In the tribute below, Crystal shows a progression of clips from Williams’ brilliant career starting with his early appearance on the Tonight Show and going to some standup routines. The clips highlighted Williams’ ability to improvise, including one scene where he borrows a pink scarf from an audience member in the front row and wraps its round his head like a Hijab, or Islamic headscarf. He then says “I would like to welcome you to Iran . . . Help me!”
The response was outrage on social media sites which called both Williams and Crystal racists and the tribute “offensive” speech. One critic objected that “After that, people who’d never heard of Robin Williams would think he’s Billy Crystal’s racist friend who was on a lot of talk shows?” Others called for apologies and sanctions. While Williams did a brief accent of a women from Bombay, it was the use of the scarf as a veil that led to the posting of most of the objections.
However, the critics ignore the alternative meaning of the joke. I took the joke as less as statement on Islam generally as a statement on the treatment of women in Iran — a subject of continued discussion on this blog. Clearly many women choose to wear burkas and veils and they should have every right to do so. However, we have also discussed how women have been abused in Iran and other Muslim countries when they have tried to resist discriminatory rules and compelled clothing requirements. Comedians use such controversies as the grist for their comedic mills. The best comedians have an edge and a point of view. While to some the veil is a religious symbol, it is also to others a symbol of the plight of many women who want greater freedom from Sharia law and cultural/religious restrictions. There are many women in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other countries who have fought bravely for equal rights. The veil is often a symbol of that political struggle, including the continued abuses by morality police against women in countries like Saudi Arabia. This includes the recent sentence of flogging for a women who insulted the morality police and the earlier tragedy of girls forced back into a building school because they were not wearing veils and appropriate coverings.
The greatest concern is that in some Western countries like France, England, and Canada, we are now seeing people criminally charged after complaints have been filed over speech deemed to be offensive by particularly groups or individuals. It is part of a growing threat to free speech that I have written about. For recent columns, click here and here and here and here. When (as we have seen) this crackdown starts to include even standup routines, we have reached an unnerving point in our treatment of free speech and expression. In addition to the prosecutions of such cases, there is the creation of a chilling effect on many who do not want to be accused and potentially charged. The result is a type of self-censorship.
To be honest, I do find some comedians to be incredibly offensive and not funny: I would put Andrew Dice Clay and Kathy Griffin among them. I have even objected to the airing of inappropriate sexual displays during Superbowl shows or New Year shows due to the audience. Indeed, as many have noted, I tend to be a bit old-fashioned (some would say prudish) about crude jokes and a thuggish conduct. However, these objections go further than folks saying that they disliked the joke and raise the question of whether some jokes should be labeled and sanctioned as hate speech or racist. Kathy Griffin simulating oral sex on Anderson Coopers is hardly a disagreement of interpretation. It is appropriate (though in my view still decidedly not funny) in some contests (like a comedy club) and not others (like a television audience with kids celebrating the New Year). The Williams clip controversy turns more on the content of the joke and its meaning.
The clip below can be seen by different people in different ways. However we appear to be losing our tolerance for different or opposing views — even in a comedic routine. The result is pressure to strip away controversial or edgy elements — leaving a type of vanilla flavored level of discourse in our society. The free speech community needs to do a better job in advancing the notion of tolerance for speech in a pluralistic society. It may require giving the benefit of the doubt to people like Williams or Crystal and just not laughing at a joke.
What do you think?
When Robin Williams shouted “Good morning, Vietnam !”, his words and his expression resonated with millions of people who were part of that period and part of that war. It was both political commentary and a coping mechanism, a way to laugh through the pain. And, in my view, that was one of his great comedic gifts.
There was nothing remotely racist, defamatory, derogatory or mean-spirited in his Iran joke. The adverse reaction to it is based upon disagreement with the truth as Williams perceived it.
But the reaction also illustrates one of the problems with the Twitter structure. Although I have a Twitter account, I have to admit that I don’t tweet. First, I have a hard enough time trying to put together a coherent thought in 500 words, let alone 140 characters. Second, I have observed that far too many people use Twitter as a receptacle for their unfiltered initial reactions. And just as an unexamined life is not worth living, an unexamined thought is not worth expressing.
I asked earlier on this thread, but perhaps I wasn’t clear. Some one here can answer it I’d hope, given the diversity of opinions I’ve seen.
Question 1: By what logic does a skit about Persian women in a Hijab & Niqab become “racist?”
Question 2: What “race” are Persian women? Somoly women? Arab women?
Question 3: Does the wearing of a Hijab& Niqab identify a “race?” How?
When we overuse a term, and make near a universal toss off, it rapidly loses all meaning.
Nick…yes, the dynamic as I am seeing it change slowly now is a segregating one, but it is brought from the outside to here. New influences that run counter to the past 100 years in this community. This community still has a solid old core of Italian, Polish, and Maltese within it as well.
It is not endemic here, as in Europe where various foreigners were officially imported to work but never to assimilate or become citizens. Exception for the UK who made all too many foreigners citizens de facto. They were encouraged to settle in segregated zones, here the opposite has been the practice, where anyone in my community is free to move out, and about 20% do every year, replaced by new immigrants, while those that remain do so because of the familiarity of the neighborhoods….much like the couple of solidly Polish neighborhoods here.
