People don't understand satire, outrage at Stephen Colbert

A now-deleted tweet from the account linked to his show The Colbert Report has comedian Stephen Colbert on the defensive, saying he wasn't aware who wrote the post that aimed to mock Asian stereotypes and was reportedly taken out of context from a recent show

Stephen Colbert has built his career out of playing the overly offensive character we all know and love on The Colbert Report. But while most viewers realize his non-PC humor and even downright offensive gags are satire, his character’s nuance can get lost on Twitter. Case in point: a tweet from his Colbert Report account attempted to mock Asian stereotypes and, instead, caused real offense and spawned a #CancelColbert hashtag.

The since-deleted tweet read: “I’m willing to show the #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.”

Colbert later said he didn’t write the tweet and was unsure who did, USA Today reports.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the tweet “was originally a quote from Wednesday night’s show. But during the episode segment, the joke was in a clear context—Colbert was mocking Redskins owner Dan Snyder for responding to complaints about his team name by announcing a foundation to help Native Americans.”

Without that context, Colbert’s tweet read as just plain offensive to some and stirred up a lot of anger and backlash.

Of course, Colbert has always been upfront in the past about the incendiary character he plays on his show, which is meant to be a send-up of offensive conservatism.

http://time.com/41453/stephen-colbert-report-tweet/

$100 says those who got offended haven't seen the episode.

If people needed to see the episode to understand the joke, then it shouldn't have been posted on his Twitter account.

Guess I should delete my earlier thread. This sounds more direct. But yeah man. Its like people don't understand there are thresholds, and things like malicious intent, dismissal in racism. That segment was mean to target actual racism. We've been exposed to way more scathing comedians, and haven't put them under twitter scrutiny.

Probably not but damn, it's just weird to me that they didn't think there had to have been more to that tweet.

This is what I think is the dumbest part; people ignoring (or not being aware) of the actual racism and going after Colbert.

Some people need to grow up.

In all fairness, it's not peoples' job to speculate on what statements might mean in a different context. People simply judge statements based on the context that they are in. It's true that people are overreacting (after all, this clearly wasn't done with malicious intent), but it's still a mistake. Someone fucked up by posting that comment there. Keep in mind that Colbert isn't defending the post.

And then of course you have people who don't even know what the Colbert Report is (I didn't =P) and all of a sudden go "a white guy said WHAT on Twitter??" and the rest is internet...

whoever thinks he was being racist please euthanize yourself

People who are easily offended need to get their Victorias out of a twist, regardless of the context.

Yeah but there are thresholds of offensiveness in comedy that most have come to accept as part of comedy. If you want a messed up example, Take Quvenzhane Wallis, and the onion tweet that called her a **** at the 2013 Oscars. One can easily look at that situation, and see there was no going around that. Just like other news sources The Onion was trying to find zingers around a high press event to drive traffic, and it looks objectively bad to anyone who sees it within seconds or a larger period of time.

Comedy Central removed the tweet because the way twitter wars happen, theres no point in dragging things out anymore. They can't come to an understanding like all of us can on this forum. Yeah they should've linked the clip, but based on the rest of the Colbert report I don't see the need for #CancelColbert. As long as we've known he plays a faux republican an avg listener familiar with him would seek out the segment and understand for themselves.

This will get forgotten quickly because he is a liberal.

I found the tweet funny tbh

can't stand it when the PC police call in the wahhhburance

"Internet justice"

Exactly. Its more like a 'parody of presumed elitist ignorance' nowhere near the offensive levels of that Mickey Rooney fake asian character from the '60s.

Just like the beginning of this cartoon.

and people out there still think Onion News is real. Dumb people will be dumb

I think people often overlook intent when declaring something racist.

True.

Colbert is fine, I prefer Stewart.

How is it not racist?

If the term "redskin" isn't racist why does Daniel Synder refer to the ethnic community in question as native american's and not as redskins? Would you personally ever refer to a native american person as a redskin? The name is obviously racist - I personally don't care enough that it is to feel like a name-change is necessary, but c'mon man don't try and act like redskin isn't a derogatory term.

Also William Dietz was most likely not an actual redskin.

