Topic: NewsBusters
Dylan Gwinn has shown himself to be one of the less sharp knives in NewsBusters' "media research" drawer. He strikes again by venturing far out of his sports expertise in a Sept. 24 post that is ostensibly a review of the season opener of the sitcom "Blackish."
The episode centers on use of the N-word, and here's how Gwinn responds to a reference to usage of the word by Quentin Tarantino and Paula Deen:
Of course, the reason why Quentin Tarantino can use the n-word 87 times in a movie and get an Oscar while Paula Deen loses her show for saying it once has more to do with the hypocrisy of the media than anything else. Quentin Tarantino is loved by the left, and as such gets a free pass. The same kind of free pass that ABC will get for having a sitcom where a black man thumps a gun on the table. Meanwhile, Paula Deen doesn’t have those kind of connections to the politically correct crowd, and gets far worse.
So Gwinn really thinks there's no differene between Tarantino and Deen in their respective uses of the N-word, huh? Let's educate him, shall we?
Tarantino is a filmmaker. His use of the word came in a film he made, "Django Unchained," where it was a least somewhat justified given the film's historical context of 19th-century slavery and discrimination.
Deen, on the other hand, is a TV cook who may or may not have said the N-word in regard to a group of black waiters she wanted to have tap-dance Shirley Temple style as part of a Southern plantation-themed wedding she wanted to throw for her brother -- an idea (ultimately rejected) that reminded her of southern America “before the Civil War.” Deen's brother was also accused of using the N-word in the kitchen of their restaurant.
In short: Tarantino's use of the N-word occurred in fiction. Deen's use (and overall racism) occurred in real life, involving actual black people. That's the difference.
It seems that Gwinn can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality.
