EP 5 - Have We Forgotten How to Laugh at Ourselves?

What happens when a conversation about sitcoms turns into a debate about race, representation, comedy, cancel culture, and the way we see each other?

In this episode of PBJ, the crew dives into everything from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Martin, and In Living Color to modern-day comedy, Tyler Perry, Dave Chappelle, and the evolution of entertainment. Along the way, they tackle uncomfortable questions about stereotypes, white privilege, political correctness, and whether audiences have become too sensitive or simply more aware.

It's messy, unfiltered, thought-provoking, and exactly the kind of conversation people usually have behind closed doors. Whether you agree, disagree, or change your mind halfway through, this episode proves that the best discussions often happen when nobody plays it safe.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

And just like that, you're here. Welcome to the PBJ podcast, where things get a little messy, a little bold, and definitely not fucking boring.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

We're serving up some real talk, some hot takes, conversations you probably shouldn't have, but we're having them anyway.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

So settle in. This is PBJ. Help us save the whales. Yeah. I generally don't know if, and I have this conversation with my friends from college all the time. I don't know that I like black shows. In fact, I tend to dislike black shows, and I'll tell you why. Because they don't seem to want to pay good writers. And so the writing tends to be really support. Um like even if you look at something like French print fresh prints, okay? Let me finish before you eviscerate me. Um I'm like singing the song in my head. Because it's coming. Um it's coming. But I get it. But so the my issue is that they spend so much time trying to have their characters like be black. They don't just let their characters be characters, right? Like and you can make some people make the argument, well, everything's white entertainment television. And I'm there is some a lot of truth to that, but at the same time, like a lot of characters are just like being them who they are, right? Whereas like I remember like Fresh Prince and stuff like that, or Martin or whatever, like they dive so hard into just like trying to be black, whatever that even means, like what to be the stereotype of black, whether it is to like sometimes it's called attention to it and break down to be like that's not how it really is, but sometimes it's like engaging it with sometimes for like a laugh. And I hate that. And secondly, so many black shows have laugh tracks, and there's nothing stupider in a show than a laugh track.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

I mean, I guess it depends like what show you're talking about, but I mean, if someone is in the character, like the people who are actors can't necessarily be themselves, they are the character who are who they're supposed to be, right? Right. So, like, I mean, there's a lot of shows out there where like, like, for example, Urkel. You remember Urkel?

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Oh, such garbage.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

That was like such a cool show. I grew up on that. Family Matters.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Family Matters is an amazing show. That's actually one of the few black shows I really like because the characters, like, the dad's a cop, the mom, so that was a spin-off of perfect strangers. The mom was like the worked in the was like the front deskman at one of the hotels, and they did a lot of people don't know that Family Matters was a fucking spinoff of perfect strangers. Um, but they were just like being a family and going through what a family goes through, right? Now, I just don't like things that are over top. Like Urkel was, and I know so Urkel was not supposed to be a part of the show. Urkel was supposed to be like a neighbor who showed up every so often, but it had such like he he pulled such an audience that they're like, well, like we like money, so we're gonna keep doing this.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

But I hated that character because I don't like Well, let me let me I don't know that I I'm not educated on this, but what's the correlation between black shows and black writers and or black directors? So, like, what percentage of black shows have both a black writer and a black director?

SPEAKER_02 3:22

And does that make it seem so there, there and I think lies my problem is You don't know you don't know whether writer's black or white. No, it's not even that. So, okay, that um thank you for bringing that up. So, okay, if you look at so all these sitcoms from the 90s, family matters, blah blah blah blah blah, right? Um that was what made money. It was episodic, you didn't, you know, there was no overarching theme. It was just like every episode, some hijinks happen and they had to like figure it out, and then the family all made up and it was a loving moment. Fine, right? But like I could feel like as I watched that, the writers were either didn't understand what it was like to actually be black, and so they were like leaning to one side to being like, Oh, how do we pull black people? Well, let's let's make some situation happen where the black person gets to stand up and be like, How dare you treat me black? Like, and I just I hate that. I just hate very much.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Okay, so I don't know, but Sanford and Sons seemed to me authentic. Like Sanford and Son seemed to me like they had a black writer, it seemed very casual.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

