does this offend you?

[Ezra]

It is a generic European guy,he could be Italien, French.

They aren't called Les Onion Rings, nor is he called Moniseur, so l cannot be offended. Tu es fou. Just joking.

Might be more pertinent if the product was French fries instead of onion rings.

 

[Els]

Is this packaging offensive? Seems to me it shows a stereotypical French person:-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Johnnys-Onion-Rings-24-50g/dp/B00IQS8DL6

I'm French, it made me laugh. This drawing is so ugly, it's really to keep in the file of horrors you wish never happened (joking).

What I don't like is that there's no coherence. It's called Johnny, it's onion rings, I mean, the thing just doesn't make sense. At least put cheese and garlic and don't make it out of corn. Come on !!! Lol, just kidding.

It might be offensive in itself if you think about stereotypes and so on, but it's so ridiculous I don't think you can take it seriously.

 

[Els]

I never even ate onion rings. Ahah!

 

[Karamazov]

I never even ate onion rings. Ahah!

Well, if you ever want to spend a day with acid reflux and burps that should be banned under chemical weapons treaties: give them a go!

 

[Fino]

Are stereotypes that are not inherently insulting offensive? For example, a stereotype that a particular group of people of violent is offensive, but a stereotype like this one doesn't seem to entail anything offensive other than its inaccuracy.

 

[Judge]

Kirk: "LOL. I know Mr. Chekov would say that onion rings were invented in Russia."

Spock: "Captain, actually onion rings were first documented in an 1802 cookbook authored by John Mollard. - An Englishman. But these aren't even real fried onion rings, French-fried or otherwise."

Kirk: "Full of all those twenty-first century cancer-causing preservatives, right Spock? At least they got the "Johnny" part right I suppose."

Spock: "Quite possibly, Captain."

 

[Hylian]

I don't think the design is offensive but its existence as a food product is offensive.

What would those even taste like? lol

 

[Gerontius]

I don't think the design is offensive but its existence as a food product is offensive.

What would those even taste like? lol

Do you mean when you eat them, or at about ten o'clock at night afterwards when you're sitting bolt upright in bed wondering why your tonsils feel like Satan hung his socks on them?

 

[Hylian]

Do you mean when you eat them, or at about ten o'clock at night afterwards when you're sitting bolt upright in bed wondering why your tonsils feel like Satan hung his socks on them?

That sounds wildly unpleasant. lmao

 

[Weirdo]

How do you know he's French? I thought Italians where the ones who played accordions.

And also I have to wonder what the depiction has to do with onion rings.

The sterotypical Frenchman has a ring of onions around his neck.

 

[Ezra]

The sterotypical Frenchman has a ring of onions around his neck.

I had no idea. Learn something new every day on the interweb. And I didn't know they drank beer, I thought it was always wine or champagne.

 

[Saphira]

I believe they may be drinking Stella.

 

[Misery]

This trend of everyone finding every bloody little thing offensive is getting more than a bit old at this point.

I tend to think that for some people (specifically, those who get loud about it on social media) they're not REALLY offended... they're just using it to show off and tell others how superior they are to whoever did/said the "offensive" thing.

And besides, the group it's "targeting" might not even find it that way.

I remember on a recent video I saw on Youtube (an older video actually) people were going on about "Geez, that's so racist and inconsiderate" to something that was... just a joke, and not one done in bad taste (as there absolutely is a difference). And this guy chimes in, with a comment like "Okay, just stop. I'm black and I thought it was hilarious. Stop telling me what to be offended by. Get a life, all of you!"

I've had similar reactions to things like videos making jokes about LGBT people or the geek community or even autism. Sometimes, a joke really is just a joke. And plenty of times it really IS funny. Cant remember the last time I actually got offended by something like that. And when something does show up that IS vitriolic and nasty... well, just walk away. There's plenty of actual good videos and funny stuff to watch instead.

 

[MeghanWithAnH]

Are stereotypes that are not inherently insulting offensive? For example, a stereotype that a particular group of people of violent is offensive, but a stereotype like this one doesn't seem to entail anything offensive other than its inaccuracy.

It depends a lot on how the stereotypes have been used historically, and whether they were used against a group that is still oppressed today. For example, there's nothing inherently wrong with eating watermelon, but so many racists over the past couple of centuries have used it to insult African Americans (which is a baffling insult in itself), that the stereotype became so strongly connected to racist views that even a silly use of it is still rightfully suspicious.

In contrast, I don't know of any similar situation going on with the French, so there's much less danger of fairly neutral stereotypes being offensive. I suppose it could be annoying if someone was French and kept running into French people always being represented that way, but I'm not aware of any big ongoing anti-French discrimination that might take it past annoying into the realm of offensive.

 

[NothingToSeeHere]

I tend to think that for some people (specifically, those who get loud about it on social media) they're not REALLY offended... they're just using it to show off and tell others how superior they are to whoever did/said the "offensive" thing.

