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I think I'm on pretty safe ground in asserting that murder is always wrong.

Do you think it's wrong though to be served up as entertainment? That is the point I was making.

And that’s where we disagree. By your standard, if a loved one whom you were very close to was in extreme pain or suffering and had little or no quality of life, and for whom pain relief and treatment was offering little or no relief, you would allow them to continue to suffer? You would not attempt to end that state of affairs? Could you honestly say that murder would be wrong in that instance? I’m not sure that I could.

Yes - but she was asking a table of white people what was wrong with it... If you want to discuss blackface and whether it's racist and/or offensive and wrong - maybe, just maybe, having someone of colour on the panel might have been an idea? Otherwise - maybe - don't discuss it in that way?

You can have an intelligent and nuanced discussion about it - but I'm not sure that kind of discussion will ever happen on Megyn Kelly's show. She has form in this area after all...

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/10/25/megyn-kelly-nbc-blackface-racist-comments-white-supremacy-column/1760679002/

I suspect that once it was legalised it would no longer be defined as, or called, murder. If it's illegal, then by definition society has decided that it IS wrong.

I think we’re too far down that path to stop murder being used as a plot device, I’m afraid. It’s been at the heart of culture, literature and society for centuries.

That’s not to say that you can’t watch something else instead that doesn’t include murder (for some reason, The A Word popped into my head as an example).

Murder is always wrong. It's so simple. Murder is always wrong.

I think the subtext of using murder as a plot device in police procedurals is that it's a...bad thing? The point of most procedurals is that by the end of an episode, the murderer/criminal will be caught and justice will prevail. I guess once could position the everlasting appeal of these shows as some form of contemporary morality play -- bad things will occur, but for the viewer, there is some comfort to be found in how the rule of law prevails. Obviously shows like Law and Order demonstrate how the justice system can be corrupted etc, but for other CBS dreck like NCIS or CSI, the formula holds.

Speaking only from the US context, this analogy doesn't work for blackface. If broadcasting a minstrel show was viewed as some morality play, it would be a comic devaluation of Black culture and difference. Just taking this further, what would be the lesson learned from blackface entertainment? This lesson would probably position Blackness not as a discrete identity that persisted through the enslavement of millions, Jim Crow, and discrimination that persists to this day, but to a simple reduction of Blackness as a deviation from a "default" Whiteness.

The humor to be found in blackface minstrelsy is not one of homage or appropriation, it's simply a reflection of how the American racial system positions Blackness as "sub" or "deviant". The humor inherent in blackface minstrelsy is that the White actor is deviating from their Whiteness, by assuming the appearance and apparent "otherness" of Blackness. In other words, the blackface serves to position Blackness as a foil to Whiteness, and in the context of a "morality play", this hierarchy ends up being codified as a good/bad division.

Shouldn't all these posts about the Megyn Kelly Today controversy be split into a new thread?

I'm against any kind of racism, by the way.

I wonder if we can all agree that, irrelevant of what Megyn Kelly said, it's clear NBC just wanted rid of her?

I'd say it's impossible to take her blackface comments out of the equation. Maybe NBC wanted rid, maybe they didn't. Certainly, saying on the show that blackface is okay would appear to be the best way to convince the bosses to axe her.

This whole argument about blackface is to me not at all dissimilar to how gay men are portrayed now compared with before. Only thirty years ago it was OK to display gay men as effeminate and camp (Larry Grayson, John Inman). Society has moved on from that. Yes, many gay men are effeminate and camp but not all, it is a disservice to generalise everyone the same. Portraying gay men in this way was purely for laughs and to stigmatise them.

Society moves on, with media portrayals much more accurate and dare I saw vanilla these days. The furore in Sweden when ‘Fab Freddie’ hosted Melodifesivalen this year is a case in point. Here was a character hosting the biggest show in the country whose only decernable feature was that he was camp, effeminate and loved glitter. Many people in Sweden were appalled. Not because of a gay person hosting the show, but they were offended that such a cliched, outdated and offensive portrayal of a gay man was being wheeled out for cheap laughs.

In UK terms, exactly how Julian Simmons acted on UTV, which over the years has impacted on how many more conservative people view gay men in the province.

Cliches and stereotypes only exist because they’re true but cliches and stereotypes are the tools that allow lazy people on both extremes to offend the people they don’t like.