I was IM'ing K. last night when I made a rather inappropriate joke about lynching. And looking back, I'll fess up that it wasn't funny. It was stupid and tasteless.
And K., bless her heart, called my ass on it (in a nice way, but still, she called my ass on it. Which says something about friendships where you can also call out your friend's shit in a nice way).
After a bit of discussion, we both agreed that the one place where we've seen lynching humor be funny was Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles.
But I started wondering (as I do when I'm in the shower) who else could get away with lynching humor and I figured out that Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and Richard Pryor could get away with it. So now I'm wondering if there's anyone else who could get away with lynching jokes?
I'm NOT trying to start a flame war (and I will moderate the hell out of this post if I need to, instead of my usual free-for-all graffiti wall of comments). I agree that there's certain jokes that only certain groups can make because of history and other factors. But now I'm trying to think of the people who are willing to go there, what they said and why it was funny.
And I'm also curious to hear the jokes.
2 comments:
I’m gonna throw out something to start. Controversial humor, particularly “racist” humor is very, very difficult for 95% of comedians to accomplish.
Number one, because race is an issue that the majority of people in the country at least are able to have any kind of dialogue about race in a frank and honest way anyway so it’s an immediate “hot button.” Secondly, because bad comedians use the offensive humor in question to be provocative and nothing more. There’s no underlying message.
The lynching humor in Blazing Saddles wasn’t about making light of the shameful practice of lynching but using humor to laugh at the senselessness of racism and racist people, just as The Producers (at least the original film) was not about laughing at Hitler but laughing at the idiocy of the theatergoers who found Hitler and the Holocaust to be a source of entertainment. Folks like Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, etc. revolve their humor around touchy racial subjects as a way to diffuse the tension of the subject and ultimately to take some of power of racist speech/action away from the oppressor, but not at the expense of the oppressed, because it is clear that they understand the historical context of the subject.
Part of the reason while Dave Chappelle had a crisis of conscience is because he felt that the ultimate goal of his humor (to make fun of racism) was being misinterpreted by the very people he was poking fun of. He wasn’t taking the power way from racial stereotypes but unintentionally reinforcing them. Aaron McGruder from the Boondocks has gone on the record with the same sentiment.
As the US is getting more and more multicultural removed from our own racial history. I think we’re going to see a lot more of this kind of misunderstanding, partially because of many people are consuming the stuff without context. If a kid (or an adult) doesn’t know the history of lynching and Jim Crow in the United States, and they still laugh at Blazing Saddles, what are they laughing at? And isn’t it a huge problem if they are?
K. -- I think you hit the nail on the head. I remember reading somewhere that action stars from Hong Kong -- Jackie Chan, et al -- didn't understad why Asian Americans were upset about certain portrayals in mainstream media.
I think that's similar to what you just stated. And you're right about Blazing Saddles and Springtime for Hitler -- it took away the fear of the thing by mocking it.
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