David Chappelle.
Arguably one of the greatest stand up comedians decided to walk away from stand
up after two successful seasons. Why? On one hand the extent to which the fame
and fortune was effecting him mentally drove him out of his career, on the other
hand however Chappelle felt that he was reinforcing stereotypes instead of
deconstructing them. This takes me back to our lesson on progressive and
regressive comedy. In a nutshell the former contributes to positive social
progress on matters of 'race' and ethnicity; the latter is the reverse.
Chappelle's
comedy was overt racism, quite explicit to the extent where names of some skits were racist such as 'white is right'. But which definition
of racial comedy comes into play in terms of Chappelle's stand up? According to
Chappelle it was regressive comedy. Although his intentions were not to do
so, he felt that his career was holding back social movements by reinforcing
what people were already thinking about African-Americans. Through his jokes
Chappelle was normalising stereotypical ideals of African-Americans thus
leaving behind an impression that, since it's coming from an insider of the
marginalized group, these stereotypes are okay.
Racism
and social identity are such controversial topics that comedy has been used as
a coping mechanism. The subtlety
in such jokes allows for audiences to laugh first, think later. Where audiences would enter the environment and anticipate racial slurs as has been normalised over time - they would laugh at, then give second thought about the underlying racism issue and challenge their own social conscience.
It's good that he realized he was actually reinforcing negative stereotypes and I have certainly been in situations where I've laughed at comedians who did so as well. However, a lot of times I have felt that it wasn't really doing anybody any good to make fun of something that on a large scale, has such a huge impact. It would've been awesome if Chappelle decided to create jokes that actually helped the movement to dismantle these stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteI think you've brought up some really interesting points here that I was not aware of previously. Its very interesting that a member of a racial group would reinforce their own stereotypes for a laugh and then proceed to end their career for the very same reason. I agree with you that his comedy could be seen as the most influential type of regression as it gives authenticity and validity to the offensive comments, coming from insider satire. One comment that stood out to me was that audiences 'laugh first and think later,' as I feel this isn't addressed enough when analysing many stand up comic's material. All in all, I agree Chappelle's self-reflexivity was definitely a progressive move and a good example for many other comedians.
ReplyDeleteI think you've brought up some really interesting points here that I was not aware of previously. Its very interesting that a member of a racial group would reinforce their own stereotypes for a laugh and then proceed to end their career for the very same reason. I agree with you that his comedy could be seen as the most influential type of regression as it gives authenticity and validity to the offensive comments, coming from insider satire. One comment that stood out to me was that audiences 'laugh first and think later,' as I feel this isn't addressed enough when analysing many stand up comic's material. All in all, I agree Chappelle's self-reflexivity was definitely a progressive move and a good example for many other comedians.
ReplyDelete