C o n t e x t permits comedy to transcend all levels of arbitrary PC nonsense.
http://youtu.be/8r-e2NDSTuE
How annoying. Robin Williams racist? Really? Have they missed the point? Have they forgotten how women are treated in Iran? I thought it was a great (and yet sad) joke.
I agree with JTs take on the joke as it being a commentary on the status of women in Iran and in Islam in general. Islam is not a “race” in any case. There are muslims in all parts of the world and of all races (if you want to use the classical definition of race)
The over sensitivity that some people have, ala the Bacon lady in NH, is ridiculous. What is even more ludicrous is to give into that emotional blackmail. Bending over backwards to be politically correct. Giving in to the tantrums. As I said. When you capitulate to a 3 yr old’s tantrums, you are only guaranteed to get more of them.
Greg, Amusing. I give it a 5. Did you ever see Albert Brooks movie, Looking For Comedy in the Muslim World? I like Brooks but it was just OK.
You know youre probably right about that Nick. And being more liberal then I? That’s pretty hard leaning. ((*_*))
leejcaroll – Robin Williams was very liberal.
leej, Knowing the lynch mob mentality, I know many of these self righteous Twitter idiots didn’t even see the brief skit. Just join the mob. This is Robin Williams for chrissake, he might be more liberal than even you!
Calling all male bloggers and JT. Grow a beard and go incognito for 1 month and record the jokes. Then post your findings right here.
Aridog, The dynamic in your unique community sounds much like what has been going on in Europe for the past 2-3 decades.
When I heard about it I heard him using his comedy as political device.
The problem in part is social media like twitter where people don’t bother to take 2 seconds to think before they post, or think about what it is they feel bothered by and with the second thought they realize their initial reaction was incorrect. Then I think it just becomes contagious.
“growing conceal” = growing concern….I can fat finger almost anything.
Nick…we have both Muslim Arabs and Christian Arabs here, somewhat separated by living in different suburbs. Yes, they don’t seem fond of each other, and both elements have been here for over 100 years, many assimilated, some not so much. Lately I have a growing conceal about “fundamentalist” elements moving in to the Muslim area around me. The behavior changes I am observing make it obvious. Those Muslim who are not radical fear the radicals, and the fear reaches back to homelands where most still have family relatives. I fear I am watching how the dynamic of subtle terrorism works when the few can command the many. Deja Vu, since I saw it in RVN many years ago as well, as well as the on going evolution in Detroit over my life time.
All this talk of tolerance this and tolerance that by the secular politicians may be the end of us….tolerance is defined as remaining passive toward behavior you dislike, until you find a big enough rock to kill the perpetrators….all the while the perpetrators of intolerance, a terrorist minority, are also looking for that big rock, and usually find it first. The very idea that “terrorism” is only when bombs are set off, people are shot, etc. is semantic folly. It begins and is driven by instilling fear before any of the overt actions take place.
A former head of the BBC once said “Some people deserve to be insulted.” I have to agree here. Williams could have done the same thing and replaced the word Iran with Russia and it would have been the same joke.
Aridog, We have a unique dichotomy. You live among Muslims and have a real world understanding of their culture. In San Diego, while I don’t live among Iraqi Christians, I have gotten to know many who own local stores. They HATE your neighbors!
I do not understand the thought process of those who call the Hijab & Niqab skit “racist.” That is about as ignorant as one can get when referring to people, since it is now a Muslim article of faith (drawn from previous tribal customs that pre-date Islam by centuries) for the strictly adherent elements in Muslim societies, regardless of race.
It has NOTHING to do with race, as anyone who has lived in a 90%+ Muslim community as I have for the past 30+ years would tell you. The customary head dress is worn, all or in part, by almost every race on the planet where Islam is a religion…and in some of those places they are not worn at all. The skit was about treatment of women in many of these locales, and race per se is wholly unconnected. As I say, live among Muslims and learn something before spouting off inanities. Using the classical (non-biological/zoological) race identities, would these critics say Persians, Arabs, Somalis , Nigerians, Pakistanis , et al. are all of the same “race?”
I go to comedy clubs, Second City, comedy concerts often. They are raw! Some more raw than others. Every once in awhile a PCer will heckle. They always get ripped a new one. Maybe as a way to undo the indoctrination the education industry has conducted, we need to have mandatory attendance @ comedy clubs. I remember seeing Gloria Steinem on Phil Donahue. Painful, I know. She said that it was the duty of all people to not laugh @ jokes that women were the butt of. What she was saying was the women she proclaimed were strong were incapable of taking a simple freakin’ joke. Inherent hypocrisy.
Very well said, professor. Robin Williams certainly presented ethnic stereotypes, but it was not hatred.
I have long felt that the term “racism” is a problematic legal term in that it implies it is wrong to draw any attention to the differences in races. That also carries over to a taboo in drawing attention to ethnic and cultural differences. The real problem is not “racism” but hating someone based upon an imperfect stereotype. The root of the moral issue is hatred, and the unlawful issue concerns harmful actions that come about from that hatred.