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Ho ho! Now Espen Eckbo is also archived and categorized as racist. We already have Tore Sagen, not to mention Shabana Rehman and Zaid Ali and the students from Stovner Senior High School.
TVNorge’s “Nissene over skog og hei” Christmas calendar, created by comedians Espen Eckbo and Kristian Ødegård almost ten years ago, is pulled from the screen after accusations of racism and “black face.”
The background is the character “Ernst Øyvind”, a dark-skinned Southerner who is played by Espen Eckbo himself. Eckbo has also previously been criticized for the figure. Then he said that he had created around 100 stereotypical Norwegian figures and wondered how he could include all types of Norwegians.
What if we took Espen Eckbo seriously? What if we took it in the best sense, in the desire to include all in Norwegian humor?
I will return to that. First, the rather gruesome undertone of the very term “black face”:
The tradition is not festive at all. It originated in the 17th century and was especially popular in the 19th century in the United States and Great Britain, with so-called minstrel shows, roving troops who, among other things, painted their faces and made fun of stupid slaves.
Blackface was also used in several movies, including the Ku Klux Klan. This is important to keep in mind before we idiotically explain reactions too easily.
Blackface has not been an innocent diversion at all, but it refers directly to the days of slavery. Therefore, it is not surprising that some people react intuitively with discomfort when the phenomenon occurs.
Therefore, it is no wonder someone is tricked into reacting when someone claim (is which seems, perhaps completely unfounded, and without much checking on itself.
The clearest example of the latter is Stovner magazine, where dark students were accused of being racists because they made fun of white policemen who smeared their faces with shoe polish to somehow slip into the environment.
So, of course, screenwriters Shabana Rehman and Zaid Ali were also branded racists by activists. I have no idea who the sender was. Or who they made fun of. No sense of context.
Nor was it when Tore Sagen on Radio Reception got the racist stamp, even though his clear intention was to make fun of racists.
Neither does the Instagram account @ racisme.i.norge has a sense of context or context, with his now successful campaign against Eckbo’s Santa Claus. Because as it is called from here: blackface is blackface is blackface.
So to Espen Eckbo’s stated points, at least his stated intention, if we don’t take it in the worst sense. Because it is actually possible to turn it around:
It is possible to say that you are not really included in the community and that they do not take you to the heat, before they can joke with you on an equal footing with others.
What Eckbo has done is create a character that we all know, in different variants:
A slow southerner, behind the counter of a video store, not much to do with the movies, lazy and giddy, humorless, dark skinned. We could so we are offended on behalf of lazy southerners, ignorant store clerks, humorless people, or generally lazy.
Instead, critics go straight to skin color. Some will be tempted to say that it is from who are the real racists. It is to assimilate too much. But at least it is possible to say that they are more than concerned about skin color.
And that they are in danger of making skin color a much more important parameter in Norwegian society than it really is.
Because we are quite far from American conditions in this country. And even further from the United States of the slave era. We have long had shadow ministers and there is also no shortage of people in leadership positions or advanced in other fields.
And the consequence of the purity requirement is quite broad: only darkness can fool darkness. Only gays can joke around gays. And only Northerners can caricature Northerners.
Also read: Jonna Støme: – We could have lived well with blackface and black king if people weren’t so fucking racist
But we can go further:
Because dark comedians shouldn’t make senseless dark characters either. In that case, they must naked it has positive qualities, not negative ones. Of course, they must not be lazy, greedy or criminal. Because then they get together with a minority, and God forbid, then they get together his own. There are also strongly negative characteristics for such.
Thus we return to the precious freedom of expression, now to the space of expression of comedians and satirists, who are now more afraid of offending or offending anyone. And it is serious. Because if we can’t joke with each other, we also have bigger problems talking to each other.
But I’d also like to point out that overreactions to comedy shows can also discredit actual anti-racism work. Because they minimize and divert attention from it real racism. The one that exists in work life, in the housing market and in nightlife.
Read more Erik Stephansen comments here.
The one who still takes the cake with “double talk” or a new language today is Communications Director Hanne McBride at Discovery / Dplay / TVNorge.
Because at the same time that he takes the Santas off the screen, obviously out of commercial fear of losing viewers, he manages to say the following to Dagbladet today:
“It is important that humor has no limits and that humor as a tool is incredibly strong also in public debate. We want the space of expression of comedians to be taken care of and intentions to be taken into account. It is also important that groups individual are not a provider of premises for the subjects in which comedians should be able to have fun. “
Oh good. Neivel. Special.
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