People need to take a chill pill and not get so worked up over words.

you know for alot of liberals to always claim race is just a social construct, they sure do like to talk about race alot

@reaper4278: So you say the movement was started by a small number of people but before that listed some examples of an even smaller number of people using the term positively? Okay. That's nice. I'm sure people would be fine if they changed the team name to Niggers just because certain black folk use the term in a positive light. /sarcasm

I still think it's insensitive at best and racist at worst, and so do plenty of other people.

Plenty of this, plenty of that. Lets just put and end to the Redskins name discussion. The name hasn't been changed because not enough people give a shit about it, and I do agree with reaper that there is a sort of "Faux Outrage Club" that just go around looking for stuff to get offended by.

Poll: Majority OK with 'Redskins'

"But a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows that nationally, "Redskins" still enjoys widespread support. Nearly four in five Americans don't think the team should change its name, the survey found. Only 11 percent think it should be changed, while 8 percent weren't sure and 2 percent didn't answer."

Majority Of Washingtonians Support Redskins' Name, Washington Post Poll Finds

"A Washington Post poll finds that 61 percent of D.C. area residents support the Redskins' name, which has been a contentious issue in recent months, and 66 percent think the team should keep its longtime moniker."

Poll: 71% don't think Redskins should change name

"The poll released by Public Policy Polling on Thursday found that 71% do not think the team should change its name, while 18% said the team should change it and 11% said they are not sure. The firm surveyed 741 registered voters through automated phone interviews and the margin of error is plus or minus 3.6%."

And that is that.

All those polls tell me is that not enough people care about racism against Native Americans. If it were about another ethnicity there would be bigger outrage.

Master live is playing a role.

Asian American are overly sensitive and start behaving like oprah's community ........... just look how different they are compare to cool asian in Thailand and Japan

It isn't that it was offensive, it's that by placing the comments out of context like that, it said something completely different than what it was supposed to. Look, I'm not denying that people are overreacting to it. I already said that it was a minor error that was unintentional and made for non-malicious reasons. But taking it out of context like that makes it say something that Colbert doesn't want to say. The man never struck me as a coward, if he supported what was being said then he'd stick to his guns. The response is an overreaction, sure, but posting it like that was a mistake. You said it yourself. Either a video clip should have been provided to place the comment in the proper context, or the comment never should have been posted at all.

It's not about what you intended to say, it's about what you said. I guess bad actions plus evil intentions are worse than bad actions plus good intentions, but that doesn't make the actions not bad. In any case, Stephen Colbert's fucking JOB is to communicate effectively. There should never be a case where "but I didn't mean it like that" is a valid defense. Welcome to the big leagues. This man is an international celebrity raking in big bucks and getting huge audiences, he gets held to a higher standard than your average jackass making youtube videos.

The girl who started this just gets absolutely destroyed by the Huffington post

http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/archive/segment/colbert-report-asian-joke-on-twitter-leads-to-cancelcolbert/533593b1fe344454ba000027

lmfao, that was AWESOME.

Uhhh....

did you just quote and then compliment yourself?

Not sure what happened there. I meant to quote your post with the video.

But hey, it's the intent that matters.

I agree the tweet is not good PR. but IDK. All that tells me is there's not enough room on twitter for all comedy.

you've got a man whose faux reputation precedes himself. To the point, you'd want to find the source material. I looked at the tweet the first time, and assumed 'oh he's in character again'. A person would have to convince me that it's not all fun and games and hes stoking the fires of 'white-power'.

And people compare that with Micheal Richards N-Word rant where, whether sitting in the audience or seeing the whole TMZ clip, theres no context a person can derive from Kramer, that makes it any less of an attack.

I'm just saying while there may be irresponsibility with the tweet, its not hard for people to reserve judgement until they've done a little digging especially on this internet. How can folks sit back in social media bubbles and say 'nah he's taking a swipe at me! that was intentional!' when we live in an era where one can bypass all the news outlets and get the truth for themselves with very little effort.

Satire works best when not everyone understands it.

Within the context of the twitter account(it being the twitter of the show, and not Colberts actual account) shouldn't there be some expectation that it was satire. Given what the show is.

Yeah I get that taken out of context it comes off in the wrong way, but even in this different context it seems like there would be reason to pause and assume it was some kind of satire,

Oh, I agree with that. Even if someone was offended at first, surely by now it has been very clearly pointed out to them that it was meant to be satire. At that point it should just be a matter of them saying, "oh, I see. Pay more attention to context next time, but there's no point in me continuing to be outraged." Did you check out the video that lostrib posted? The funny thing about this is that the woman who started this cancelColbert campaign KNOWS damn well what's going on, but she's still getting up in arms over this because of her personal beef with white people.

