world's contributions to math and science. In everything that has happened in these last four years I have never forgotten learning as a child of these things and having affection for them -- and that's not been easy to express a lot, as someone who is also a Jew and a New Yorker and isn't supposed to feel or say certain things. I expect people to holler at me, and it makes me sad.
But... fuck. MADTV just stepped so far over the line, and I am someone who can get into equal opportunity racial/religious/cultural humour, but... that was disgusting.
The gist of it was an Al-Jazeera version of the Price is Right.
And it was the most shockingly ignorant and anti-Muslim thing I've ever seen.
I can't even really begin to list the ways in which I was appalled right now because I am so shocked, but among other things it made a really crappy joke about female genital mutilation, and attributed the practice to the Arab world.
FGM is mainly performed by _Christians_ in _Africa_. And has abhorent as the practice is, it is not done to punish women. And somehow the skit misunderstanding these two things, and deciding it didn't need to try to be funny, because blaming Muslims for stuff is just funny in and of itself, just made me insane.
When I was in 6th grade I had an elderly white British woman as my sixth grade homeroom teacher who taught us about Islam because she said that as the world got smaller we'd eventually understand that we were and had alays been the minority. She explained to us about Islamic art, the reasons for Islamic dress and the Arab world's contributions to math and science. In everything that has happened in these last four years I have never forgotten learning as a child of these things and having affection for them -- and that's not been easy to express a lot, as someone who is also a Jew and a New Yorker and isn't supposed to feel or say certain things. I expect people to holler at me, and it makes me sad.
But... fuck. MADTV just stepped so far over the line, and I am someone who can get into equal opportunity racial/religious/cultural humour, but... that was disgusting.
ummm
Date: 2005-06-05 10:42 am (UTC)Re: ummm
Date: 2005-06-05 02:36 pm (UTC)2. I said mainly, not entirely.
3. Even if I were utterly wrong about everything in this post, it does not negate my other knowledge.
4. Did you see the fucking skit? There was a lot more wrong with it than the FGM thing.
5. I wasn't bashing Christians in the least. You're being defensive and prickly (gee and now so am I). It's not bashing anyone if I said, "some people of this group, in some places, do something that offends me." No where did I state that Christianity supports, condones or engages in FGM as a widespread practice. No where did I say that Christians where inferior to Muslims. ANd no where did I address the many tennants of the major sects/groups of Islam, Christianity and Judaism that offend and/or puzzle me.
Re: ummm
Date: 2005-06-05 03:07 pm (UTC)Cowardly attacks on people whose opinions you don't care to hear are not convicing.