Ed Andrews: Reda vs. Godzirrra
A look at Giovanni Reda and the line between humour and offense.
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If you haven't ever watched Wednesdays with Reda on The Berrics website, then I suggest you do. For those unfamiliar, they are short fly-on-the-wall ‘documentaries’ with loudmouth New York skate photographer Giovanni Reda hanging out with various people while generally throwing insults at them. In recent episodes, he asks Daniel Castillo, “How does it feel when you wake up and look at yourself and think, ’Wow I’m creepy,’” repeatedly punches Brandon Biebel and raids Stefan Janoski’s closet asking, “You fucking walk around in that thing?” Reda is someone who I can identify with; loud, boorish, playfully obnoxious and probably a bit annoying, but ultimately hilarious!
But watching this week’s episode, I became a little uncomfortable. Reda was following an Oakley team trip to Japan with Eric Koston, Atiba Jefferson, Ty Evans and others. From the off, Reda was true to form. Calling every Asian person he saw ‘Kenny’, asking his translator and others where ‘Godzirrra’ is and calling Japan “The Puerta Rican Island of China”. At one point, he gets his translator to say words he can’t pronounce properly like ‘literally’ and ‘apparently’. He picks out one Japanese kid and calls him ‘Short Round’ (Indiana Jones’ Temple of Doom sidekick) and asks him what other movies he was in apart from The Goonies. You get the general idea.
It was funny, yeah, but there was something unsettling about the whole thing. Was he being racist and belittling? Was this just a group of arrogant Americans going over to another country and insulting everything about it? What shocked me most, however, were my own double standards.
Reda is Reda, and this is what he does. Should he suddenly stop taking the piss out of someone just because they are from another country? Is it racist in itself to suddenly be formally polite to someone of a different background to yourself when you are joking with people from your ‘own country’? Was I just seeing Reda as ‘an American’ and grouping him in with so many common prejudices? Aren’t these just a group of people getting to know one another by making fun of them?
I’m not sure I can answer this. It’s a complicated issue and people’s level of sensitivity and humour vary. Where the line is drawn will always be subjective. There seem to be some taboos of what you can and can’t joke about but there is no real central logic or reason governing this, just people’s own conscience. It also all depends on how well you know someone. I speak from experience. I have sometimes overstepped the mark and inadvertently upset people with a risqué joke when my motivation was actually just to get on with them. But hey, you say it, you have to deal with the consequences.
But what I do feel is that humour breaks down barriers. Nothing seems to unite a group of people like banter and you often find your humour being the most rude and cutting to the people you have the most love for. If we all start getting uptight and overly sensitive about the issue, it becomes a massive problem in itself. I would hate to live in a world where everyone tip-toed around each other, stumbling over their words to find the most politically correct term and then being
completely paranoid that something they said may be taken the wrong way by someone, somewhere.
Instead, I’d prefer it if we all kick back and let a few insults fly, knowing that deep down there is absolutely no prejudice, malice or hatred behind the words, merely a genuine desire to co-exist in harmony. I’d much rather live in a world full of Redas than some humourless, po-faced robots. As one Australian once said to me while making jokes about New Zealanders, “Yeah, we rip it out of them, but if it came down to it, we’d happily die for them.”
It can be a massive can of worms and I’m sure many would disagree with me, but watch Reda’s cultural excursion for yourself and see what you think...
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Reda vs. Godzirrra (text) by Ed Andrews is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.Comments (9)
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I'm not saying there's not a time and a place for this kind of humour - being Scottish I'm all about 'the banter.' Comedians do it all the time and have done wonders for breaking down social taboos over the years. However, they approach such subjects with wit and the goal of amusing an audience, where as this is just self indulgent crap, I'm sorry.
The point about shifting comedic sensibilities in different situation and with different groups is something every comedian should consider.And there's nothing wrong with analysing your own motivations and prejudices (good and bad) when you find something funny. Ed had the balls to question what he was laughing at and write about it, which is commendable.
Also, I watched the video. most of it was funny shit, but some it was simple, outdated stereotypes that in truth were pretty offensive.
you know nothing about reda.
and you forgot to mention the fact
that he called every asian "kenny"
because kenny is a friend of redas who happens
to be a little asian. never-the-less i expected more from
this sort of publication.
2and a half stars out of 30 hamburgers.
How does that make it not offensive? I still think Ed's right. There's some old stereotypes in the vid - cheap shots, that really we should have moved on from.