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On Monday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, K-Dawg presented another of his classic movie spoofs where they edit Guillermo Rodriguez into the trailer. This time for Twilight:
Guillermo Rodriguez works security in the Jimmy Kimmel parking lot. Isn’t that crazy? The American dream! K-Dawg has done this before on the show, of course, most famously with the Bourne Ultimatum, and also The Incredible Hulk. They’re mildly amusing because comedy is when you see something that you are familiar with done a little bit differently. Whoops. Did I just take over the UCB? I think I’m the President of the UCB now.
The problem is that these are totally racist.
None of the humor comes from anything specific about Guillermo. It all just plays on the fact that he’s an overweight Mexican with a middling grasp of English. Get it? LOL? It’s fat jokes and Engrish jokes. Perfect. Comedy from the future! The fact that they make such a point to remind the viewers that Guillermo works in parking security, i.e. he isn’t just ANY Mexican, he’s a Mexican who works in the service industry, is also highly SUSPECT. Does knowledge of his minimum wage job make it any funnier? And if it does, how?
Look, I don’t actually think that Jimmy Kimmel is a racist PERSON, but I think Jimmy Kimmel’s comedy is often structured on exploiting stereotypes (“I’m Fucking Ben Affleck“?) and nailing lowest common denominator targets. And as someone who thinks people falling down and making fart noises is the funniest, I KNOW LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATORS. Part of the problem is his whole “thinking man’s” Blue Collar Comedy Tour-style bullshit that he developed on the Man Show. The dude is rich. He lives in LA and fucks Sarah Silverman. He guest hosted LARRY KING LIVE for heaven’s sake. The regular Joe thing is wearing thin.
But you know what’s not wearing thin? Guillermo. That’s what makes him so funny. Ugh.
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Agreed, Tom. Come on! It’s comedy and if we keep rushing to call everything racist well then everything becomes taboo. They also make fun of Uncle Frank on a daily basis – an uneducated ex-cop/security guard who is pretty simple – is that racist? I’m sick of everything having to be politically correct. It’s a joke and I’d argue not a very good one-it’s not particularly inspired and it’s pretty damn easy but not as easy as rushing to just call this racist. If this is racist, you know what else is? Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder. “Oh, no that’s a joke about racism.” Please – while I agree with that to a point, the laughs come not at the expense of Downey Jr, but at the expense of black people whether you want to admit it or not.
ok, freedom of expression, whatever.
it’s still not funny. go watch carlos mencia.
Guillermo’s a pretty charismatic guy. I don’t think just any Mexican security guard could do what he does.
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“Ok, so Jimmy Kimmel is racist, but he’s not a racist PERSON. Understand? What I mean is that he shouldn’t aim for the lowest common denominator (although I think lowest common denominator comedy is really funny). And he should act more rich!”
This post should go deep, deep into the Bay of Whoops.
Whie I wouldn’t say this is racist, I will say that it isn’t funny. I thought we were past these stereotype jokes when everyone stopped watching Mind of Mencia. It’s like those “when black people do something they’re like __” “But when white people do it…” Seriously, this is 2008. That comedy died a long time ago.
This isn’t the same as Robert Downey Jr.’s blackface because that was making fun of hardcore method actors and kinda Hollywood’s attitude toward race. Like how there’s usually one token black guy in a movie,
This was different because it was just reinforcing stereotypes rather than satirizing them. And also, it was not funny at all. But I wouldn’t go so far to say it was racist.
Also, No, I do not like Lisa Lampanelli.
Gabe comes out against cheap fat jokes? And somewhere, Ballister J. McCoy sharpens his knife…
This isn’t racist. It’s making fun of the way he talks, not making fun of his heritage. It’s like making fun of someone’s weight, or hairstyle, or height. Or making fun of Bush for saying “nuke-you-lerr.”
By those standards THE SIMPSONS is the most racist show ever created.
Pull your head out of your ass, Gabe.
Yeah, everyone. It’s political correctness gone mad. That’s the problem. That’s the problem here. Not lazy fucking comedy that relies on tired, stale, old stereotypes.
Jesus.
THANK you.
