Download Lugo Original Research: Black American Humor through Time

Original Research: Black American Humor through Time
Sarah Lugo
Ted Gournelos
CMC 400
March 26th, 2011
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ABSTRACT: Through researching past stand up comedians from the mid 1900s to
contemporary stand up comedians, my original research of how Black humor has been
represented throughout the years will show how racial humor has changed and
developed in time. For my original research, I have done an in depth content analysis of
several comedians’ stand-up shows. The comedians I evaluate are Richard Pryor to
represent the 60s and 70s, followed by Eddie Murphy (80s and 90s), and Dave Chapelle
and Chris Rock to represent contemporary Black stand up comedy. By coding the
similarities and differences in the framework of Black stand up humor, this content
analysis will be helpful in evaluating the discourse of racial humor today and how it has
established itself.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
It is important to know the historical context of Black American relations were in
different phases of equality and inequality at the height of Pryor, Murphy, Chapelle and
Rocks’ careers. For Pryor, his popularity came after the post-war economic boom, which
resulted in many conflicts over discrimination in housing, jobs and education (Race 1).
His comedy also came at a time when the civil rights movement was in full effect,
including Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in 1963. Then in the 70’s,
affirmative action started to develop, starting with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Act in 1972, which meant that a person could not be discriminated against for their race
when applying for employment. The concept of affirmative action was soon challenged
in the Bakke versus University of California Supreme Court ruling.
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Affirmative action continued to be challenged by Americans including the 1986
case of Wygant versus Jackson Board of Education when the supreme court believed that
the school boards’ policy of “protecting minority teachers by laying off non-minority
teachers regardless of seniority was unconstitutional” (Race 1). This was also when Eddie
Murphy was doing stand up in the 80’s. There were many issues with immigration and
the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 followed by an anti-immigrant
movement during this time.
In the mid 1990’s, when Chris Rock began stand up comedy after leaving
Saturday Night Live, racial profiling became more publicized. A familiar example would
be the 1992 race riots after police officers were declared innocent after film footage
showed the officers beating up a Black man, Rodney King. Cases of racial profiling and
brutality were becoming more and more common targeting minority races.
At the start of the 21st century, racial profiling in the United States transitioned
from mostly Black and Hispanic targets to Middle Eastern Americans targets followed by
the September 11th attacks. Contemporary comedian Dave Chapelle became popular in
the 21st century with his sketch comedy shows as well as his stand-up shows. On top of
issues with Middle Eastern American discrimination in post 9-11, affirmative action was
challenged again in the Grutter versus Bollinger case of 2003 and the Parents versus
Seattle and Meredith versus Jefferson cases of 2006, whereby concerns were addressed
about schools accepting students because of their race in an attempt to create diversity
was deemed unconstitutional.
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CONTENT ANALYSIS
For this content analysis I chose to look at several stand-up shows from each
comedian. Regarding Richard Pryor, I analyzed his stand-up, That Nigger’s Crazy, which
uses humor to embrace and empower Blackness. In studying Eddie Murphy, I observed
his stand up shows Delirious and Raw whereby Murphy targets many immigrants in his
jokes as well as making fun of Blacks. I also looked at Chris Rocks Bring the Pain, Big
Ass Jokes, and Bigger & Blacker. In order to study the Black American humor in Dave
Chapelle’s stand-up shows, I observed For What It’s Worth. After observing these scenes,
I established that many of these comedians’ jokes have overlapping themes in which they
use Black humor. Those themes included the use of self-deprecation humor, humor about
racial inequality, White dominance, and Blackness. Relating the comedians’ shows to the
era in which they were preformed show just how much Black humor has transformed
with historic events.
Richard Pryors’ use of Black humor in That Nigger’s Crazy included humor
where he made fun of the antics that some “niggers” do. From a micro point of view, it is
evident that he is using the term “nigger” lightly to refer to anyone while gearing his
comedy toward Blacks. At one point in That Nigger’s Crazy, Pryor makes humor in
comparing Whites to Blacks and saying that Whites are uptight, quiet when they eat and
when they have sex, while “niggers” have rhythm and make noise. He goes further into
the Black versus White comparison by stating that a Black man would have handled the
scenes in The Exorcist movie differently–nonchalantly and without fear. Pryor is not
intending to make humor of his own race in a destructive sense, but rather, making
Blackness distinct from Whiteness. In turn, it is clear he is speaking to a Black audience.
