On his March 26, 2014, show, Stephen Colbert did a piece on the Washington Redskins’ owner Dan Snyder’s new foundation for “Original Americans.” The Redskins’ owner has dug in his heels in defiance of pressure to change the name of his franchise because that name is offensive to Native Americans. His foundation is a patent, pathetic, and in fact itself offensive PR effort that well deserves any scorn that a satirist like Stephen Colbert might heap on it.
But Asian Americans do not deserve the manner in which Stephen Colbert chose to satirize Snyder’s initiative.
In the persona that he adpots for the show, “Stephen Colbert,” Stephen Colbert revealed that “The Colbert Report” had itself taken heat for its mascot: a Chinaman named Ching-Chong Ding-Dong. He showed a clip that had aired on a 2005 episode of the show featuring Ching-Chong Ding-Dong interacting with an intern, telling her in broken English that if she kissed his teacup, he wouldn’t need sugar, and if she hopped on his rickshaw, he would drive her to Bangkok (with the obvious sexual innuendo, Bang-cock). After the clip, “Colbert,” announced his own initiative, modeled on that of Snyder: The Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Asians or Whatever.
Just that phrase, outside of the total context of Colbert’s piece, appeared on Twitter, posted by an account called @ColbertReport, and it quickly generated a rage hashtag campaign #CancelColbert, spearheaded by social activist Suey Park.
The ensuing controversy has broken along predictable lines: some Asian-Americans voicing their displeasure and calling for the show’s cancellation and some fans of the show arguing, first, that the Twitter post that originally prompted the controversy was out of context (and not provided by the show itself) and, second, that the people who are offended simply don’t understand how Colbert’s comedy works, and that, in its total context, nothing Colbert did should be regarded as offensive. One might be offended by what “Colbert” said, but not by what Colbert did. If you are offended, you’re a humorless social justice warrior--and a dolt who doesn’t understand how Colbert’s comedy works to boot.
I do understand how Colbert’s humor works. I watch the show regularly. I enjoy it. (I enjoyed this bit.) I get it: “Stephen Colbert” is a character that Stephen Colbert plays. “Stephen Colbert” is a self-absorbed, conservative pundit who regularly says politically-incorrect things in a smug cluelessness as to how offensive they might be. Earlier in the episode, with his characteristic cultural insensitivity, he called Belgians “waffle-eating mayo dippers,” and no one expects that Belgians will get up in arms.
I get it. They’re two guys. You don’t blame Carroll O’Connor for the things Archie Bunker says. And the fact that, in the case of Stephen Colbert/”Stephen Colbert,” the actor and the character share the same name is just part of the fun.
For all that, Stephen Colbert is not, I think, entirely off the hook for all of the offensive material in the segment. Supoorters of Colbert are, I concede, correct about one thing. The material that prompted the outrage, the tweeted phrase “Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever” is, in the full context of the satire, in the voice of “Stephen Colbert.” And therefore anyone who gets how the Colbert Show operates knows to take this as an example of the kind of thing a bigoted person says, not a bigoted statement in its own right. The over-the-top cluelessness of “Orientals” and “Or Whatever” make it a self-advertising case of parody.
The rage hashtag campagain is therefore easily answered. Too easily answered, in fact, I think, with a knee-jerk reply that supporters of Colbert have grown accustomed, rightly, to providing to those who miss the joke: it’s not Colbert, it’s “Colbert”; it’s not an offensive comment; it’s an example of what an offensive comment sounds like in the kind of people who make the. Ho hum. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Because that charge is so easily answered, though, it has kept people from realizing the complexity of both the satire and the offensiveness in this bit. Asian Americans aren’t wrong to be offended; it’s just that the initial campaign picked up on the wrong thing to be offended about. And even supporters of Colbert should take the time to appreciate how much more daring than usual this particular instance of his characteristic mode of humor is.
For Colbert’s joke to work, he had to start by deliberately offending people of a particular ethnicity. This is not “Colbert’s” “waffle-eating mayo dippers.” Ching-Chong Ding-Dong is something that the real live Stephen Colbert had been taken to task for by Asian Media Watch, and that he has used sparingly if at all since that 2005 episode. Stephen Colbert knows that Ching-Chong Ding-Dong crosses the line. Why would that be, when “Stehpen Colbert” can say so many offensive, politically incorrect things and no one bats an eye?
Because it involves direct mimicry, against which even people who allow good-natured multicultural ribbing tend to draw a line.
Now that mimicry was, in Wednesday’s bit, very carefully framed as something done years ago on the show. But it was acknowledged as something actually offensive. That Colbert knows that it is actually offensive was signaled in part by “Colbert” quickly and defensively labeling it “not” offensive; he’s the guy who’s always got these things wrong, right? Appreciate Colbert’s daring, here: he resurrected a bit that he knows actually offends Asian Americans, so that “Colbert” could then offer an olive branch as lame as Snyder’s to Native Americans. Thus parodying Snyder. We know how the whole thing works. But the whole thing doesn’t generally involve knowingly committing an actual offense. That’s the bold stroke in this case.
But that also means that Ching-Chong Ding-Dong can rightly be regarded as offensive to Asian Americans, with an offensiveness not entirely recuperated by the satirical context. And for several reasons. First, the mimicry has no equivalent in the Snyder situation being satirized. Redskins = Ching-Chong. Check. Original Americans Foundation = Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals. Check. But what is Snyder’s equivalent of the whole Ching-Chong mockery? Has Snyder gone around slapping his open mouth saying Woo woo woo woo, as the stereotypical Native American (actually Indian, or Redskin, would be the right word here) does? No. Colbert’s mimicry has no equivalent in the offensive situation he is satirizing.
I say Colbert’s mimicry, not “Colbert’s.” Because that’s the other unsettling thing here. Who voices Ching-Chong Ding-Dong? “Colbert”? Voices the mascot for his own show? I don’t think so. I think Ching-Chong Ding-Dong is another character voiced by Stephen Colbert. This is subjective, but I at least get a sense that Stephen Colbert takes immense pleasure, a kind of childish glee, in delivering this imitation of a horny Chinaman he’s worked up (and clearly practiced).
Does that make him a racist, and we should call for the cancellation of his show? For myself, I don’t think so, and as a fan, I’d be sad to see the show go. Does it make him as capable of being as ethnically ignorant and insensitive as any of the rest of us. I think that could safely be acknowledged even by ardent fans.
A "proportional number of roles" set-aside specifically for Asian actors?
Yes, that is exactly what 
