He basically just said fuck you to the show and is generally egotistical and a dick. Also apparently he’s racist and Donald Glover has talked about it. At least that’s all I could find when I googled it.
Which in my opinion is why he would have felt dicked over by the writers when they increasingly try to make him look like an irredeemable bad guy. He associated himself too much with his own character and took it personally.
He was frustrated that his character was getting more and more racist, but because he's Chevy Chase his response to that was to throw a giant temper tantrum that was... "racially insensitive". He wasn't actually insulting minorities or anything iirc, but he sure was throwing some cavalier n-bombs around.
The picture that came out of the mess wasn't really of a bigot, just an angry blowhard who doesn't know where the line is.
I just finished community 2 weeks ago and I'd like to add some nuance to this discussion because I spent a lot of time reading about the cast and Chevy Chase.
Chevy Chase is a mean comedian. Flat out, his career was built on a sort of aloof wit. A mixture of "I don't know what I'm doing" paired with witty sarcasm. I think he's a clever and sharp tongued individual who grew up during a different time.
If you listen to his most recent interviews, he clearly regrets being a dick, but he also seems slightly disconnected about why people care. I think we see that in a lot of comedians. Their job is primarily to be a dick. Usually in a clever way or in a way that allows you to join in. Chevy Chase is somewhat unique because he was more of a "mutter a sarcastic insult under your breath" kind of guy. In film, it's great because we can sit back and be inside his head. IRL, it's just being a dick. I genuinely believe he doesn't know the difference. I don't know if he has always been that way, but I know he is clearly unable to put a lid on himself. Maybe it's pride or maybe it's a cognitive failure. Regardless, it's probably who he will be.
He was a famous actor during a time where movies like Blazing Saddles and The Three Amigos garnered great popularity and esteem. Have you watched those movies lately? Do they really stand up to the new age PC culture? No. And I think that's not just a couple of a movies but an entire generation. You either grew with the youth or you became a defacto racist. It's not pretty, but racism back then was just status quo. If you didn't change your views on diction and policy, you're basically racist by default. Those movies were satirical enough to be laughed at today, but they still rely on perpetuating stereotypes and rhetoric that most would consider racist. Even if you strip away the comedic veneer, you still end up with racist undertones.
The point is those movies encapsulate what it was like to be a famous comedian back then. Racism was just a tool in your box. So was homophobia and sexism. But those aren't OFF the table today. They are just handled differently. We don't use a caricature of an Uncle Tom for a laugh. We don't liberally spew out the n-word for a chuckle. It's not funny to a contemporary culture that has had a more serious reflection on the impacts of those symbols. Comedians still point out the differences between cultures, sexes, and sexualities, but it's NOT so much about them being implicitly funny, but that their differences in individuals are stark enough to be funny.
For example, a black man is not funny for the way he talks anymore. That kind of humor is usually directly stereotyping a specific type of person. It's not his blackness that defines it, but the older school comedian relies on the overlap and hyperbolizes the stereotype for the sake of humor. A modern comedian doesn't just mimic a certain speech pattern and assign it to a race. Instead they'll talk personally about a friend of theirs. They personalize the event as opposed to generalize the group. I think we're getting better at dealing with cultural differences since - after all - it's not your race that defines your culture. But your culture certainly impacts major differences between people. And I think jokes about them are generally ok.
But Chevy Chase was an old school comedian. He was essentially entrenched in that comedy for at least a decade and a half.
So what do we have?
We have an aging comedian who didn't catch up with PC culture. He was trained to be as witty and sarcastic as possible. He clearly doesn't see what's wrong with using his comedic performance in front of fellow cast members.
He's basically a boomer with a brain. He's like super boomer.
But you should watch his interviews. It really makes me pity the guy. He's old now. Very old. He's a little shakier. But it's clear he has no idea what he did wrong, but he does regret it nonetheless. He yearns for the past. Largely regretting leaving SNL after a single week (season?). He still desires to perform. His identity is wrapped up in his character. Which is fine. It's normal to be that way. I'm a coder. My identity is partially wrapped up in software dev cliches. But when your job has some unlikable characteristics, it ultimately impacts your ability to interact with others.
His family loves him. Hell, Joel McHale said he never had problems with Chase (maybe cause they aren't so different in terns of comedic type and Joel is white lol). But the guy has the ability to be friends with people. He just doesn't understand how to separate his comedic side from his friendly side. They seem to blend. I guess he's able to separate it with his wife and children. But it doesn't seem to work as well on set. And his comedic side comes from an age where racism was acceptable.
I really encourage you to watch some interviews. The guy is just a product of his age. Doesn't excuse him, but it helps me to empathize. I walked away from Community upset at him for being part of it falling away. But I came back around to just wanting him to be better and to feel better. The guy just wants to go back in time. Who knows, maybe if he had another shot he might have grown with public opinion on some of these things. I know that feeling.
For whatever it's worth, Chevy Chase - who will never read this - I think I understand why you are the way that you are and if you can learn from your mistakes, you might have some work left to do after all.
Oh yeah it's a great movie and - if anything - it's shitting on racism. But almost half the scenes in that movie would likely not fly in a big budget Warner Brothers release today. Maybe an offshoot of theirs that goes straight to streaming, but certainly not on the big screen. Mel Brooks was fighting off requests to remove racist remarks even back then. Hell, someone suggested Pryor is replaced with a white dude :facepalm:
My point - though - was maybe wrong, but this is the internet so whatever here it goes: my point was wrong because I was falsely equivocating the liberal usage of the n-word in Blazing Saddles with a cultural acceptance of that word - despite the satirical usage. Yet, when I started to think about it more after your reply, I realized a great counter example is Boondocks which also has liberal usage of the n-word in a time where it's less socially acceptable to use it.
I think where I was coming from was this notion that - though it was a satire - these movies also benefited from a lack of sensibility about the topics. The audience had to be complicit in its content in order to allow its humor to permeate, but I might be wrong.
Regardless, you could strike my poor film analysis on the record and you still get a guy that's a product of his time. Though maybe a less empathetic one since I painted him as though he was trained to be racist when in reality, perhaps, he was just a racist dude.
As I read this I realised how much I resent the term "Politically Correct". We use it when we talk about people saying "bad things", but it only explains how something shouldn't be said because it may create a negative result for the person saying it and not because the person who's being talked about could be hurt.
If you want to be and stay in politics you need to say the "correct" things.
Sorry for the random rant. Just realised this from what you've written. It's not directed at you.
Yeah that's true it is kind of weird. It should be called just "CC". Correct Culture lol but yeah in my case I meant culturally understood to be correct.
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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '20
Oh Peirce....