I don't disagree with that, but let's be clear that "you just don't get it" can't be a blanket defense. For example, let's consider some movie that has been controversial. Many people think that it is a brilliant cinematic masterpiece, while an equal number of people dismiss it as faux-artsy trash which is devoid of actual substance. There's always this annoying thing that people do, where they say, "it's a brilliant masterpiece, you just don't get it." Okay, if I just don't get it, then explain it to me.If they can't explain it, then the "you just don't get it" defense falls flat. There will always be people who misinterpret any given work of art, but it remains the case that not all interpretations are equal. Some interpretations are just plain wrong, all interpretations must be logically supported and able to stand up to scrutiny if they are to be taken seriously, and it's common for people to use the "you just don't get it" defense when the work in question isn't actually saying what they think it is.

that's actually a pretty decent joke.

obvious and simple but still not bad for just a quickie one off twitter type joke.

you can't really set up a decent premise with a nice clever twisty payoff in 140 characters.

Exactly. Not that there isn't much work to be done to further equality, but her response on huffpost was cold. And her campaign looks like internet opportunism and trolling as a victim. She was given an opportunity to explain and denied it.

I read one Salon.com article that compared Colbert situation with Dave Chappelle leaving because white people took his satire the wrong way, and its like thats not the same thing. Colbert's joke was contextual and aware of ignorance, the folks who heckled or constrained Dave behind corporate doors were largely ignorant, and had no social context for the way they were soundbyting him. It's like he couldn't share in his own humor.

I think internet campaigners and SJWs don't see that even though words and jokes have stigma, the venom is deeper than the actual words or jokes, but its the antagonizing social environments we foster, and everyday people can spew that social venom without words or jokes.

Uh huh... probably why there wasn't such a huge stink in North Dakota over UND's mascot, The Fighting Sioux. Oh wait, there was.

Your life must be pretty pathetic for shit like this to offend you.

Grow some thicker skin.

Very very true.

Look, I'm far from one of those people who is like, "you're a dumbass for getting offended over words" or "you're an idiot for not knowing what he meant." People can't control when they get offended, and misunderstandings happened. Some people got offended, okay, whatever, that's fair. There's a failure of communication going on, either one party misinterpreted what was said or the other party failed to speak effectively. It happens.

But this misunderstanding got cleared up VERY fucking fast. Anyone who was offended at the beginning (whether they were right or wrong) now knows EXACTLY what statement was trying to be said. This reaction may have been justified when there was still a misunderstanding, but there is no longer a misunderstanding. Reasonable people who took offense are just gonna let it go now that the misunderstanding got cleared up. The only people still calling for blood are the people who are just looking for a fight.

And again, it's painfully clear in that video that lostrib posted. That woman doesn't CARE what message was trying to be said. Even after it got cleared up she's STILL pissed off, because she never cared about the message in the first place. What she cared about was the FIGHT. She wants to be the hero who stands up to the bad guys, she jumped on an excuse to play that role, and she's sticking to her guns even after she found out that the sentiment was actually ANTI-racist. Admit that she overreacted? Nope, can't do that. Come to an understanding and let the whole thing go? Nope, can't do that. Because in her mind, it isn't even about what was said or done, it's about keeping the fight going regardless of whether or not the people she targets actually are the bad guys. Doesn't matter, gotta fight against something! And like you said, that whole attitude is FAR more destructive than a few poorly thought out jokes that could POSSIBLY be construed as racially insensitive. One is at most an unfortunate slip-up done without malicious intent, the other is a deliberate attempt to foster animosity towards each other and keep us fighting against one another.

lol Stephen Colbert. My favorite charming racist.

You know he is really feeling the heat since he apologized, he never does.

I agree, stop QQing about the names of football teams. The indians got their asses kicked, time to move on.

But I actually do agree they should change their name, perhaps the "Injuns" would be better?

This can be the new mascot!

yep, it's a troll account

Not trolling, just no point in confronting the leftist turds on this forum with actual points....this entire forum trolls anyone who is not a leftist, socialist weenie.