Given the age of the SNL skit, I couldn't help but start to wonder how using racial prejudice and stereotypes in comedy began? In the early 1950s, Blacks were forced into roles that filled very well defined and negative stereotypes. Persistence by players such as Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan and even Hugh Heffner allowed Blacks to liberate themselves from these roles in primetime television. How long did it take comedians to capitalize on this new freedom and showcase stereotypes as comedy? The evidence in our readings tells you that stereotypes hurt those at the tail end of the joke. So in the 1950s, did this harm or help the civil rights movement? Did it accelerate or slow down social change? (Please keep in mind the shared racial background of everyone who owned the networks ... not to be a conspiracy theorist or anything;)
This clip was a great find! He made an interesting point at the beginning of the clip- how people view things as "black" and "white." The idea of such a dichotomy persists throughout the clip, when in reality we know of race and ethnicity to be much more complicated than that. I think that this clip actually played off of many stereotypes of each black and white people. I found the first bit to be particularly funny, e.g. him reading Hallmark cards. This is very reminiscent of Stuff White People Like (http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/), a site poking fun at stereotypical "white" things, like yoga and farmers' markets. I know people of all races who really enjoy this blog. Also, I can imagine that people of all races would enjoy this video clip! I'm not condoning making fun of stereotypes, but rather pointing out that people do seem to enjoy the comedic aspects of them.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing, if anyone hasn't yet read the book Black Like Me, in which a white man disguises himself as black and chronicles his journeys, I highly recommend it! From wikipedia:
ReplyDelete"Black Like Me is a non-fiction book by journalist John Howard Griffin first published in 1961. Griffin was a white native of Mansfield, Texas and the book describes his six-week experience travelling on Greyhound buses (occasionally hitchhiking) throughout the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia passing as a black man. Sepia Magazine financed the project in exchange for the right to print the account first as a series of articles.
Griffin kept a journal of his experiences; the 188-page diary was the genesis of the book."