Diversity

[barbkm]

Isn't Heavy Metal Drummer Wilco's Touch of Gray?

 

 

Have you seen Jeff lately? He's got a little more that a touch of gray. I know you were commenting about the quality of the song, but I wanted to turn it around.

 

 

I immediatly posted opn Facebook that Wilco was mentioned on 30 Rock -- to which my sister in law replied, "I TOLD your brother

that you would post that on Facebook."

[Guest Speed Racer]

I didn't see this episode of 30 Rock, and the line probably played well spoken, but I had to have a think about the flippant analogy (especially in light of the recent Rick Sanchez discussion about minorities in the media) comparing the struggles by people of color to be represented in mainstream media, to going to a alt-country-rock-Americana concert.

 

Do you watch 30 Rock? The whole show is flippant analogies. Were they supposed to make a touching commentary on racial diversity in the media?

 

And why Wilco? There are "whiter" audiences at Lee Ann Womack concerts.

 

A joke's primary aim is to be funny, not most accurate.

 

This is why Queen Latifah picks on you.

 

Only Wilco fans - of any race - would take a Queen Latifah/30 Rock joke serious-ish. Well, in the interest of accuracy, probably a few Lee Ann Womack fans too.

[Chinese Apple]

Do you watch 30 Rock? The whole show is flippant analogies. Were they supposed to make a touching commentary on racial diversity in the media?

 

I don't watch the show regularly, but some anthropologists theorize that humor reveals power in a society. I am interested in issues of race, so enjoy deconstructing popular culture when issues of race come up, even in jest.

 

A joke's primary aim is to be funny, not most accurate.

 

And yet, the humor would not have worked as well with another band, I think. There is a definite stereotype about the kind of person who might listen to Wilco that makes this joke work. Inaccurate jokes tend to miss the target.

 

Only Wilco fans - of any race - would take a Queen Latifah/30 Rock joke serious-ish. Well, in the interest of accuracy, probably a few Lee Ann Womack fans too.

 

She sang in the 2004 Republican National Convention. She wears her politics on her sleeve. Yes, I'm sure there are some pensive Womack fans, just as there are many buffoons who listen to Wilco.

[Magnetized]

 

And yet, the humor would not have worked as well with another band, I think. There is a definite stereotype about the kind of person who might listen to Wilco that makes this joke work. Inaccurate jokes tend to miss the target.

 

 

Exactly. That's why the joke works, in my opinion. You don't think fans of alternative/indie/etc. bands would be rednecks, hence theoretically their music might appeal to people of color, and since it doesn't seem to. . . ta-da, joke! Or so it seems to me.

 

It's hard to deconstruct what makes a joke funny, and 30 Rock is full of inside jokes that only a small percentage of viewers will get. I'm sure I don't get everything that's alluded to in every episode, and I suspect the Wilco joke flew right past a large chunk of the viewers. But to people who did get it, it was really funny, and it didn't take up a lot of time in the episode. One of the cool things about 30 Rock is how it doesn't pander to the lowest common denominator.

[u2roolz]

While on the topic of political correctness, a gentle reminder that in issues of racial diversity, it is not always black and white -- there are other citizens of color in the U.S.

Yes, and I think the original poster of that comment didn't mention every color because it seems like s/he knew that they have seen more people of color at Wilco shows besides black people. I have seen my fair share of Asian & Indian people at Wilco concerts. So when I read their comment it was implied to me and made me think about the black people in the context of the joke or rather what we imply from it. Because it is spoken by Queen Latifah does it mean she means all of black people from sea to shining sea? What if it was Abed from Community who said the quote? Would we imply that he meant there weren't any people of Indian descent at a Wilco show? Or George Lopez? I took it as being all people of color are not really present at a Wilco show.

