Most of my understanding of race and
ethnicity comes from the media that produces and circulates safeguarded images
of racial minorities. Therefore, I take a humanities approach to dissecting the
racialized images that I see onscreen. Hasinoff ( 2008) chimes in, “On network television, people
of color are often represented in a
mostly white colorblind assimilationist content in which racial difference is
superficially visible but typically not discussed except in terms of individual prejudice” (p. 330). As a woman of color, I emulate representations which can
be used to my benefit. For example, in
7th grade I was undoubtedly the star of the middle school talent show. I channeled the character “Homey da Clown.”* Hit a white girl over the head with a large
stuffed sock and say “I don’t think so.
Homey, don’t play that” and I was hilarious. Several television programs use racial humor
cleverly. According to Avila-Saavedra
(2011), “Historically in American television, comedy has opened the pathway for
increased representation of ethnic minorities” (p. 271). I know firsthand how these representations
can be translated into real life social spaces.
I argue that although racial humor reinforces racial hegemonies, the use
of racial humor is necessary because it is subversive and does positive
ideological work by making the issue of race visible and by offering
alternative and less threatening representations. In this blog, I will use discourse analysis
to demonstrate how racial humor can entertain audiences while also shattering
the idea of post racialism by using Person
of Interest, 30 Rock, Don’t Trust the B---- in Apt 23, and Sleepy Hollow as my texts.
Racial humor can be manifested
without the mention of race. The
following exchange in the Person of
Interest (CBS, 2011-Present) episode “Critical” does not explicitly mention
race, but for viewers in on the joke, it doesn’t have to. The following exchange takes place as John
comes to Leon’s rescue.
John: Geeze, Leon, what did you do to
piss these guys off?
Leon:
You heard of gold farming? Selling multi player online game currency for
real cash? It’s all the rage. People make millions! They take their business
really seriously. Especially the Russian Mafia.
John (after immobilizing the
attackers): Does it look like I play
video games, Leon?
The discernable joke is that John is a badass saving the world
one (social security) number at a time.
The embedded joke about gold farming is a complex, layered joke which
more than likely requires a subject to be familiar with “World of Warcraft.” Nakurma (2009) writes “buying and selling
in-game property for real money, is widely considered the worst, more morally
reprehensible form of cheating” (p. 129).
Leon is a tiny, reprehensible Asian man who got caught embezzling large
sums of money. “Many (though by no means
all) gold farmers are Chinese, and there is a decidedly anti-Asian flavor to
many of the protests against “’Chinese gold farmers’” (p. 130). It is estimated that 80% of gold farmers are
Chinese. Nakaruma indicated “The problem
with gold farmers isn’t they are Chinese; it is that they ‘act Chinese’” (p.
139). The joke works because Leon
performs the role of “Chinese gold farmer” in two ways. Leon could ethnically pass as Chinese, and being
the little shit that he is, he was hunted down because he was “acting
Chinese.” The casting of a white
character would be much less entertaining because that character would not be
encoded with all of the preconceived notions Leon exemplified. The selection of
an Asian gold farmer dismisses any claims that Americans have moved beyond
race. Furthermore, Leon is seen as this meek
little character juxtaposed against two huge Russians trying to inflict harm
upon him. He is the victim.
Racial references in comedies hold a
special place in my heart. Rossing
(2012) wrote “Postracialism animates contradictions and tensions that offer
fertile ground for humor, and humor, in turn, directs attention back to often
overlooked discrepancies and social failing” (p.45). The following 30 Rock (NBC, 2006-2013) scene from the episode “Aunt Phatso” is a
perfect demonstration.
Tracy: Hey Grizz.
Hey Dot Com. Get me a black
coffee. By which I mean a Sunkist.
Liz:
How could you think we’re Grizz and Dot Com?
Tracy: Because I don’t see race you
white bastards!
This hilarious exchange satirizes postracialism. B’brie and Hogarth (2009) said “White power and control seems to be
invisible to white power-holders (p. 104).
Liz and Jack order Tracy around all the time. Therefore, it is startling not only for Liz
(and Jack) to be ordered around by Tracy, but to also be mistaken for two big
Black bodies. Moshin and Jackson (2011)
explain, “We have not only moved past race, the thinking goes, we have moved
beyond racism---we are now a color-blind nation, a post-identity nation, where
markers of difference and Otherness are no longer consequential” (p. 214).
The irony is Tracy is the one who doesn’t see color which is subversive
since white is typically defined by not being black. When he calls them “white bastards,” he
proves that color does indeed exist.
Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 (ABC,
2012-2013) is a comedy that substitutes race for social class in the
episode “It’s a Miracle…” The following exchange takes place at a soup kitchen
where James Van Der Beek and his assistant, Luther, are serving food to
a man in line.
James: I’m sorry, I think you’re
wearing my jacket. I must have left it on the chair back there.
Homeless Man: No I am wearing my
jacket.
James: No, that’s mine. I paid $1500 for it.
Homeless Man: You don’t think I can
afford a $1500 jacket. Why? Because I’m black?
James: You’re not black.
Luther: I’m black.
This is also a hilarious scene based on the sheer absurdity
of it. What is a matter of social class
becomes a matter of race. A homeless man
can’t afford a $1500 jacket. That’s
really not that funny because the average person can’t. The homeless man marking himself as “other”
by calling himself black in front of a black person is genius. Watts (2005) wrote that whiteness is not only
being white (p. 190). Luther being a
snobby gay man enriches this labeling since he can be read as less black. Dyer (1997) explains a tension between Blacks
and Whites:
Black is a privileged term in the
construction of white racial imagery….White discourse implacably reduces the
non-white subject to being a function of the white subject, not allowing
him/her space or autonomy, permitting neither the recognition of similarities
nor the acceptance of differences except as a means for knowing the white self
(p.11).
Luther may be a function of the two white subjects here, but
he staked a place without being kicked down.
He is not the butt of the joke and the scene would still be funny
without him, but alas he is not the threatening one.
In the
“Pilot” Episode of Sleepy Hollow (Fox,
2013-Present) race is tackled head on. Even
though there is an element of uncomfortableness, it is handled so flawlessly that
it is effective.
Abby:
Mr. Crane. I’m lieutenant Abby
Mills.
Ichabod: (Laughs) Female lieutenant. In who’s army?
Abby:
You’re not going to break character, huh?
Ichabod: You’ve--- been emancipated, I take it?
Abby:
Excuse me?
Ichabod: From enslavement?
Abby:
OK, I’ll play along here. I am a
black female lieutenant for the Westchester County Police Department. Do you see this gun? I’m authorized to use
it----ON YOU.
Ichabod: If you’re insinuating I endorse slavery, I’m
offended.
Abby:
Wait, back up? You’re offended?
Ichabod: I’ll have you know I was a proponent of the
Abolitionist Act before the New York Assembly.
Abby:
Congratulations. Slavery has been abolished 150 years. It’s a whole new
day in America.
Ichabod: Ohhh.
Well I am pleased to hear it. I,
on the other hand, remain shackled here.
How do I remove these damn manacles?
Abbie: You don’t.
I do.
The characters are able to take a historical, touchy subject and
turn it into something humorous by highlighting what each participant has at
stake. Abby gets to be offended that he
brought the issue up. Ichabod gets to make
an emotional plea to her about how he was against slavery and now he is
enslaved. It is moments like these that
disrupt colorblindness by challenging what is taken for granted.
In
conclusion, television delivers many statements about race whether consciously
or unconsciously. Nakayama and Krizek
explain how these messages will be decoded by varying audiences based on hierarchies,
“The notion of position refers to how life experiences both enable and inhibit
particular kinds of insight” (p. 291).
Television provides very limited representation, so comedy is the
opportunity where impact can be made.
Rossing noted, “I argue that humor functions as a critical cultural
project and site for racial mean-making that may provide a corrective for
impasses in public discourse on race and racism.” (p .45) I agree with this
assertion. I know that using racial humor
can work to enforce stereotypes, but I am also aware that it can make
minorities like myself seem less threatening.
Nakayama and Krizek explain the discursive space of white by writing
“White is a relatively unchartered territory that has remained invisible as it
continues to influence the identity of those both within and without its
domain. It affects the everyday fabric
of our lives, but resists, sometimes violently, any extensive characterization
that would allow for mapping of its contours” (p. 291). It’s time to map those contours. White people can make use of racial humor
just as well. I once knocked over my
classmate and his desk in government class and he asked me if it was because he
was white. Even the 60 year old teacher
laughed. I think race relations would be much better if
more people could learn to break down these barriers by using racial humor to
get race into the public discourse.
.
*Homie Da
Clown is a character off of In Living
Color (Fox, 1990-1994)
*Title is
making light of Asiana Flight 214 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmclgO6w0C0
More on
Chinese gold farming hatred http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dkkf5NEIo0
Bibliography
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cultural assimilation: U.S. Latino comedians
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of
Speech, 81(3), 291-309.
Rossing,
J.P. (2012). Deconstructing postracialism: humor as a critical, cultural
project. Journal
of Communication Inquiry, 36(1),
44-61.
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Dyer, R.
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