Men On Film from "In Living Color"

The original run of In Living Color was before my time, but I understand there was some contemporary criticism of the Men On sketches. That said, they clicked with me because I liked the rapport between David and Damon. As an adult, I like the sketches because of the rapport, the characters' POV (considering the stereotype, it's worth a chuckle that The Golden Girls gets a "Hated It!") and the occasional beefcake.

Homophobic drivel. As bad as the hairdresser fag in The Rock. I'm glad we've moved on.

It wasn't just "laugh at the weird faeries?" That's how it came off, they were the only gay characters on Living Color , as if they were a fair representation of gay men. Hyper-effeminate gay men exist, but they're rare.

It was funny back when there weren't any gay men on television anywhere. We've come a long way, and now it looks a bit like 'gay-face'.

No. It was never funny. Never.

It was offensive, seen as offensive and called offensive.

This was bad but Jim Carey's gay character was far worse. He was a predator who was in everyone's face and eventually gets gay bashed to everyone's delight.

They weren't laughing with us, they were laughing at us. This is homophobic drivel. If they did a skit using a racist stereotype the show would have been taken off the air, but we are the last bastions of hate - it's totally OK to be cruel to us. I hated that show.

And this

REALLY....cause this is the shit on tv in THIS day and age....stereotypical ?......

R5 it was funny.

It was so unrealistic and stereotyped! There are no such things as black gay men like that!

I enjoyed Men on Film. But we have to be very, very careful about fictionalizing and embracing stereotypical characterizations of other people. I appreciated the talent of Wayans and Grier, but we all know that while these characters may exist in the gay community, they are indeed only the tip of the iceberg.. and something outsiders like to point at and laugh at... Believe me I know, as a black man, I know how difficult it its to get and audience to give up characterizations they have come to love and laugh at. Wayans should have known better...and while the show was a great comedy show...but there was no balance when depicting gay characters, just like there is no balance when depicting blacks...and we wonder why gay professional athletes don't come out!

It was jaw dropping hysterical. My partner and I had been together a couple of years when this launched, we were mid 20s. There was zero representation of gays on television at this point, except to remind us all gay white men like were dropping dead . You only knew that because of the AIDS Quilt and that Reagan still couldn’t say AIDS.

This entire show was an earthquake and Fox, before it become the last refuge of the deplorable, was a shot across the bow to the stuffy and boring smug and self-satisfied white middle class that watched its own reflection. Fox was dishing up “Married with Children” then the flygirls (Hey, Jenny from the Block. We know where you started).

The Men on skits were stunning, over the top and audacious.. Nobody talked like this. Nobody did gay lingo on televison (“3 Snaps in Z Formation!”). They nailed the earnest irrelevant gossipyness of the gay bars that straight people never knew existed. Pretty soon, straight people were quoting the Men. It was a hell of a day when a straight coworker ended his presentation (acetates, on an overhead projector) with a reference to them.

The other characters like Homey the Clown and Shanaynay were indispensible cultural icons. The Wayans brothers lampooned every body and everything and shook up network television.

I agree R13 - it was, and still is, hysterical stuff - everyone was quoting the "Men On..." skits at the time.

Just contrast "On Film" with the two Jim Carrey sketches above - he's just an obnoxious ass - which may have been the point, but it's not that funny and certainly doesn't sustain even one short sketch. It's not offensive, just bad. "Men On" was brilliant character comedy.

[quote]The Men on skits were stunning,

Mary!

The "problem" wasn't the skit itself, but the lack of realistic, complex, non-stereotypical portrayals of gays (especially gays of color) at the time (and now). On its on though the skit was good-natured and was most certainly not laughing at instead of with. "In Living Color" lampooned a variety of over the top stereotypes (another favorite was Homey D. Clown). Yes, when these are the ONLY representations, it sucks, but they still can be comical and in good fun. Reminds me of the Apu debate.

One of my favorites is the 2-parter when Blaine gets hit in the head and "becomes straight" and macho. Precisely because we don't like him "straight" and feel bad for Tony. We just want these fab queens to be their fab selves.

You run into gay men like this all the time in Atlanta (as exhibited in R9's clip). And the skits still hold up.

David Alan Grier talks about the "Men On" skits and how the skits might work today.

Wanted to add: I also think how non-gay people respond to the skit was a bit of a Rorschach test. If you were homophobic, these were characters to laugh at because you looked down on them. If you were gay-friendly, you got the inside jokes (and there were TONS) and appreciated the nod to biting humor that gays who could never just "pass" often relied upon for survival.

It comes down to the question of: "Is ANY representation better than NO representation?"

It was incredibly progressive to have a sketch like this on a black comedy show in the 90s. I doubt it would happen in this form today but things have changed.