That was a good show. That was a well done show because it was like a father and son, like just like living, I think it was the 70s, like being like black in the 70s, right? Not like, but they weren't like trying to overcome every black hurdle, every episode that's ever existed, in a like in a point in a in a in an attempt to make like a poignant like but what but what shows are that that you're referring to? Most of the black shows from the 90s. I feel like Martin was garbage.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Martin was hot garbage because it was like But I never I never from watching it there was never anything emphasized that there was some sort of like struggle that they had. I felt like they behave okay, my problem They're just like cool, they were just fun people like being themselves. I felt like they were made to behave uneducated. Hmm. I don't know. They didn't seem uneducated to me.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

And then from someone who's lived the experience, they felt like what the stereotypical black characters who were supposed to behave uneducated would look like.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

So you're saying it don't correct me if I'm wrong, but there's like racism that existed in a lot of the 90s sitcoms because black people were portrayed in an incorrect manner by a woman.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

I don't even know that I look at it as racism, I just look at it as like poorly done. Because I don't look at it as like this guy was like trying to make black people look less than I think I don't even think it was intentionally done.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

I just think you guys talk amongst yourselves.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

I'm gonna fact check and see how many black writers in the 90s because I want to know because regardless of what color the writers are, like, because black people can have certain leanings as well toward our own people, and it's happens all the time, actually. I just felt like Martin Martin Martin has like dress up as his own female cousin and shit like that. That's hilarious! That is they did that same stuff, they did that stuff in like that is shitty writing, but I'm a snob when it comes to writing, so perhaps this album.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

I don't know. I I thought it was like I thought Martin was so funny. I grew up watching Martin. I thought like when he had like damn Gina and like all the different situations. It was like a comedy, it was supposed to be funny. Like, since when is a comedy?

SPEAKER_02 6:47

The show with the catchphrase is like the lowest form of entertainment. I'm I told you, I'm a snob about this shit.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Apparently.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

I just I don't like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

I mean, so like what would be a good show that you actually consider quote unquote respectable?

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Because apparently You know it was a really good show that was that was that was black cast, that was incredible. Lovecraft country. I've never seen that. I haven't even heard of that either. It took place, I think it came out like four or five years ago, but it took place in the 50s uh during segregation.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Like in Living Color was good, it was the Waynes brothers.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Living Color was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

It's the best show in the 90s period.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

In Living Color was a good show, but I would actually argue that In Living Color was a good show because of Jim Carrey. And not everyone likes that take, but Jim Carrey is like a one-sided job.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Like the white guy? He was so the are the black people aren't good enough? Or while you're like being very degrading right now.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Well, I don't like the Wayne's style of humor because I feel like it's low IQ humor.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

So wait, rip I'm gonna fact I'm gonna go uh revisit this. Um sitcoms and comedy.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Living single white checks was like a hilarious movie.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

The show Living Single was created by Yvette Lee Bowser, one of the first black women to create successful primetime sitcom. That was with Clean Queen Latifah, if you guys can remember. That was a good show.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Living Single was a great show.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

But then Martin, it said um black writers and producers.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Fresh Prince of Bel Air. It says contributions from black writers and producers, whatever the hell that means.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Though I think Will Smith influenced that show, and he is not a very good creator of art. This is the man who passed up the matrix to make the Wawa West. Um should be written on his tombstone. But no, I just like I don't like low IQ humor. So things like white chicks or stuff, I don't enjoy that's not funny to me.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Sometimes, but sometimes the best humor can come out of simplicity. Like, not every joke has to be so complex or so intellectual that it's gonna limit everybody or anybody to truly understand what it is.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Comedy's a fine line. For example, I liked white chicks, I did like the movie. So good. However, I wanted my I'm gonna say the however. Yeah, I am not that is not that is not me as a white woman. That does not accurately depict me the way those women were portrayed.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

But who cares? At the end of the day, it was just comedy. It's it wasn't it wasn't meant to be like a documentary, you know?