I’m not going to defend Kimmel’s weak jokes, but when you make careless accusations of racism (which this post did), you devalue the meaning of the word.
booourns
bad post
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http://www.illdoctrine.com/2008/07/how_to_tell_people_they_sound.html
i dont see how this is racist. it’s actually pretty funny.
Oh I see. Jimmy Kimmel is a racist, but as you say later, he’s not a racist PERSON? Well that certainly clears it all up.
Alot of comedy (and I mean alot of it) has to do with exploiting stereotypes, racial or otherwise. Think of the self-loathing Jews of Philip Roth; the hyper-masculine-G’s in a Dave Chapelle skit; Apu, the Hindi convenient store clerk, of the Simpsons; Pagoda’s one word responses in a Wes Anderson movie. Hell, the entire Western comic tradition started with one guy making fun of a bunch of cliched hack stories about knight errants by writing the biggest one of them all. If you hate Engrish jokes, you definitely hate Everything Is Illuminated. If you object to any comedic stereotyping, then you’re not watching the Simpsons, Seinfeld, 30 Rock, etc.
Really, I just don’t think you like Jimmy Kimmel. Which is understandable, the guy is a douchebag.
As always seems to be the case in these types of situations, it is never the supposed victim that speaks out. It is always someone from the outside. Guillermo Rodriguez is a groan man perfectly capable of speaking for himself. I’m willing to bet that if you asked him, he would take difference with the author’s argument that Jimmy Kimmel is in any way racist.
What this author, and so many others like him, fails to realize is that ending racism does not mean pretending that there are not differences between peoples or cultures, but rather accepting, and perhaps even embracing, those differences.
Guillermo seems to be intelligent enough to understand that. Those who do not, and instead feel the need to speak up for him, are implying that he is either too stupid or too helpless to speak for himself. To those people, I ask: Why is Guillermo Rodriguez incapable of standing up for himself? Why does he need you to speak for him?
Is it because he is Mexican?
By assuming that someone needs you to speak up for them, you run the risk of appearing racist yourself, or at least confused about the issue. Racism will be overcome through tolerance and understanding of people’s differences, not by broadening the term to the point where people are scared to say anything at all concerning race for fear of being labeled racist.
Funny or not, Guillermo does have some trouble with the English language at this time. I’m sure he’d be the first to admit it. But he does speak it well enough to speak for himself (not to mention much better than I can speak Spanish, despite 3 years of it in high school).
I suggest we leave it up to him to say whether he is a victim of racism or not.
“groan man.”
That is all.
I suggest that we have one representative of every race watch anything labeled “racist” and then rate it accordingly. As a Mexican, I rate this as “not racist” and also “not that funny”.
As a writer, I rate Gabe’s post as being “Gaybe”.
Gabe needs Country Teasers records.
COUNTRY TEASERS RULE… what the fuck happened to them?
COUNTRY TEASERS RULE… what the fuck happened to them?
They’ve got a split LP with Ezee Tiger coming out on the Holy Mountain label.
http://www.holymountain.com/news/
Wow. U are super PC there huh?
I’m kinda tired of the overuse of the Jimmy Kimmell security staff. Their unprofessionalism was funny at one time, and every once in awhile they should throw them a sketch, just like Letterman does with Biff Henderson. But it’s almost every night now and it stopped being fun and funny a year ago. I think the Kimmell writers are out of ideas and this is all they can come up with. The only funny thing on the show now is “Tribute to the FCC” and with Sarah Silverman breaking up with Jimmy she won’t be on anymore, so nothing like “I’m fcuking Ben Afflek will be done. Jimmy needs new writers and an overhaul of the show, expecially with Craig Ferguson coming on strong.
I think you should have just said, “Jimmy Kimmel sucks.”
That is really all there is to it. He sucks. Big time.
UGH WE GET IT GABE. YOU BOUGHT A CRITICAL RACE THEORY READER.
YOU’RE NOT DERRICK BELL. YOU’RE NOT EVEN RICHARD DELGADO.
Leave the crit theory to them. They are better at it. You keep on writing about youtube.
Thx.
It’s funny because he’s a really bad actor, not because he’s Mexican.
Attaboy, way to push the PC comedy agenda. God forbid we laugh at any stereotype that does not involve white people. F!@#ing jackass.
kimel is in fact a racist, and suits perfectly sara silverman another racist jew