Maybe the characters were stereotypical, maybe some people were laughing at them but I think most were laughing with them. "Men on Film" made its way into pop culture but not because people hated them but because they thought they were funny.

Even I remember kids quoting, "Two snaps! A Twist! And a kiss!" and "HATED IT!" in school.

Also the sketches featured a lot of "inside" jokes.

When Antwan asks Blaine if "Bob Greasie is a tight end," Blane responds, "... He was!"

Or when Antwan says he didn't know the numbers on the back of football jerseys were for identification and Blane says,"The smallest one I saw was 11 and when I saw one that said, 78, chile I almost fainted!"

The characters were unapologetically gay. A lot of us have had conversations laced with those kinds of jokes and side comments but you still don't see that on TV today.

I also loved it when they branched out and started doing "Men on Football," "Men on Cooking," "Men on Art" and even "Men on Books."

I can't believe they insulted future Oscar winner Glenn Close in that skit

PC culture.

I'm not sure I'd call the sketches progressive because the stereotyping was SO over the top, but yes there was lots of "insider" gay humor. To me the skits were subtly flipping the script on homophobia because these guys were clearly having a great time.

Describing Psycho as "This is me, this is who I am, let's take a shower!" And calling Deliverance a "love story." Come ON, that reads like it was stolen from a DL post.

Hated it.

Didn't take long for the offended humorless cunts to bash this hilarious skit.

That's a signature quote r25

"And then we went back to Greece!"

I loved than at the time. I was a tweenager then and I still find myself exclaiming “hated it!” Once in a while.

What gives me pause now is knowing Damon Wayons has a rep as an actual homophobe.

It's called comedy, people. Yes, stereotypes are used in skits because everybody recognizes them. Bonita Buttrell was a stereotype of a welfare queen, these guys were stereotypes of queens. Are we really going into a caring circle because two gay men are portrayed as effeminate ? That brand of thought is exactly why most of TV and movies are so unfunny, all the spice and grit has been squeezed out of it, to "empower" all the people who have no sense of humor, unless of course it involves Trump's severed head. "All In The Family," Sanford and Son", "The Jeffersons," none of them could be made now, but they were much more important than most of the drivel on TV now.

In Living Color inflicted that unfunny white comedian on us. White Chicks made me laugh so it's not that I'm hard to entertain.

black celebs must not be criticized

Anyone offended by those segments is a miserable, not-very-bright person. Please get over yourselves.

R16 and R13 know what’s up. R7 is a wiener.

[quote]The other characters like Homey the Clown and Shanaynay were indispensible cultural icons.

Shanaynay was a character played by Martin Lawrence on "Martin."

Wanda was the character on "In Living Color" played by Jamie Foxx. Her catch phrase was, "I'll rock your world!"

The brilliant part of that sketch was that on the surface you knew Wanda was meant to be "ugly." Every man rejected her and made fun of her but in the end she always eventually ended up standing up for herself. At least once or twice she was sad but eventually she find someone who liked her.

Lighten up! Men on Film was hysterical.

I loved it.

Perhaps it was the character "Benita Butrell" which the poster upthread is mistaking for "Shenaynay" on Martin. She was the one who always said "I ain't one to gossip, so you ain't heard that from me." And she was always talking about a "Mrs. Jenkins" defending her honor with ferocity, but then talking shit about her.

OP here. I don't think anyone answered my original question as to whether or not the other individuals on the poster behind them in OP video could be identified. Pee-Wee Herman is also pictured in the poster, as is Charles Bronson to the extreme right -he's bare chested. I don't know who the black male boxer is or the older white guy with a gun and cigar to the left. They outed stars while doing this sketch as well. Of course I forget the conversation, but I distinctly remember Damon's character once saying "(audible intake of breath) Is that little Ricky Schroeder? Don't let him see me!" ILC was hilarious at it's time.

More about Wayans being homophobic, please.

LaShawn was the best. A true DLer.

R38 he did a comedy bit in his stand up show about gay bashing and how maybe we wouldn't get bashed if we didn't act like "bitches", then proceeds to mimic a gay man getting bashed. Then he finishes it off by saying all men do it and it's no big deal.

I know a guy who's married to Jim Carey's cousin and Jim visits her at least once a year because they were so close growing up. This guy told me when he was asking Jim about the cast of ILC, Jim said that Damon was a legit racist--he only liked black people and hated all other races, especially white people. He would only talk to white cast and crew through his black assistant and would never interact with anyone other than the black people on set.

Am I the only one who had a HUGE crush on Tommy Davidson?

I don't remember the catch phrases, but I didn't particularly like Living Color and wasn't a regular viewer. Basically all I remember is that one of them would wear a tiny hat affixed to his bald head. I think they were laughed at at least as much as with. Most people were anti-gay at the time.