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At a macro perspective, we know that this is expected in that discrimination and fighting
for civil rights were at its height, while this Black humor was being presented. Through
this critical analysis of this piece, we can also understand that Pryor is trying to make
Blackness as not the “other”.
Likewise, Eddie Murphy’s stand ups construct a Black humor that also attempts
to make Blackness distinct. Alternatively though, he does so by comparing Blacks from
immigrants. In Raw, he jokes that Japanese wives are timid and obedient and that he
needs to go to Africa and get a “bush bitch” that would be “naked on a zebra”, as in a
native African who would not know about the culture of African American wives being
greedy and wanting prenuptials. Later in the stand up, Murphy begins to criticize ItalianAmericans and tells a humorous story about how we was with a short Italian American
who tried to boss him around and say “this nigger’s gonna buy my candy”. Murphy’s
Black humor varies from Pryor in that he is speaking to neither a Black nor White
audience and that he is making fun of Blackness in comparison to immigrants. In doing
this, Murphy is reflecting the era of Black humor when Black and White segregation was
transitioning toward anti-immigrants humor. From a macro level, we can see that Black
humor began to evolve from a White versus Black approach to self-justification. Even at
one point in Murphy’s stand up Delirious he is making fun of the idea that if there were
modern day slavery then a White man asking a Black to “pick this cotton” would cue the
response “suck my dick”. We can learn from this era that the Black humor seemed to
become more defensive of the Black race rather than Pryor’s example of distinguishing
Blackness through humor.
A few years later, it feels as though Chris Rock picked up right where Eddie
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Murphy left off in regards to immigration, expressed in his show Bigger & Blacker he
made the joke that Black people can’t categorize Whites, they hate all White people, even
the White immigrants. Even more progressively, Chris Rocks’ show Bring the Pain, he
rants about how Black people hate niggers and how there is a difference between Black
people and niggers, in that niggers “ruin everything for Blacks”. For example, Rock goes
on to say that Black people do not care about welfare, whereas “niggers” rely on it. He
makes “niggers” the target of his jokes in an attempt to separate Blackness into a superior
and an “other”. At the time when Rock was making this humor in 1996, racial profiling
began to further develop and was a major tribulation for the Black community. Chris
Rock in Bigger & Blacker makes humor out of affirmative action in his joke about how
“White men think they are losing shit…but no one would ever want to trade places with
me and I’m rich”. Chris Rock in Big Ass Jokes makes a joke that a Black man is not
successful without a White girl and every Black guy needs a White girl to make them feel
accomplished. Rocks’ performance indicates that Black humor began to recognize how
civil rights and racial equality are expressed in comedy.
In a more contemporary sense, Dave Chappelle’s Black humor offers a different
perspective in that he presumes that we are so far beyond racism that he makes humor out
of Black stereotypes and racial hierarchy. In his stand up For What It’s Worth he begins
by rhetorically asking the audience how anyone could hate watermelon and chicken and
that it would never be a reason to hate someone. He then makes fun of White people by
saying they have done a good job at keeping their food a secret. There is another instance
where he uses racial humor; he talks about how Native Americans are at the bottom of
the racial hierarchy because everyone thinks they are all dead. By analyzing the stand-up
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shows, Chappelle’s humor is clearly the most contemporary in that he, like many other
modern Black comedians, has a clear understanding of race in America and what race
means for Black America.
CONCLUSION
While the underlining ideas around each comedian’s Black humor varies, they
shared several similarities including the reinforcement of racial hierarchy, selfdeprecation humor, humor about racial inequality, humor in White dominance, humor in
Blackness, and humor in Otherness. This critical content analysis demonstrates the trends
and differences in which Black American humor has transitioned and developed to meet
present-day comedy. In analyzing how racial humor is constructed it is important to
know how black comedy differs over the years is regard to contemporary racial humor.
“On my honor I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance
on this piece of work” – Sarah Lugo
Work Cited
"Race - Are We So Different? A Project of the American Anthropological
Association."RACE. Ed. Mary Margaret Overbey Ph.D. American Anthropological
Association, 2011. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. <http://www.understandingrace.org/>.