Satirical impression of “Stuff White People Like”
Christian Lander (Courtesy of Collin Dwarzski/Keppler Speakers )
An eclectic group of about 250 attended guest speaker Christian Lander’s show, “Stuff White People Like,” at the McKinney Theatre last Wednesday. Fans laughed and applauded as Lander’s ridiculed the social class of “white people.”
The audience was composed of mostly white students and instructors who seemed to enjoy Lander’s satirical lampoon of any Caucasian of the upper-middle class descent, or those sometimes referred to as yuppies or Bobos. His comedic routine recounted incidents that astounded him during his meteoric rise in the spring of 2008 from blogger to best-selling author on the New York Times best-seller list with his book “Stuff White People Like.” He had the audience laughing the entire 90-minute show.
There’s always a happy ending. Look at the potato famine. Everything worked out awesome,” Lander said enthusiastically, touting the success ethics of “white people.”
Lander pointed out a few identifying stereotypical characteristics of white people including “owning a Prius, loving the movie “Juno,” and liking only the idea of soccer, but never playing.
Lander then followed up with a few sage generalization about white people including, “The biggest put down for a white guy is to be called ‘average.’ The hurt just keeps on hurting. A week later the guy will go, ‘Aw…why did he say that?'”
A student yelled “Trader Joe’s!” and subsequently received the Most White Phrase award. Pointing out what it really takes, Lander said, “You don’t have to be white to be White, you just have to be rich.”
Living proof of his philosophy, Lander said, “There’s no ethnic slur that sticks against white people. Nothing bad can come from making fun of them.”
Lander went on to describe the Caucasian race as “the most progressive group in the history of humanity.”
“No matter what sort of disaster happens, white people can make up for it in five minutes,” Lander said.
While his career has had a dramatic upside, there were a few disappointments, Lander said. His experiences include a 20-minute appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, but she decided to cut him out of the final production.
Lander said his slot was cut by the network vice presidents because another celebrity took up his time, who coincidentally happened to be his childhood hero.
Later, Fox wanted to do a sitcom where a white male is taught how to be an “actual white person” by a very hip African-American.
As Lander recounts it, the Fox premise was that a much cooler black person would take over as a mentor for the white guy, who can’t quite be cool enough to be white. Just before going into production, Fox executives sought out the demographics of the probable audience. Finding it to be practically non-existent, Fox dropped the sitcom idea.