SPEAKER_00 9:26

It was a cash cow, but okay, since we're talking about that's called prostitution, FYI. Well, that was clearly black writing. Uh-huh. Okay. That was not black writing. So it's prostitution. Of a white woman. So that could be seen as offensive to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

It could be. I don't look at it as from a point of offense or not. None of this stuff offended me. I just thought it was shittily done. My I took offense, not that the fact that it was anything to do with race. I was just like, you're producing garbage when you when there's so much, there's so much good art. So, like, if you the best movie of last year's sinners, which won all the Academy Awards, as it really should have, like, that is one of the best black films I've ever seen made. The first Black Panther was really like that's if you want good black stuff, there exists so much good of it that doesn't require a laugh track, that doesn't require someone behaving educated uneducated or making slapstick just isn't my thing. So anything that's slapstick humor, I'm like, get me out of here. Okay. Some people love that. It's just not for me.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

It was like 80s was had such great like um slapstick stuff, and um like I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

But it can be done well, it doesn't have to be done bad because like Bill Murray was of the 80s and he was a genius, he was a comedy genius.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

So, what do you feel about modern day like Spike Lee and like Tyler Perry films?

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Okay, Tyler Perry has his I dress up as an old black woman de films, which are like the that's a cash guy. That is just like that is just ruining funny. It is funny, it's sure it's funny, and then there's his stuff like um uh why did I get married? Yeah, that was good, which is a real which is like really introspective, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:00

I but that's not why I know that's that's I don't know. I know him as a comedian. Like I don't want to watch something like that's serious by the way. Depends what you mean. I don't it's like stay in your lane, you know what I mean? Basically.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

See, I don't I don't know that there is well, I would argue that the more serious stuff is more his lane than the comedic stuff. I feel like the comedic stuff is the stuff that funds the more serious stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

What about the show? What is it, the beauty that was just on Netflix? It was so good.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

I've not watched it, but it's on the list.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

It was it it was like 100 about a very, very wealthy black family who owned a beauty empire, mostly with like hair care products and their relationships with each other as family owning a company, which got really testy, and then other relationships that spun off. But it was really well written, really well done. I was hooked. I watched it was like nine episodes. We couldn't get enough of it. It was so good.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Look, the power was good.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

And it was Tyler Perry, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

He makes good stuff, he just also makes stuff that caters to the lowest dregs of society to generate income. And it's not even just a black thing, like if they make another Fast and Furious movie, I may go back to Arseny because I just don't like when and something for everyone, but I just hate when the creative landscape gets clogged with garbage because I'm British and our humor and our stuff tends to be like it forces you to think, but our culture is more of a thinking culture. And but here it's like let's just feed people trash.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Well, it was um what was it? Was it British uh comedy? It was um there was like many of them, and they're like old school, old school, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:51

But it's all like thoughtful, awkward situations, something you had to think for a second, you're like, oh, that's brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Yeah, but that's kind of like slapstick, also.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Yeah, but so maybe you have a problem with Americans. Americans aren't funny, but that's like it's just badly done. Like Adam Sandler, badly done.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

What are some of the Briton ones?

SPEAKER_02 13:12

The ones the um Monty Python was like somewhat slapsticking.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Like, I don't really love Monty Python, that was a show that everyone laughed about like in the 90s and 2000s. It was a British, like it started with an F.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Faulty Towers? Are you done with that?

SPEAKER_00 13:26

No, it was like a slapstick. No, not Benny Hill. It was um F.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Sorry, but it was like Ricky Gervais is probably my favorite comedian.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

He's hilarious, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Because it's just like thought for and awkward, thoughtful and awkward situations. That's more of my style. So that's the issue. Yeah. I just there's certain things I don't like, and it seemed like in the 90s, every black show was like, we're going to just fall into this hole. We're all gonna do this because this is gonna get us viewership and it's a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

So did white shows. Look at legally blonde.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Yes, but they're that thin movie. So Ruth Westbone's actually a very good genius, and I actually like Legally Blonde because it's like it's interesting, like, but it was smart because it catered to the masses.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

It was smart. It was I didn't think it was bad humor.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

I didn't, but I didn't it was, but I didn't think it was I didn't think it was low IQ humor.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

I remember watching uh uh Are You Being Served? Okay, you ever hear of that one? It was about a department store sitcom filled with like visual gags and UNDOS and slapstick antics. It was like and I started watching that when I was like really young. I remember that from like 1972 to 1985.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Um that old era stuff I have a trouble with simply because like the things they refer to from that era don't mean anything to me because I wasn't there.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Mr. Bean. Yeah, Mr.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Bean wasn't my thing, though I love him, so like he was in love actually, which is one of my favorite movies. He was not comedic in that movie. He had like three or four lines, but they were just like so poignant, it was so good.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah, but then again, but it was simple, but it's like simple like comedy. Yeah, it's just it's just from a different country, you know.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

