fujishig

The studios don't have any say on whether to distribute these or not? Editing I can understand, but they have to keep them continually available for some reason?

Count Dooku

And you have the nerve to call yourself a DVD TALK LEGEND!?!?!

story

Not saying one way or the other if this should be happening, but I have a question: do things change for people who would receive royalties on these episodes that are pulled from circulation? How does that work?

fujishig

I assume they wouldn't get royalties because the episodes aren't airing? Or am I misunderstanding your question?

story

Right, like, if 99 out if 100 episodes air, or 99 out of 100 are on disc, and now that person doesn't earn royalties on that episode, what happens? Do they no longer get compensated for the work because someone else wants to take it out of the lineup? Could someone say, "Um, hey, my livelihood"? Maybe it's not a big deal, I've seen some royalty checks are literally for pennies, more spent on postage than what the check amount itself. Or maybe that's the rules of the road for a contract because the creators or studio do what they want to do. Again, I'm not saying whether this should happen. I'm genuinely curious if this angle has been explored.

brayzie

I do think this is funny how studios, actors and producers are trying to clean up their professional past by getting rid of the evidence of their racist/racial humor.

They profited by reinforcing and perpetuating racist stereotypes and racist imagery. Then, years later after they’ve made their careers, “oh, I’m removing these because I didn’t know it was wrong at the time.” But you did know it was wrong because people complained back then and you dismissed their complaints.

What contemporary shows have humor that can legitimately, not sarcastically, be considered offensive and/or promote negative stereotypes? Because most of these retroactive band-aids and apologies don’t do much to change the affect it had in society.

fujishig

I'm thinking mainly of the 30 Rock and Community episodes, was there a big outcry when they aired? I don't remember it.

brayzie

If there was a big enough outcry, I would doubt it for those two shows.

Actually, yeah, it did get some criticism in 2012. But the Washington Post made sure to cite a number of white or non-black writers who praised the bravery and brilliance of the blackface episode.

As did Kimmy Schmidt in 2016.

Usually a big outcry would affect their profits and they’d act right accordingly.
Notice they removed the blackface episodes but not the “brown face” when Alec Baldwin paints his face brown and plays a Latino. So “race-changing make up” is bad...but not always, apparently.

Sarah Silverman was confronted about her racist Asian joke on Bill Maher’s show, by Guy Aoki and she dismissed his complaints throughout the entire episode, mocking him.

Tina Fey was asked about her racial humor by the time of the Kimmy Schmidt show and she said she didn’t care.

JeffTheAlpaca

I already have 30 Rock and I think I won the Dukes of Hazzard probably stashed somewhere in a storage crate but they did not come with the box and just the sealeed cases stuck together and wrapped in shrinkwrap.

JeffTheAlpaca

I wonder if Comedy Central will still do those comedy roasts since that kind of comedy is probably outlawed now?

Nick Danger

I have some random thoughts.

When I was a kid we took a vacation in Canada. I saw Stepin Fetchit on TV, and I thought he was hilarious. My dad told me that he wasn't. I didn't understand that he played the worst stereotypes of Black people. It was a good thing that children of my generation (in the USA) weren't exposed to an actor who played lazy, stupid, superstitious, cowardly Black minstrel-show characters. It doesn't matter that he was hugely successful in his day, and he was a brilliant comedian. The effect would have been inculcating subtle racism into a new generation.

Mrs Danger's father loved All in the Family. He believed that Archie Bunker spoke truths that no one else dared say on television. I'm sure he wasn't the only one.

brayzie

I wouldn’t be surprised if other people thought that way at the time. You could argue he humanized white supremacists. You wouldn’t produce a show like that today, so why was it okay back then?

Nick Danger

Why wouldn't we produce a show like that today? Cartman says a lot of the same things that Archie Bunker did.

brayzie

South Park is a cartoon show on cable. “All in the Family” was a prime time live-action sitcom on network television, CBS to be exact. So South Park is not a show like All in the Family.

rw2516

Archie was portrayed as an ignorant fool. Today you can't make fun of anybody. Hogan's Heroes portrayed Nazis as having the brains of rat turds. Probably couldn't do that today either.
Take Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres. Those couldn't get made today because of the way rural people are displayed, yet the city folks were the ones portrayed as fools. As dumb as Jethro was, he was smarter than any of the Beverly Hills city folk.

morriscroy

The fews scenarios still left that hollywood can portray as a fool, are autistic/asperger geniuses like a Sheldon Cooper.

fujishig

Well that and husbands on sitcoms.

morriscroy

Wonder how soon the "dumb blonde" caricature will be eliminated from tv/movies, and be replaced with the assertive fighter type of character like Wonder Woman, Sarah Connor, etc ...

fujishig

I did think it was interesting that in the past few years there have been a bunch of "dumb Asians" like really really dumb as if to go against the stereotype: notably The Good Place and Single Parents, or even Mindy Kaling's character in The Office. And then you have the ones that just lean into the stereotypes with no shame like Two Broke Girls.

Count Dooku

Well, he was a big, good-looking guy who lived in a Beverly Hills mansion, and he couldn't get laid to save his life, so I'm not sure about what you said.

Count Dooku

Just saw where the episode of Mad Men where Roger wear's blackface will not be pulled because the episode set in the 60s is historically accurate about portraying the existence of racism.

Apparently Mad Men viewers have been deemed intelligent enough to figure out that just because a character on a TV show is doing something that is not a message to the audience that it is right.

PhantomStranger

The producers have iron-clad contracts with studios. Producers could sue for damage and breach of contract if the studio permanently shelved the show, hurting the producer's income stream from it.

This applies only to television. Hollywood studios have absolute control over theatrical productions. Hollywood thought television was completely disposable product with zero shelf life in the medium's early days, so each show's producers ended up retaining far more rights and power over their shows. Sometimes all a Hollywood studio may own for a specific show is distribution rights and not the show itself.

That is why the issues with the Simpsons and 30 Rock are much more likely to be permanent. The producers themselves are leading the charge to shelve certain episodes. One or two lost episodes isn't going to make a dent in their revenue streams from shows that lasted years and years.

morriscroy

What is an example where the producers sued and won where an "iron clad" contract was violated by permanently shelving a show?

PhantomStranger

Before now, I don't think Hollywood has ever shelved an entire show actually generating revenue. But these are strange times we are living in now...

morriscroy

If no examples.

Do you have a link or citation about these sort of "iron clad" contracts for tv shows?