We've Got a Ghost, and Perhaps a Double-Standard As Well.

I was watching a new netflix movie yesterday called We've Got a Ghost, a toss off run-of-the-mill comedy about a black family that unknowingly moves into a haunted house, and I noticed one thing that struck me as interesting. When the family becomes aware that the house is indeed haunted, the mother exclaims "We're not staying in a haunted house like a bunch of stupid white people!"

Now I understand the humor, I get it, and I had to chuckle, because we are all aware of course of the many spooky movies wherein a young white couple or family refuses to leave the house, often citing financial investment as the cause of their stubbornness, or perhaps disbelief on the part of the adult figures.

But I couldn't help but wonder how such a joke would go over if aimed at black people. For example, "We're not going to run away from ghosts like a bunch of stupid black people!" Not very well, I suspect; for although this is also a familiar stereotype (black people being especially fearful of ghosts), it is certainly not a joke that would be considered appropriate these days.

And so I understood for the first time how certain people might be offended by a seeming inequality in what can be said, what we can laugh at. In short, it is okay for white people in the movies to be called stupid, but not for black people. You see? 

Not that I have a problem with being called stupid, because after all I am stupid. But as far as I'm concerned, so is everyone else, and we ought not to be so sensitive about it. And if we are going to be invited to laugh at movie stereotypes of the comedic sort, I suppose we ought to be able to laugh at all of them without feeling that we have been brutishly insensitive. 

Just an observation, that's all.