So I just don't I don't care for here, but here's but here's the Oh Abfab, absolutely fabulous. Absolutely fabulous.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

That's the one I'm talking about. She was so indefinite.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Like when uh when she like passed out, like smoking a cigarette and the house caught on fire, and like the whole back of her was like burnt, and she woke up and her whole face was like clear because it was like covered from the uh that's funny. That's Betsy was I need to see that. I haven't seen that.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Yeah, Abfab was like it was absolutely fabulous. It's British, yeah, so funny.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Well, we've never done it. There's like it's about like a uh a famous designer, and she's like a total mess, like just does drugs and drinks, and is like a complete mess, and like it's just funny. And her daughter is like the only one who's like sane, and they live with like the mom, the grandmother, also, but like the main designer is just like crazy.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

I'll check it out.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

I'll watch anything. It's funny because it's always good. The movies weren't that good. I think they try to do like a movie, but I don't think it was that good. But all these things are also situational. I mean, like if you grew up with certain things, you just you know, there's like a nostalgia to it, and there's also like I got that, and it it's also like the sense of it being like new, right? And I so the question is did you see these comedies that you weren't that you're not inclined to liking, like when they first came out or now?

SPEAKER_02 16:25

No, I saw them when they first came out, and I think it's different because as a even as a child, okay, so I'll credit a lot of this to my mom. Like watching the Oscars movies every year was like mandatory in our household, right? So very early, and I was a stage actor as a kid, my mom had me like do that stuff. So very early, you start seeing it from a different perspective versus like for example, if I go to a symphony with someone who like plays in an orchestra, I'm just hearing like the music, right? But they're catching like the individual instruments and all these, oh, they went so deep on that that that solo just now, right? That I don't necessarily catch. And so, but when I watch stuff like that, because I am a writer and I've been on all these different sides of it, I'm looking for a depth that perhaps that I think the average person isn't looking for. And he's in even as a child, I was doing that. So when they would like just stop on something really shallow, my brain's more like, what a shame. That was like a missed opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Interesting, interesting, and and this is very appropriate into what happened last night. Now, I don't know when this is going to air, but I don't know if you guys watched the roast of Kevin Hart.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

I've seen snippets.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

So I watched most of it and then I went to bed. Yeah, but everything that you could possibly be, quote, canceled for saying, Yeah, they they said white, black, indifferent. It was hilarious. It was like, all right, maybe five years ago, someone would have been canceled from that, but they purposely made it a point to be like, and haha, I'm racist. They told me to be racist tonight, and like they it was so funny.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Uh I remember like back in the day, like in high school, like where it was like okay for everybody just to crack on each other. And it was like practically normal, like, no one was racist, no one like like and you could tell no one was intentionally racist. It was like people were cracking, black people are cracking on each other, white people are cracking on each other the other way around, and it was like a complete like normal thing to do. Um, Dave Chappelle, the Dave Chappelle loved brilliant that show. I mean, like the one that like stands out in my head was when like his Netflix special was garbage, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

He got way too political. Towards the end, he got too political. A little bit, a little bit. It turned me off completely. I was like, thank you very much. I'm done.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Yeah. Cut off. Do you I remember the one episode from Dave Chappelle where like there was like the blind KKK member who was black?

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Oh my god. Like, what?

SPEAKER_01 18:52

It was like so hilarious. That's brilliant, you know, for sure. And it was just a creativity, but it was like that sense of like comedy where it was like you were able to make fun of each other and you just immersed yourself in the laughter and like it built friendship and like and it was just like things are different, things are different now. Well, I actually people are too sensitive.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