I agree this is at the heart of a large amount of the outrage on social media; a combination of virtue signaling and people soothing their conscience over being privileged and not doing anything real to overcome inequality.

The trend for getting offended over silly little things really undermines the aim to stop real discrimination.

 

[Jumpback]

How do you know he's French? I thought Italians where the ones who played accordions.

And also I have to wonder what the depiction has to do with onion rings.

I have bought and sold a couple old accordions and they were made in Italy.

 

[Jumpback]

Maybe it’s slightly offensive, but it isn’t going to actually have much affect on people’s views of the French

I consider views of certain rural white Americans pushed in the US to be offensive, since the message is so powerful that people in the rest of the world actually openly talk about incest among these people and toothlessness and on and on. Like maybe there is some inbreeding due to rural communities, but other groups like European royalty and Jewish populations have a very long history of such things and no one targets them. And things like rape of underage minors by family members are far worse in minority communities than in majority communities.


Like a goofy cartoon image is offensive, but it doesn’t matter so much if the view of French or Italians is not overwhelmingly negative. If people actually believed things like the US joke of the French being “surrender monkeys” due to WWI and WWII and this was just more piling on and more piling on and more piling on of how ridiculous the French are that would be one thing, but people don’t have a general negative image of the French like they do of poor white decendants of coal minors who live in a West Virginia.

 

[Jumpback]

This trend of everyone finding every bloody little thing offensive is getting more than a bit old at this point.

I tend to think that for some people (specifically, those who get loud about it on social media) they're not REALLY offended... they're just using it to show off and tell others how superior they are to whoever did/said the "offensive" thing.

The outrage has just ramped up and up, even with more and more tolerance.

Even from the right, “Deliverance” is probably a hate film directed by a British guy showing rural white Americans to be ridiculous and evil, but we have since then had “Tucker & Dale vs Evil” where the heroes are West Virginia rednecks fighting against prejudices and misunderstandings and so on.

 

[Gerontius]

It depends a lot on how the stereotypes have been used historically, and whether they were used against a group that is still oppressed today. For example, there's nothing inherently wrong with eating watermelon, but so many racists over the past couple of centuries have used it to insult African Americans (which is a baffling insult in itself), that the stereotype became so strongly connected to racist views that even a silly use of it is still rightfully suspicious.

In contrast, I don't know of any similar situation going on with the French, so there's much less danger of fairly neutral stereotypes being offensive. I suppose it could be annoying if someone was French and kept running into French people always being represented that way, but I'm not aware of any big ongoing anti-French discrimination that might take it past annoying into the realm of offensive.

So I like old music. You have to watch out because some of it is pretty racist... But have you ever heard of Polk Miller & the Old South Quartette? Polk was a Confederate veteran and the OSQ, at least two of them, were freedmen. (Their names weren't published because it was dangerous to doxx somebody back in the 1900s.)

Anyway, in 1908-ish they got a contract with Thomas Edison to make phonograph records, which they did. In 1909 they made the first interracial record, "The Bonnie Blue Flag," a Confederate marching song. They did cut one record in 1910 that fits the discussion pretty well: it's called "Watermelon Party." Miller did not sing on that one, only the O.S.Q. (Miller may have been playing the guitar.) Racist slurs? yep. Black people & watermelons? yep. Actually racist? No, actually not. It's people having a really good time. Cancel culture would go too far by erasing them.

I have that one on four-minute cylinder for my phonograph but the record is available on YouTube or the UCSB cylinder archive to listen for free.

As far as the reason black people & watermelons became associated: it was cheap to grow them. They're really easy to grow, and they were considered slave food, like raccoons (which led to another racial slur.) Anyway, same goes with chicken: it's pretty easy to raise chickens and it used to be pretty easy to steal them too, out of an open hen house or out of a bush they would sleep in. People would incorporate bits of this into the old minstrel shows, which were packaging black life for white consumption even during the days of slavery (got to make everybody feel good about it--like Beyonce does with her feminist views, while her sweatshop laborers can't afford to live decently.)

We are no better than people were back then, as a culture, and I say in some regards we may be worse, even if we have made great advancements in other areas of social life.

The whole thing is pretty complex, which is why I turn, personally, to Catholicism. Love thy neighbor, and In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free is a lot easier to keep up with than the willful offensiveness of the MAGA crowd, and the ideological colonialism of the American left. Forget Right and Left, I wish we would go back to right and wrong.

And for sure I wouldn't eat those onion rings.

 

[Judge]

Kirk: "And that little man, Spock. What's with that? How could he be a Frenchman? He's not even bald!"
Spock: "Indeed Captain, he should be bald."
Kirk: "Make it so, Number One."
Spock: "You're out of character, Captain. Commodore Roddenberry would be most displeased."
Kirk: "I think you're right, Spock."
Spock: "Think, Captain? Now I'm offended!"
Kirk: "Never mind. Hey, I thought Vulcans cannot be offended. Get a grip, Leonard."
Spock: "I just might do that, Bill."