 

So who do we like to point the fingers at? The band? The people of all colors? Society in general? As far as I'm concerned Wilco makes music for anyone and everyone and if people don't listen or catch on it doesn't bother me. Same goes for the people of all colors: I'm not going to drive to Roxbury with my windows down blasting Wilco's Heavy Metal Drummer and picking up some guys from the hood telling them that "this shit is tight boy! Check it out in my 1996 Honda Accord...without rims..." Then we drive around the block bobbing our heads to I'm The Man Who Loves You. Pardon the foolish example, but my point is "hey, people can listen to whatever they want. If folks want to solely listen to rap. Fine. Who gives a fuck? If people want to only listen to country. Fine. Let them." I'm under the assumption that people will eventually let their musical horizons grow as soon as they let their external (or better yet internal) conditions change.

 

I didn't see this episode of 30 Rock, and the line probably played well spoken, but I had to have a think about the flippant analogy (especially in light of the recent Rick Sanchez discussion about minorities in the media) comparing the struggles by people of color to be represented in mainstream media, to going to a alt-country-rock-Americana concert. First all of this episode was probably filmed around late July or early August right before the Solid Sound Festival which may be why it was in the writers' heads. It just so happened to air after the Stewart/Sanchez feud. So if you see a person of color at a Wilco show then you are implying that they have overcome all struggles that America has given them? A Wilco show is analogous to the Holy Grail? If anything it sounds like a commentary on class, not necessarily color. Of course, those two things can be intertwined a lot of the times.

 

And why Wilco? There are "whiter" audiences at Lee Ann Womack concerts. Once again, I wouldn't get too caught up in the band being mentioned. We need to think about who is the bigger target of the joke: Wilco or people of color? We're not going around our neighborhoods with guns forcing minorities into Wilco shows. So my point is that people have an obvious choice of whether or not to go to any show and obviously they probably aren't which may have prompted the joke in the 1st place. And it's not Wilco's fault, really. It could be a very broad joke in terms of scale. Certain people may feel no need to listen to other types of music outside of their upbringing or social setting or class setting.

 

The Wilco reference was clever. A big chunk of the Wilco fan base seems to be made up of the kind of educated white liberal who WOULD take notice of, and feel a little bit guilty about, being "too white." There was a brief VC discussion on race and socio-economic class after the Solid Sound festival this summer, for instance. This also sounds a bit crazy. Things are the way they are. Once again, I'm not going to drag people of color with me to Solid Sound to make the festival "less white" because that is doing something against their will; assuming this broad generalization is somewhat true. I may see more people of color at a Jay-Z concert probably because there's a large chunk of the white youth who wants to be black. That's a whole another story. But there's also a large chunk of white people who like rap music for a lot of other different reasons: the lyrics, the rapping style, the beats, the image, the message(s), & the notion that these rap artists are capturing that image of growing up a minority in America and now telling their story through their music.

 

I'm reminded of how Jeff Tweedy described the Wilco fan base in an article about Solid Sound:

 

By all accounts, the three-day festival stands to be civilized and family-friendly. Even so, the town is deploying extra police, and the museum hired extra gallery guards — just in case.

 

Tweedy said there probably won’t be any fist fights at the festival, but given the disposition of Wilco fans, he joked, “There might be some hurt feelings and some passive aggressiveness. A few tears.”

 

This is why Queen Latifah picks on you.

Once again, you are blaming the band and not the people of color who are not supposedly at the Wilco concerts. What is Wilco supposed to do? Release a rap record? Christ, they already posed with a camel. People of color will find them and probably have found them. And it also goes back to who is the butt of the joke?

 

 

Do you watch 30 Rock? The whole show is flippant analogies. Were they supposed to make a touching commentary on racial diversity in the media?

 

A joke's primary aim is to be funny, not most accurate.

 

Only Wilco fans - of any race - would take a Queen Latifah/30 Rock joke serious-ish. Well, in the interest of accuracy, probably a few Lee Ann Womack fans too.