I don't love cancel culture, but I understood cancel culture because to me, cancel culture was more like a a spin-off, uh speaking of spin-offs, off of more of the Me Too movement, where it's like you can't treat one half of the population as less than for like a millennium and then get mad when they're upset about it. Like you can't you can't attempt to like coerce to legally I don't know about legally, but attempt to legally like sexually assault and mistreat women and then get mad when they end up having a problem with it and it swings all the way to the other side. People like they over, like they overshot. Well, you had it swinging all the way over here, like you're mad that like if you let go of a pendulum over here, it's gonna go over there. Like you like I understand where it came from. And I felt like cancel culture was a spin-off of that. That other groups were like, well, shit, like if they're airing their grievances, like what about us? So I I like I don't agree with it in the sense that I don't believe that people should be able to go through life never feeling offended, like because then nobody can live, right? Right, and I'm big on intention. In fact, we had like last night, I was watching three of my friends play a game because only three people could play it. So I like watched, and one of them was my boy and his wife. Now he's Cuban, she's Thai. Now he has a tendency to be very bossy, okay? And when we're gaming, not because he's like mean spirited, he's just looked for the most efficient thing, and if you're not doing the most efficient thing, he'll be like, Why don't you do that? And she got very upset, and she's like, You're always so bossy, like anytime we do a thing, you're bossy. And I was like, and I said I was like, You gotta understand like the intention behind things, like if so and so does something you don't like and they say, All right, I did that, my bad, right? Then you can take grievance with what they did. But if someone you think someone did something and you tell them that it pissed you off because they did it, and they're like, I don't understand, like I don't feel like you can really hold a grievance with that. Cause like if somebody you care about is straight up like something happened and I don't understand why you feel that way, like they it was non-intentional, and I don't believe in ever holding anyone accountable for anything past intention.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

So something's like systemic racism, like inherently, people don't understand that conversations in households in black America are very different than conversations in white America that black and white people have with their children. And I've gotten in so many arguments about white privilege and how white privilege does exist in America. And I've had it with so many people who think I'm nuts. And I'm like, You're you're nuts. Like the fact that you can't identify it is nuts. Like my dear friend, and we're still friends to this day, she married one of my best friends. We would carpool together. She went to Fam U and I went to FSU. So we would carpool all the time back and forth. And she was black?

SPEAKER_02 22:05

And she's black.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

And from Del Rey, born and raised. Like and we would have conversations where if we were on I-10 and it was dark out, like she'd be like, Janine, keep me locked in your car if you go to a gas station. Right. Like she's like, I'm afraid to be a black woman. And this was back in 2000. She's like, I had conversations in my house that were very different than conversations in your house. Like when you get pulled over by a policeman, you keep your hands on the wheel and you say, Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am. You don't argue like white people tend to do. We have different conversations at our dinner table than you do. And so many conversations like that happen all the time in America that white people have never had to have that conversation. So they just think that that doesn't exist because they've never that's never happened to them. So I remember arguing back and forth, like after Me Too and Black Lives Matter and all that came out, thinking, you ignorant fucks. How could you think that there is no white privilege in America as a white man? Like, how could you even like entertain that conversations in your house didn't happen, you know, happen the same way in other households?

SPEAKER_02 23:23

I don't know. It's also it's also regional too. Like I agree. So black households conversations tend to be more survive versus white households tend to be more strive.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Um it's just like a part of it's economical, but a part of it's like, and it's it's weird because it like it may feel long to some people, but like if you were black now, your parents watched their parents get beaten. That's right. And those people watch their parents like die, and those people watch their parents be property, so it's like a little progress, but it, you know, even in the fact that like so one of the reasons I got into finance, which I don't want to get into the topic, but what I just want to mention is the fact that the pull me to it is the fact that like minorities own so few assets, they tend to be the renters and the billpayers in America, and like that's all they know. But I and it's the same with like I have a huge contingent of clients who are all Mexican roofers. Like, for them, it's just like get from today to tomorrow, get from today to tomorrow. Survival mode, yeah. But then 20 years, if you're still getting from today to tomorrow, like you literally, like, what did you gain over 20 years? And I just it kind of comes full circle because I feel like that has bled its way into a lot of the media, which is what bothers me, is because it doesn't bring itself into our media in like a thoughtful way, it brings it into it in like a like I said, a low IQ way, but like at the same time, I understand it's I like I I get it. Because I remember when um do you remember when that soldier boy song came out? Yeah, oh yeah, perfect. That is trash music, but it's funny when they interviewed him, he's like, I'm gonna buy my mom a house.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

What would you think? Like I'll make fucking 10 of these.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

And like I get it. Because if you've not had, if you could like do something, even if it's like low IQ to have, you go do it. I just being the recipient of that like art, I'm just like, man, that's like beneath us. But I so I understand it, I just don't love it.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

