During the recent comedy festival, I attended a one-woman comedy show with a reviewer friend of
mine, a Chinese-New Zealander that lets call John.
As with many stand up comedy shows, there was a fair amount of participation, namely the performer taking guys up onto stage to re-enact bad dates or embarrassing romantic encounters she’d had in the past. Part way through the show, she mentions race for the first time (leading me to believe the other characters of her show, the lawyer, the recovering alcoholic et. al. must all have been white). She begins her bit as usual, introducing her audience to her male counterpart, in this case a “large Samoan man” who in her imagination begins randomly dancing with her on the street. Looking out at the (mostly white) audience, she scouts for her next participant, her eyes latch onto John’s
“come up here and help me with this one will you?”
I suppress thinking it odd that her already problematic Samoan character is going to be played by the only POC in the front row – and the only one she’s engaged with in her show so far. John however is obliging, he gets up and dances with her and as the music fades dances back to his seat. This is when she announces:
“Guess I’m not getting any chop suey tonight then”
John and I are frozen. Shock across my face, a grimace on his. The audience laughs, I can hear a guy behind us repeat the joke to his friends“Chop suey! Good one!”
Now as a performer myself, I see layers upon layers of what is wrong here. Audience participation has fine lines of consent, and dragging someone up onto stage, promising them they won’t be humiliated and then making them the butt of a racist joke, without question betrays that trust. Think back to #oscarssowhite where three young Asian children were cast as accountants, to be the butt of Chris Rock’s racist joke. One of the three, Estie Kung, came forward with her mother to say that they had no idea of the extent of the joke being made, until after they had already signed the contract.
We have an immense issue with casual racism within every facet of our entertainment system. This system consistently exploits those within it, like Estie and her family who had to face the impossible position of learning that their daughter was about to be the butt of a racist joke which would be talked about across the world, and like John who in good faith accepted an invitation onto the stage only to be used as fodder for an inappropriate joke. The POC who are involved in these 'artistic' acts of racism don't get to give consent and these jokes are definitely not on their terms, not to mention the affects of these discourses on the wider communities they target.
As with many stand up comedy shows, there was a fair amount of participation, namely the performer taking guys up onto stage to re-enact bad dates or embarrassing romantic encounters she’d had in the past. Part way through the show, she mentions race for the first time (leading me to believe the other characters of her show, the lawyer, the recovering alcoholic et. al. must all have been white). She begins her bit as usual, introducing her audience to her male counterpart, in this case a “large Samoan man” who in her imagination begins randomly dancing with her on the street. Looking out at the (mostly white) audience, she scouts for her next participant, her eyes latch onto John’s
“come up here and help me with this one will you?”
I suppress thinking it odd that her already problematic Samoan character is going to be played by the only POC in the front row – and the only one she’s engaged with in her show so far. John however is obliging, he gets up and dances with her and as the music fades dances back to his seat. This is when she announces:
“Guess I’m not getting any chop suey tonight then”
John and I are frozen. Shock across my face, a grimace on his. The audience laughs, I can hear a guy behind us repeat the joke to his friends“Chop suey! Good one!”
Now as a performer myself, I see layers upon layers of what is wrong here. Audience participation has fine lines of consent, and dragging someone up onto stage, promising them they won’t be humiliated and then making them the butt of a racist joke, without question betrays that trust. Think back to #oscarssowhite where three young Asian children were cast as accountants, to be the butt of Chris Rock’s racist joke. One of the three, Estie Kung, came forward with her mother to say that they had no idea of the extent of the joke being made, until after they had already signed the contract.
We have an immense issue with casual racism within every facet of our entertainment system. This system consistently exploits those within it, like Estie and her family who had to face the impossible position of learning that their daughter was about to be the butt of a racist joke which would be talked about across the world, and like John who in good faith accepted an invitation onto the stage only to be used as fodder for an inappropriate joke. The POC who are involved in these 'artistic' acts of racism don't get to give consent and these jokes are definitely not on their terms, not to mention the affects of these discourses on the wider communities they target.
Comedians, and other creatives and performers, often defend
their right to be controversial in their jokes as a way of causing audience
reaction and subverting. However, who
these statements comes from matters.While POC individuals remain the butt of the joke, rather than the one in control, they are not socially subversive, but rather plain racist.
I have just written a similar blog post about Casual Racism amongst comedians. People need to realize why they are laughing and how this affects others and themselves. Many comedians claim that everyone is too "PC" these days...but since when is being politically correct and courteous to people a bad thing?
ReplyDelete