 

Yes. If you really want to get irate, you should watch Outsourced. It makes fun of both Indian and American people. It isn't very clever and it is very demeaning. It paints Indians as worker bees with little sense of self and Americans as buffoons who just want to buy novelty items like fake vomit or dog poop. I'm not really sure who this show is supposed to appeal to at all.

 

I don't watch the show regularly, but some anthropologists theorize that humor reveals power in a society. I am interested in issues of race, so enjoy deconstructing popular culture when issues of race come up, even in jest. I understand where you are coming from, but at some point you can't keep doing that or else you'll wind up driving yourself crazy. I'm not saying to sweep it under the table completely, but the more that you keep looking out for it; the more that it seems like it is present everywhere and every time.

 

And yet, the humor would not have worked as well with another band, I think. There is a definite stereotype about the kind of person who might listen to Wilco that makes this joke work. Inaccurate jokes tend to miss the target.

 

She sang in the 2004 Republican National Convention. She wears her politics on her sleeve. Yes, I'm sure there are some pensive Womack fans, just as there are many buffoons who listen to Wilco.

 

Much like you thought that the original poster left off other people of color besides those of black & white, you forgot about the human-fruit hybrids. I haven't seen them at Wilco shows, but I am sure that they are listening to their music.

 

P.S. And to involve myself in this discussion through gender, not race: I find that I don't listen to a lot of female musicians. It's not that I don't like it, I do like it, it's just that sometimes I find a lot of it hard to relate to because I see it as the female experience. Which is an exciting thing to listen to and try to understand being a man. But sometimes it's a bit tough when the song isn't vague and there are notions of ex-boyfriends as villainous or things along those lines. I can relate to it on a purely human level stripping away the ex-boyfriend element and inserting the notion of an ex-girlfriend. I prefer to go the avenue of films to watch films directed and/or written by women instead of constantly listening to the types of songs that I guess turn me off. That may all go back to high school where it wasn't cool being a guy to listen to Jewel (who was famous in the 90s).

 

So I leave you with this: NBC is about as diverse as a Lillith Fair concert.

 

Does that joke poke fun at men or the women of Lillith Fair for making music that happens to draw a majority of women?

[lamradio]

Wow you guys must be as bored as I am.

[Chinese Apple]

Wow, U2roolz, I don't know where you are getting all the angry vibes because they are not coming from me.

 

Once again, you are blaming the band and not the people of color who are not supposedly at the Wilco concerts.

 

I blame no one. My first post in this thread was unequivocally in defense of Wilco.

 

Yes. If you really want to get irate, you should watch Outsourced.

 

And I am not irate.

 

I find pop culture interesting. I was thinking about the Rick Sanchez thing last week (having worked at CBS News long ago), so when this 30 Rock line came up this week and created some buzz, I was trying to fit it into ideas that were starting to come together. It doesn't matter when it was written or taped -- fact is, it entered the public (that's me) consciousness at this particular moment.

 

Much like you thought that the original poster left off other people of color besides those of black & white, you forgot about the human-fruit hybrids. I haven't seen them at Wilco shows, but I am sure that they are listening to their music.

 

I didn't think the original poster left out other people of color, but noticed that the discussion started to veer into one about black and white. (And actually, I am pretty sure these human-fruits are Wiggles fans.)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB4MNu6W9sg )

 

Iamrod - Yes. Bored. And, procrastinating from a Monday deadline. I'm also reading Neitzsche. Not of my own free will; it was assigned. Nihilism makes me want to reestablish order.

[Guest Speed Racer]

some anthropologists theorize that humor reveals power in a society

 

I think humor also does a good job of revealing the humorless, and people who tend to blow things out of proportion. These two are not necessarily exclusive, mind you. Also, I was an anthropology major, if it helps to swallow that pill.

[Chinese Apple]

Hey. So was I an anthropology major! I hope you are not resorting to ad hominem attacks on my sense of humor. That in fact was what I meant about power and humor. In primates only alpha monkeys get to "laugh" and minor monkeys "smile" in appeasement. It's revealing who gets to decide what is "funny" in a community.