I I understand 100%. It's like reality TV. Some people are personified completely different on reality TV than they actually are in real life because it's a character. Yeah, that character gets views and ratings, and ultimately they that person gets followers on Instagram and book deals, and their lives are changed for being a character that people want to see more of.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Whatever it takes to win, baby. That's right. That's what I gotta do. Hey. And so, yeah, I just I don't, I don't know. I just feel like our community is better than that. Every community may be better than that, but I always, but because I live it, like that's my community, I resonate with it. Like, I always feel like our community is better than that, especially because coming from the Caribbean, um, Caribbean people who come to America and like South Americans who come to America, you're Colombian, you know. There's no more hard-working humans who exist. Like, you could you could literally light them on fire, they'll be like, I'm gonna go fuck, I'm still gonna go win, right? There's like nothing you can do to stop these people. And so I just feel like when these people, when people come here and they're looking for something to resonate with that feels like familiar to them, and you feed them low IQ shit, like that just like really pisses me off, whether it's like media or even the food that tends to be fed to like people in these communities. And it's just like it annoys me because it's like they went through all this to get here and they're just being like fed like the leftovers of everything that exists.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

It's this is I don't mean to go on a rant about this, but like No, I'm I'm totally contributing to your rant because it drives me absolutely insane. Just like I don't get offended when people say to me, like, oh, you're Italian, you know, your family, what are they? Like, they're in the mob, right? Or they're uh, you know, in the they own a construction company, ha ha ha, or they drive a cement truck and they bury bodies, or you know, this and that, or you know what? Stereotypes are true for reasons. Like my uncle did have a glass eye in New Jersey. He got shot in the eye with a from a in a taxi by a mob by a guy because like illegal bookie shit. Hey, you know what? Some stereotypes are true and they're actually funny. So like I don't get offended when people say that. I'm like, yeah, probably. Like, you know what? And I could tell you some things that you know happen at the dinner table in Italian households and growing up in an Italian family, like all that stuff is is funny to me. Like, I don't take offense to it. I think it's hilarious because most of it's true.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

It's interesting because when I came to America and I went to school in Boca, St. Andrews, which is like the whitest of like white.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Um now there is a big international contingent, but it's like the kids of like oligarchs.

unknown 28:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

And here I was, little like poor kid who's I don't my father like made some deal with some devil and gave up some years of his life to make this happen. But um the friends I made, interestingly, so there was like this is this is how weird this is. So most of the kids really were wealthy in the the school's like, I don't know, 70% Jewish. It's because it's poka. It's not it's not the school necessary, it's just the area we live in in Boca. Um who were who were really wealthy and they made me feel like I was definitely not one of them. But the wealthiest family at the school, okay, whose daughter I became best friends with. So like you had these people who were like wealthy, whatever, like really wealthy, who like wanted you to know you were less than, but then there was like then it was all the way up here, and they were like, they took me in there, they never made me feel anything other than loved and welcome. And even now, like Christmas, thanks, any holiday that exists. I'm I'm there at their house. Like, I love her parents, I tell them I love them. Like, it's like I've been there for her name's Kristen. I've been there for everything that's ever happened. We've been there for everything that's ever happened to every you know what I'm saying? So like it's now within our group, and there was a whole group of friends around us who were super cool. They have said things sometimes that like I don't know might have been said if I wasn't a different skin color, but I never ever felt like it was with the intention of negative. I felt it was like just like a don't know, don't know. And so, like you, when you were saying like I didn't get bothered by it because it was like it was more like a don't know, not like a attempt to make you feel less than.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yeah, I mean uh I just felt like it was just people having fun with each other. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

I'm even taking further. I'm saying that even if it wasn't done to do something to have fun with each other, even if it was done by someone said something that was somewhat ignorant, to me, even as from a point of I like didn't know, not like attempting, I still don't get bothered by that. So like I go even further with like my not being offended by things, because like eh, like if I grew up in a white household in South Florida, doesn't you know isn't the most cultured place, and you know, I would probably like make leaps of thought about things that I didn't know about. Like, that's okay. Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

I think also, too, on a on an ending note too with this episode, it's so interesting, like stereotypes all over the world exist, but certain stereotypes in America really piss me off. Going back to like the black sitcoms. Okay, this is what really ticks me off.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

