After a video compilation of Joe Rogan frequently using the n-word went viral, Spotify removed 70 episodes of his popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. “I know that to most people, there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now,” he said in a video apology before calling the backlash a “political hit job.”
You won’t hear Samuel L. Jackson on a podcast — “I can’t talk for an hour without saying something f*cked up,” he explained — but he discussed Rogan’s comments in an interview with the Times. “He is saying nobody understood the context when he said it,” he said, rolling his eyes. “But he shouldn’t have said it. It’s not the context, dude — it’s that he was comfortable doing it. Say that you’re sorry because you want to keep your money, but you were having fun and you say you did it because it was entertaining.”
It’s a different situation, Jackson contends, than Quentin Tarantino using the word over 100 times in the script for Django Unchained.
“It needs to be an element of what the story is about. A story is context, but just to elicit a laugh? That’s wrong,” he explained. “While we were rehearsing Django Unchained, [Leonardo DiCaprio] said, ‘I don’t know if I can say ‘n*gger’ this many times.’ Me and Quentin said that you have to. Every time someone wants an example of overuse of the n-word, they go to Quentin — it’s unfair. He’s just telling the story and the characters do talk like that. When Steve McQueen does it, it’s art. He’s an artiste.” Jackson, who has defended the Oscar winner in the past, called Tarantino “just a popcorn film-maker.”
You can read the rest of the interview here. But also: Samuel L. Jackson should absolutely start a podcast. I wouldn’t even skip through the ad reads if he’s doing them.
(Via the Times)