 

This is getting rather hefty for a one line joke, though. Why do you provoke me?

[Guest Speed Racer]

It's not an attack, and it's nothing to do with you; truly a general observation, evidenced in part by how many posts this thread has.

[Chinese Apple]

My general observation based on the same data (ie the number of posts on this thread) is that the one liner touched a nerve.

 

But anyway. I am done.

[u2roolz]

If anything I read your post on this page as painting Wilco as the bad guys and not really giving any reasons as to why people of color would or would not listen to them like I did for myself and female musicians. (I wish that you would have given an example like the one that I gave, although you addressed this a little bit on page 1 which I read a day ago and then saw your post today thinking it was new to the discussion)

 

And saying that Queen Latifah is picking on Wilco made it sound like to me that Wilco is to blame here and not the audience. As if they were making mutually white music.

 

But yeah, it was not an attack on you at all just an observation with some points and personal experiences to try and understand this problem. And no one answered my Lillith Fair analogy joke. I wonder if that would have caused an uproar?

 

Edit: Oh yeah, and then saying that Wilco fans should feel guilty about being "too white". I'll let you know that I've been to a Wu-Tang concert.

 

To be truthfully honest here, since we're all one big family, I definitely felt a couple of things 1) Wilco should feel guilty, 2) white people should feel guilty, and there wasn't any address or speculation about the "people of color' and their possible guilt about missing out on an amazing band or being guilty of not having a broader taste. It felt like they were being painted as victims by not addressing them. It's not like Wilco is the equivalent of the Skull & Bones of white music. LOL. Both of which are white.

 

Edit Part Deux: Oh, and something else that crossed my mind, since this is about an NBC show and its network. J.J. Abrams produced a new show called Undercovers which has 2 black people in the leads. It is doing very poorly in terms of ratings and people are scratching their heads in the business wondering why. I'd like to think that it has to do with an 8 o'clock time slot and nothing else, but that seems a bit too naive of me. It's a great show and Gugu Mbatha Raw is gorgeous.

[cryptique]

Holy flippin' Christ, people. It was a one-liner in a sitcom. Settle down.

[sonicshoulder]

Lets just talk abortion for a while until everybody calms down around here. The over sensitizing of America is working, white people are now getting more upset over race topics then blacks. It was a line in a sit-com by a comedic actress....nobody should have been offended.

[calvino]

Actually everyone seems pretty calm in this thread.

 

I watched the show and I missed the line. The whole episode was pretty good.

[Atticus]

it seems to me that the diversity comment may refer to the general smugdickness of the wilco fan rather than skin color

[barbkm]

Holy flippin' Christ, people. It was a one-liner in a sitcom. Settle down.

 

 

Amen -- I don't think the writers put as much energy into the line as this discussion board. I bet it was something like this "more diversiry at an Arcade Fire show?" No "My Morning Jacket show" No. "How about Wilco" - Wilco, yes,that works.

[u2roolz]

Amen -- I don't think the writers put as much energy into the line as this discussion board. I bet it was something like this "more diversiry at an Arcade Fire show?" No "My Morning Jacket show" No. "How about Wilco" - Wilco, yes,that works.

 

Yes. Maybe. But once you send out a message the receiver deciphers it. In this particular case, the joke had a hell of a lot of depth depending on how much thought you want to put into it.

 

On the surface it works as a joke about Wilco and its audiences lack of diversity which I guess translates into a whiteout. What some of us on here were trying to do was try to figure out why the joke really works. And by doing that you have to take into account the minorities that the joke addresses, but somehow doesn't clearly state because the focus is on Wilco & their audience. All that some of us were trying to say was "why is that?" I'm not trying to shift the blame onto the minorities, Wilco fans, or Wilco. I guess things are just the way that they are due to external and internal situations that we can't control.

