As you may have noticed, this is not my normal blog posting. No, you won’t have an over-analyzed, over-thought, too much time on his hands, rant about wrestling this time. My buddy Julian and I started writing some sketches a while a go, and this is the first installment for our program “Look Back and Laugh.” I personally like background information on the videos and music I choose to partake in. So, while I won’t be using this blog exclusively for posting these videos, I’d like to have a section of it pertain to the background information for these videos.
The first question when dissecting any form of creativity is inspiration. What inspired us to write this? I can’t say for sure who’s idea it definitively was (and I’m not just saying that to hide the fact that I didn’t solely write it), but I do remember I was talking to Julian about a piece I read about “Django Unchained.” The author lambasted Tarantino for his movie, and scowled Hollywood for appraising it with awards. His main culprit was Tarantino’s use of the n-word. “How can anyone praise Tarantino, a white man, for so recklessly using this word that fellow white men have used to bring about such pain and misery.” All I can think about is: what a load of crap. I remember telling Julian that the only reason this guy was so flabbergasted was because he could not enjoy the movie because he couldn’t bring himself to react to the n-word in public. He was so uncomfortable with the black race that hearing the n-word used, as it tends to be used in Tarantino’s films, makes his skin crawl because he is unable to bring himself to react with anything but negatively. It’s one thing when the dreaded n-word appears in Scorsese films like “The Departed,” but with Django – a film that attracts black audiences – this guy just could not handle enjoying a product of the n-word in public. What a stupid white guy problem! That’s a great line of thinking for any comedy, and we ran with it.
My favorite kind of humor is one that points out the ridiculousness of our real day to day life, and that includes the n-word. Hearing professional newscasters say “n-word” is by far one of the funniest thing to me. These are people who have covered wars on the battlefield, have been present at historical moments – but have to say an inebriation phrase for a racially charged word. I also love the fact that this word is censored on television… unless a black comedian is using it. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go on some “white culture” rant, I just find it very funny over who the censors find OK to say this particular word. This video has to deal with the ridiculousness of censorship as much as it has to deal with the ridiculousness of tight knit white people.
We decided to do it as a bad infomercial. We’ll be acting badly (I know I’m a bad actor, but trying to act badly on purpose is actually pretty difficult), we’ll be constantly looking at the camera (I did this way more than Julian. I think it was his way of getting back at me for making him cut my lawn in high school), and one of us was going to have to be a closet racist. It all panned out in a day of shooting that we did at Julian’s house. The highlight for me is Julian’s face when he says “The N-Word Replacer?” Look at the glimmer in his eye. You can’t teach that kind of talent, my friend. I hope you enjoy it! And I will have a long exasperated blog again soon.
Phil Hiotis: A Day In My No Life 