A friend says this 14 year-old video clip isn’t funny any more because it’s racist. Well, it may be racist in the minds of certain woke watchdogs (Variety‘s Steven Gaydos, critics Glenn Kenny and Bob Strauss), but it’s still funny for the rest of us. We all know that the term “Islamic Jihad” basically means “repent or die or better yet bend over to we can cut your head off”, and that this kind of absolutist thinking comes from a cliche that we’ve all heard about conservative Middle-Eastern types being hot-headed or even fanatical when their blood is up.
This Oscar-argument clip is funny because (a) their behavior conforms to the cliche or stereotype, and (b) they’re arguing about performances given by Kate Winslet and Penelope Cruz.