 

So by using my Lilith Fair joke (NBC is about as diverse as a Lilth Fair concert) to expand my example where does the majority of the laughter go: Sarah McLachlan and her music? The majority of women who make up her demographic? Or the men who probably won't show up to the show unless dragged by a wife or girlfriend etc. I guess, in my eyes the majority of the laughter would be focused on the lack of men at a Lilith Fair concert because of Sarah McLachlan & her demographic of women. It's just the way that it is, but all 3 things make the joke work much like the Wilco one.

 

And a Wilco concert or the Lilith Fair is only a collection of people for a few hours out of 365 days per year. I'm sure these people at both events are doing more diverse things than we can even imagine when they aren't in the same room.

 

Had it been about the Rolling Stones or U2, the joke may have veered more into the territory of class and financial (or lack thereof) humor.

 

And like calvino pointed out no one on here was angry. It's just a discussion. That's what we have been doing here from all sorts of topics. I guess it shows how great the writers of 30 Rock can be by getting people discussing a single line of dialog and what that means when you deconstruct it. There's no crime against that. If anything you get more out of the joke.

[Sir Stewart]

Queen Latifah said "Wilco"?!?

[Guest Speed Racer]

I guess it shows how great the writers of 30 Rock can be by getting people discussing a single line of dialog and what that means when you deconstruct it. There's no crime against that. If anything you get more out of the joke.

 

No, I definitely think I got more out of the joke when I read it in the first post than I did three pages later.

[bleedorange]

I'm more concerned about the number of people who stated they watched the episode but missed the Wilco joke. Don't people pay attention anymore?

 

How does this reflect on our ADD-addled society? Discuss.

[calvino]

I missed it because my little over a year old kid is still enjoying his birthday gifts.

[Chinese Apple]

If anything I read your post on this page as painting Wilco as the bad guys

Edit: Oh yeah, and then saying that Wilco fans should feel guilty about being "too white". I'll let you know that I've been to a Wu-Tang concert.

 

Perhaps then you are a bad reader and read into my post what you wanted to believe.

 

I did not say Wilco fans SHOULD feel guilty, but that they have the stereotype of the kind that WOULD feel more "white guilt" than most, which is why that joke works.

[M. (hristine]

I'm only partially Caucasian.

[u2roolz]

If anything I read your post on this page as painting Wilco as the bad guys and not really giving any reasons as to why people of color would or would not listen to them like I did for myself and female musicians. (I wish that you would have given an example like the one that I gave, although you addressed this a little bit on page 1 which I read a day ago and then saw your post today thinking it was new to the discussion)

 

To be truthfully honest here, since we're all one big family, I definitely felt a couple of things 1) Wilco should feel guilty, 2) white people should feel guilty, and there wasn't any address or speculation about the "people of color' and their possible guilt about missing out on an amazing band or being guilty of not having a broader taste. It felt like they were being painted as victims by not addressing them. It's not like Wilco is the equivalent of the Skull & Bones of white music. LOL. Both of which are white.

 

 

Perhaps then you are a bad reader and read into my post what you wanted to believe.

 

I did not say Wilco fans SHOULD feel guilty, but that they have the stereotype of the kind that WOULD feel more "white guilt" than most, which is why that joke works.

 

I think if you had copied and pasted your 1st post on page 1 onto your 2nd post onto page 2, I would have never responded to it because you addressed all 3 things. Instead your post on page 2 began kind of accusatory pointing fingers at the VC community for making it into a "black & white" issue and that there are other colors out there. Then you address the Wilco portion followed by the white audience and then you kind of left it at that, thus prompting me to think that you were kind of either subconsciously or consciously making us feel guilty. I addressed this better in my post above.

Edit: Not to mention it didn't sound like you were heeding your own advice about not forgetting about other people of color. {even though I know that you did on page 1. And I did not recognize your screen name. I recall your old one.}

 

To sum it up: I realize that you posted on page 1 & page 2, but think about what you wrote on page 2 and what someone would think if they only read that and never saw your 1st post until later.