April 13, 2015

EP. 70 — Racist Stuff White People Believe

The entertainment industry has a great way of being subtly racist while proclaiming their open-mindedness. Case in point: the Sony email hack revealed the studio didn’t pursue a sequel to the Denzel Washington film ‘The Equalizer’ because “the international motion picture audience is racist.” No, not America, we solved that whole racism thing, it’s the rest of the world that’s racist.

Look at the triumph of new network shows like ‘Empire’ and ‘Black-ish.’ The media decries their success as random or flukey when actually there’s a much simpler and less demeaning explanation for their accomplishments: people want to watch shows about the African-American experience and it’s a market that’s vastly under-served.

This week on the podcast, Cracked editor-in-chief Jack O’Brien sits down for 3 conversations about the racist stuff in pop-culture that white people just don’t see. First, he is joined by Kevin Avery of ‘Last Week Tonight’ and ‘Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period,’ then he hops on the phone with Kid Fury and Crissle West from ‘The Read,’ and wraps up with a conversation with ‘Yo Is This Racist?’ host Andrew Ti.

Recent Episodes

January 26, 2020

Freedom sucks…and that is why we have to defend it. Because our democracy involves doing a lot of stuff that takes energy, takes time, and lacks that Michael Bay Quality that only a surprise missile launch can provide. So on this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt and special guest Jason Pargin (who writes for Cracked as David Wong) are exploring the ways being afraid of everything (an easy action) can stop us from being free. Discover the decades-long tradition of some Americans wanting to give up everything in exchange for not needing to think, the centuries-long tradition of people inciting fake panics, and the reasonable ways you can help change things for the better.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/why-fear-based-democracies-arenE28099t-free-with-jason-pargin/

January 19, 2020

How’s your local shopping mall doing? Have you checked on it lately? Swing by sometime, because its department store might’ve turned into a call center or a hospital or a go-kart track. On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by the one and only Kai Ryssdal (Marketplace, Make Me Smart) for a look at surprising, strange, and shocking stories from all over the U.S. economy. Discover an international pig flu, a 26-word statement that built the modern Internet, and more amazing ways cash is ruling everything around you. By the way, if you’re an American listener, you spent the past few years funding an astonishingly huge bailout. Surprise! Listen for details!

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/5-parts-u.s.-economy-that-are-stranger-than-you-think

January 12, 2020

Movies, TV, gaming: three things that are theoretically a waste of time. Oh sure, they deliver value in the art sense, and comfort in the goofing-off sense. But what if they’re more valuable than that? What if consuming shows and playing video games (accidentally) turns people into real-life heroes? On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians/writers Caitlin Gill and Alex Watt for a look at the surprising number of times that exact thing happened. They’ll explore stories of regular people who saved a life thanks to skills gained randomly from cartoons, sitcoms, ‘World Of Warcraft’, and more silly entertainment.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/9-times-pop-culture-accidentally-taught-people-to-save-lives/