Should Comedy Be Racist?
By JJ Jackson
The Broadway Comedy Club in Time Square — outside of Netflix’s affinity for specials and Comedy Central — has sanctimoniously crowned itself as the stronghold of underground-aboveground-and-somewhere-in-between contemporary comedy. Even a mildly interested ambivalent of the humor-industry vaguely knows the humble red-brick wall with a wooden stool, single microphone, and a poster silhouette of New York iconography that Broadway has branded as their own. Broadway Comedy is so iconic that if I were to have a bucket list of comedic shows to attend, it would be to first get into a Dave Chapelle special, then the Daily Show, and then Broadway Comedy.
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The first show I went to was Broadway’s, which had the two-drink-minimum DNA of comedy clubs in New York. You had to take a skinny flight of stairs down a dimly lit dingy-looking area. The space had a kind of explicit photogenic-ness that made it appear bigger than it was, and despite it being seven pm on a Sunday evening, it was filling up quite nicely. My friends and I filed in — buzzing with excitement and a gummy with something like 100mgs — expecting a bellyful of easy laughter. Soon enough, the segment started with a host that was as inquisitive as he was charming. By the end of his half-witted, ten-minute introduction, we all had access to the room’s demographic. A solid eighty percent of the patriots that so happened to sit on the left side of the room were a bevy of cis, white, middle-aged couples; most from states outside New York, with two from England. My friends and I were a group of six, two from the Middle East, one from Mexico, one from South Africa, and myself. The remaining ten percent were a group of African American friends, who calmly sat in the corner of the room right behind us. Eventually, the presenting comedian got off, and other comedians poured on in.
The first comedian whined about his employment experience, offering two coherent moments of true amusement. The second did a session solely ridiculing being gay and Jewish. It cast a stiff pall over our half of the room as most of us were queer and from marginalized communities and, thus, had difficulty laughing — though I believe the joke was that he, himself, was a gay Jew. Assume that the other half roared with laughter throughout the entire set. And the third comedian, who we’ll call Maudry Aura… even now, I struggle to articulate what happened in her segment (due to the sheer trauma of experiencing such a thing, or maybe the edible beginning to kick in). Her segment was a noxious disharmony of blatantly racist and sexist insinuations that were almost as nosebleed-inducing, socially acrid, and appallingly insensitive as if she had just come out in classic-minstrel blackface and walked right back behind the stage. It singlehandedly set the uphill battle of dwindling racist ideology towards Mexicans in the US back by at least ten years. She opened her segment with a girlishly timid voice, thick with an unflattering and mocking caricature of the Mexican accent, and said, “I don’t know why I’m here. They just took me from doing dishes in the back and gave me a mic to do something, so here I am. Actually no, I climbed a wall to get here.”
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One of the many things that separate humanity from other species is our impressive ability to poke fun at some of the most gruesome upsets and taboos we’ve inflicted on our species, rather than letting evolution have the last laugh like the dinosaurs did or something. For example, I, as a West Indian woman, am not above making the “I’ll never get on a boat” joke (though my family sublets yachts for monthly barbecues). Wikipedia calls our affinity for this “dark humor;” and it’s not too difficult to imagine why. It is said that comedy has long been a powerful tool for social commentary and critique. Satirization has been used throughout the years as a potent medium to effect change and resolve real trauma. Through humor, comedians often tackle sensitive topics, which exist along different lines of oppression and subjugation, among other things like sexism, classism, and political and sexual orientation. The “darkness” of said humor seeps in when the jokes themselves step into a realm of sensitivity that might step on some toes.
However, in the age of Western political correctness and widening awareness of commentaries that harm more than they help, no discourse on race, sexuality, culture, religion, or identity is spared from scrutinizing what may be deemed “appropriate” in social discourse. Public statements are scrutinized, talk shows are scrutinized, academic theories, think pieces on Twitter, news reports, school safety warnings, and political views are all scrutinized under increasingly anti-bias frameworks, and the social justice standards for speech and sentiment have risen exponentially. Comedy’s position in this social upheaval has always been in limbo. Even when my friends and I were being escorted out of Broadway to the sound of Maudry Aura’s infuriating cadence, the justification offered by the disgruntled staff was, “it’s just comedy.” Though, was it? Because of the agency and subject matter, we have granted comedy over the years, is there such a thing as non-racist, non-sexist comedy? Can we make light of things that aren’t nuanced or don’t take up problematic spaces in our lives? How should we feel when a comic stereotypes the Domesticana aesthetic in ways that enforce racist violence? How about cosplaying a violent Black male (say this comic is not male or Black)? Should we be offended, or should we… laugh?
Proponents of racist comedy argue that humor should not be censored, and comedians should be free to explore controversial topics — including race — without restrictions. Maudry Aura’s comedy, though infuriating and atrocious, is an art form commenting on race, as much as Kara Walker’s ‘merely controversial’ A Subtlety, 2014 (Domino sugar) is; it thrives on irreverence and subversion. Ergo, comedians should have the license to push boundaries and challenge societal norms like their other more sanctified and unchaperoned creatives, even if it means employing racially charged jokes. It is indeed true that comedy has a long history of addressing taboo topics. Perhaps it should not be limited by political correctness or societal sensitivities.
Those against racist comedy are very clearly against it because it is racist: because it offends people. Because they hold a socially utilitarian belief that racist comedy can only perpetuate racial stereotypes rather than offer a critical analysis of the structure itself (despite the comedian’s intention). Because comedy, no matter how it identifies, ought to be subjected to the same critique as any other sentiment when it comes to these matters, artistic or not. There have indeed been multiple instances where literature and art has come under critique for its racist disposition. It is not clear to me whether H.P. Lovecraft could get away with “The Horror of Red Hook” in today’s political climate.
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All-in-all, I do not particularly find myself holding any precedent on which side is right and which is not, but racialized comedy can do one of two things: it can reinforce harmful racial stereotypes, or use satire to challenge and subvert them. The distinction between these two outcomes depends on a number of factors, such as the specific context in which the comedy is being performed, the intentions of the comedian, and the reactions of the audience.
I can deliver the “I’ll never get on a boat” joke, because the context is that a) I am West Indian, and b) my ancestors have been disproportionately affected by sea-travel, to say the least. The context I belong to is one that seeks to critique the existence of the Atlantic Slave Trade as a historical fact. I can reclaim the trauma of that historical event through channeling it into comedy. But someone that has been disproportionately advantaged by sea-travel at the expense of the discomfort of others, for instance like a person that is British and whose ancestors come from a long line of slave-naval prowess, ought not to say to me “you must hate boats, huh?” without fear of coming off as racist. The line between whether or not this joke would be perceived as satire begins to blur, merely due to the fact that the process of assuming whether or not I hate boats, associates more closely with a stereotypical project than a purely satirical one.
Ultimately, there is indeed something called racist comedy. We are allowed to make light of things that are nuanced and take up problematic spaces in our lives, however context matters immensely to what we say and who we might offend.