R33 Thank you! Wanda was a remarkable character. She went from stereotypically offensive to the the character the audience embraced. She was our everywoman. In the end, she rocked our world.

Jamie !....Glad you found the DL.

I loved the "Miss Black Person USA" skit (at 16:09 in this episode).

wow r40. I wonder what Tommy Davidson thought of Damon's racism? He was raised by a white family.

R13 is correct.

What I remember was GLAAD objecting to "Men On ... " and the local bar rags inveighing against it ...

... and every video bar in town playing "Men On ... " segments between videos, to great merriment.

R5 no it was about gay BLACK men. THAT'S why nobody gave a fuck. I went to Fashion Institute of Technology....ALL the gay guys behaved like this or worse. MOST black people are cool with gay folks but the narrative in DL is always how homophobic they are. Yes some black people have issues with gay men....but how many of you fetishize them?

R5 here just so I'm clear BLACK AMD WHITE GAY MEN at F.I.T. behaved this way (or worse, and I mean that in the bitchy catty nasty sense).

^AND

I also remember the live "Men on Football" special during halftime the Super Bowl. They ad-libbed this line, which was hilariously shocking to hear on network TV at the time:

Antoine: "Hello! You gotta reverse that call! Joe Namath is married!"

Blaine: "Well, so is Richard Gere — and you oughta see that gerbil in a wedding dress!"

At the end, Damon Wayans referred to Olympic sprinter Carl Lewis (who was rumored to be gay) by saying "You know why he runs. Well, you can run but you can't hide from your true selfs, Miss Lewis."

The audience gasped and Fox had to apologize. It was a big deal for a few days.

Imagine doing "blacks on film" where two guys comedically do every black stereotype, or asians on film where two asians say if they rikey or no rikey a moive. It wasn't not funny.

R53 is not familiar with the show at all, because they pretty much lampooned every negative Black stereotype in existence. See the skit at R45 for one of many examples.

MOF is still funny. Chances are, if it offends you, that's because it is you.

I loved the commercial for "Della Reese's Pieces."

Another thing the skits did that was hilarious and subversive was reading homoeroticism into every straight guy machismo stronghold: football, action movies, etc. The characters themselves were super effeminate, but as they described them, pretty much every manly man had at least a little bit of gay in him. DAG talks about that a little in the interview at R18, that seeing "gay" in everything macho was an intentional part of the humor.

Reminds me of this:

Were/are the other Wayans family members as genuinely racist/homophobic as Damon? I'd always hear that Daman was a true asshole but for the most part, the rest of his family were pretty nice people.

This always had me in stitches. Here's a compilation.

I remember that R52. Those lines were cut from the west coast showing and removed from the syndication run.

I dont care how many kids or babymamas Shawn Wayans has...he fucks around with guys.

Not sure about the Wayans R58 (although I've never heard any of the others slammed the way Damon was) but David Alan Grier was always well respected.

R58 the guy I know said Jim Carey said Keenan was the nicest person he ever worked with and genuinely wanted everyone to shine on the show and went out of his way to make sure everyone got to do good work in front of the camera.

It was about the third season that he became bitter about how Fox was jerking him around and started getting very Black Power about keeping the show as black centric as possible.

Also their sister, Kim started off very older sisterly towards everyone but got bitter about how Fox was treating everyone but never displayed any racism except to complain about black people behind the camera getting passed over for promotions in place of white people who hadn't worked on the show.

Didn't hear anything about the rest of the family.

[quotes]Imagine doing "blacks on film" where two guys comedically do every black stereotype, or asians on film where two asians say if they rikey or no rikey a moive. It wasn't not funny.

You are an idiot R53. Men on film had nothing to do with race. It was about sexuality and it happened to take place on a predominantly black show.

Black people can be gay. Asian people can be gay. Then again, of course your dumb ass, in order to make your point, had to be racist. That says just about everything about you. Equating sexuality with race doesn't work here.

[quote]It was about the third season that he became bitter about how Fox was jerking him around and started getting very Black Power about keeping the show as black centric as possible.

Getting "black power?" What does that even mean?

If this happened, he was probably defending the fact that there was no other show on TV like it and it was successful because it actually featured people of color.

Hell, in 44 seasons of SNL there have only been 6 black women on the show and the last two came in the last couple of years after people finally started to notice.

The same would apply to what you're claiming he said about Kim. There really weren't that many people of color working in television. Why wouldn't she get annoyed if they weren't getting promoted but other people were?

Either way they all seemed to get along when they reunited years later. Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Lopez were both working and Damon didn't really have an excuse for not coming.

I love how R64 only focused on the couple of negative things, ignoring the good things said about Keenan and Kim.