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Post by debjorgo on Sept 22, 2015 19:05:20 GMT -5
John is taking a beating on the page that Steve links to here: www.examiner.com/article/lennon-spastic-beatles-routine-film-some-of-his-last-photos-to-be-auctionedEven more so on the youtube video that that page links to. It's all over the spastic playing that John did on stage in the early sixties. Personally, I think he was just acting the fool. People need to let challenged individuals know that they are not being made fun. Saying your friend is retarded has nothing, NOTHING to do with the mentally challenged. I guess people can be cruel. They should be admonished be being so. Intent is the key. They were a lot of handicapped kids at the Beatles show. You never heard of anybody getting upset. I sure they loved the show as much as everybody else.
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Post by Joe Karlosi on Sept 22, 2015 19:38:11 GMT -5
John is taking a beating on the page that Steve links to here: www.examiner.com/article/lennon-spastic-beatles-routine-film-some-of-his-last-photos-to-be-auctionedEven more so on the youtube video that that page links to. It's all over the spastic playing that John did on stage in the early sixties. Personally, I think he was just acting the fool. People need to let challenged individuals know that they are not being made fun. Saying your friend is retarded has nothing, NOTHING to do with the mentally challenged. I guess people can be cruel. They should be admonished be being so. Intent is the key. They were a lot of handicapped kids at the Beatles show. You never heard of anybody getting upset. I sure they loved the show as much as everybody else. Much as I love John Lennon, I'm not so sure he wasn't "imitating" some of the handicapped people. I do believe it was his way of loosening up and acting silly too, and the main thing is that skins have gotten much thinner in recent decades, and PC has run amuck.
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Post by vectisfabber on Sept 23, 2015 3:40:11 GMT -5
They showed that clip on one of those revisiting the 60s TV shows over here at the weekend, which concentrated on the politically incorrect stuff which was all over TV at that time, lots of racism and sexism. One of the talking heads said, "Well, someone just stopped being my favourite Beatle."
Yes, it is utterly cringe-making when you watch it these days, but no-one thought much of it at the time. Like we didn't think much about referring disparagingly to darkies and homos either.
The world has moved on, and many of those born since then have great difficulty in seeing such things in the context of their times.
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Post by Joe Karlosi on Sept 23, 2015 8:58:37 GMT -5
They showed that clip on one of those revisiting the 60s TV shows over here at the weekend, which concentrated on the politically incorrect stuff which was all over TV at that time, lots of racism and sexism. One of the talking heads said, "Well, someone just stopped being my favourite Beatle." I can't stomach TV personalities like that. They always are quick to come forward, put their hand in the air, to make sure they keep their job and everyone that's watching can see: "Look at me!! I'm not prejudiced!!".. If I knew that TV person and had liked that individual up to this point, I would say : "Well, someone just stopped being my favorite TV personality.".
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Post by John S. Damm on Sept 23, 2015 22:26:39 GMT -5
I am not offended in the least by John's "spastic" skit because I have never seen a disabled person whose actions in any way resembled John's silly routine. John is acting more like a cartoon character than mocking any specific genre of disability. Yeah, I am with Joek on that dumb announcer who kneejerk says John was his/her favorite Beatle until he/she saw that! Whatever! These same people who get pissed off about John's "spastic" routine have no problems making Heather Mills "one leg" jokes.
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Post by stavros on Sept 24, 2015 16:38:47 GMT -5
They showed that clip on one of those revisiting the 60s TV shows over here at the weekend, which concentrated on the politically incorrect stuff which was all over TV at that time, lots of racism and sexism. One of the talking heads said, "Well, someone just stopped being my favourite Beatle." Yes, it is utterly cringe-making when you watch it these days, but no-one thought much of it at the time. Like we didn't think much about referring disparagingly to darkies and homos either. The world has moved on, and many of those born since then have great difficulty in seeing such things in the context of their times. I think I saw that as well Vectis. Even well into the 1970s (my childhood) I remember certain terms that are seen as disparaging now being used on TV then ."Love Thy Neighbour" springs to mind with Jack Smethurst's over the top comments about his darker skinned neighbour. Even though it's message was clearly anti-racist. Before that there was the rather cringe worthy "Black & White Minstrel Show" and that "..Death Do Us Part" comedy which was well over my head as an infant school kid. But this type of entertainment was par for the course back then. Is it any wonder Disney's "Song of the South" remains buried and forgotten? I do recall hearing an interview somewhere when one of the Beatles (John??) said people kept bringing their disabled relatives to them as if they could heal them and he found it very uncomfortable and didn't know how to react. I think Ringo also said John lost the plot on a few occasions as well. It is so easy to forget the context of the times or even be totally unaware of them. I often think of the 1960s as the beginning of the modern age when our technology began to catch up with the stuff of our dreams and social changes were afoot. But attitudes do not change as rapidly and it often needs a new generation to look at things differently. Some people would even argue we've gone too far these days in our political correctness. I'll leave that personal opinion. I think we should view John's 'spastic' impersonation with the benefit of hindsight. He meant no malice by it and if he was still in his early twenties now would certainly not have acted that way.
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Post by Panther on Sept 25, 2015 21:43:37 GMT -5
With regards to things like (of all things!) John's spastic-actions onstage, I think it's important to look at it from two perspectives simultaneously:
1) The perspective of "how-things-were" at the time; and 2) Today's relatively more enlightened, harshly disapproving perspective.
You actually should bear both of these in mind, and never get overly caught up in one extreme or the other. They need to co-exist, so that (a) we can understand the past better (which is important), and also (b) learn from the past so as not to repeat it, while at the same time improving our conduct in the present/future, and NOT condone or blindly accept mistakes of the past.
So, on the one hand, we have to understand the world as John experienced it in 1964 (his book published that year also has nice references to "slimy little Jew(s)" and such... lovely...), and we should bear in mind the ridiculous pressure on a guy in his early-20s who generally had stage-fright but was suddenly thrust, with no protective barriers, in front of 10,000 screaming teens who wanted to tear him apart every night, but we also have to completely condemn his actions from our current perspective (of course).
It's counter-productive to go to either of these extremes only, and put up barriers from them. It's all very well to say, "That's how it was back then, in the context of the times, ha ha!", but that's a slippery slope with no end. It was also normal then in parts of the US to segregate blacks in public life, to biologically cancel mentally-challenged peoples' abilities to reproduce, and to laugh publicly at the idea of women trying to enter management or politics. Those are not good things, and they should never be defended.
It's equally counter-productive to simply say "John was an asshole" and judge him only by the standards of today, while assuming WE are the new gold-standard of what's right and fair (we aren't -- the future is going to judge us just as harshly as we judge John's spastic impressions now). We do need to understand the context of the times.
Just my opinion.
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