So, like, they're making an assumption that like black people like grew up in the ghetto in the hood and blah, blah, blah, and that white people are raised in these like elite societies and have never known what it was like to be poor. And like, I grew up in Lake Worth on welfare and you know, food stamps and uh like free and reduced lunch at my school, and I'm as white as it can be. But like you didn't the funny part is is like knowing me now and seeing the car that I drive and like seeing what I've built, people would assume that I've always had something as opposed to no, I came from nothing. I've actively worked for everything in my life. But it's like people just assume that like because people are black, they were not raised in you know, a normal, you know, gated community in the suburbs. Like that is that couldn't be further from the truth, and it drives me insane.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Look at the look at and just is like I I didn't think to mention this before, but it is the thing I just don't know why it didn't occur to me. Look at the set. Watch any of these black shows that occur before. Look at watch Martin, look at the set, look at his apartment, look at what they wear. It's like run down compared to if they go to like you know, they have an episode where they go to white persons, whatever, whatever. It everything that's there is just looks so much more run down and shitty. Where? On set. Like if you if on set, the set they set up for where these where these people live, right? If they're black, always looks like crap. Unless you're at Fresh Prince of Bel Air and they're in, you know, that was the one time and I was like, we got money, look at this.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Yeah, Oracle's house wasn't that bad.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

They showed his house like twice. Are you talking about like the family matters?

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Like a they were like uh middle class kind of family, you could just tell that they were.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

But like I said, that was a good show. Um I'm saying if you looked in Massey.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

I guess, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

But Fresh Prince was from West Philadelphia, right? Born and raised.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Yeah, but it was like a a rich judge, you know what I mean? Who like was a pillar in his community, like that was like fish out of water.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

Will Will came from West Philadelphia Hood. So the character was assumed to be from like the hood shitberg.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

And maybe it was just a way to show that there was another part of life. You could you were you're still black, but you're successful, rich, or whatever, however you want to.

SPEAKER_02 33:17

It was a fish out of it was more of a fish out of water shit.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

I don't know, but why there's always like this concentration on on degrading certain aspects of people's lives, regardless of what of what they're of what their race is, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

However, it would have been more normal if Will didn't come from West Philadelphia in the hood. What if Will came from, you know, Philadelphia in a normal middle class family and then moved? Like, why does it have to be from rags to riches?

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Like, what was a common, like, if you like the the black adopted kids and whatever that show was called? Like it was like the rags to riches, blacks being taken in by like someone else, whether it was like wealthier black family who were like educated compared to like correct him with like his slang and all that, because he's like he's an uneducated black kid. Like, I just feel like the writing's because I don't know. Watch Lovecraft Country, watch sinners, see what watching it Lovecraft blow your mind. See what like good writing looks like from that perspective, and it's at least for me, it's hard to it's like if they can do it, you can do it.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Like I love this episode. What do you guys think?

SPEAKER_02 34:30

I I love it because I'm an art, I'm just I like I'm an art fanatic, so discussing art in any form and like my perspective and getting other people's perspective on art is like one of my favorite things.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Likewise.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

I like the whole socio-cultural aspect of it for sure, and because like you don't I just see a generation of people walking around who like were raised on these things and were literally like raised by these things. Because one of the problems is if you come up in the black household, statistically, like you may be in a single mother household, and single mothers are like the hardest working people in the world, they don't take days off, right? So they're at work all the fucking time, right? So you're raised by the media you watch, like that's where your role models come, that's where everything comes from. So if it's low IQ shit, like you're gonna be predisposed to approach things without critical thinking and from a low IQ perspective, assumed low IQ perspective, whether or not you're low IQ or not, your behaviors and responses are gonna mimic that. And I think it's a problem because like we then suffer the effects of this. Is it for me being a part of this community? I don't want to see that. I like seeing like the young girl in Africa who designed, like, took two sticks and a fucking piece of sheet metal and designed like a windmill that works. Like that's that's what black brain can look like. Like, I don't want to see the low IQ shit. Okay, because it feels forced.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

I agree, Panda. I concur.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Yeah. That is my rant for the today. My snobbish rant.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Ranty rant.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

I love it.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

There'll probably be another one.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Look in the show notes for more.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

All right, guys. Wait, see you on the next one. See ya out.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

And just like that, we're done. But don't worry, we'll be back. If you laughed, learned something, or just enjoyed the chaos. Go ahead and follow, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whatever you're doing in. And don't do this episode, don't like button. Until next time,