Synopses & Reviews
When wielded by the white majority, ethnic humor can be used to ridicule and demean marginalized groups. In the hands of ethnic minorities themselves, ethnic humor can work as a site of community building and resistance. In nearly all cases, however, ethnic humor can serve as a window through which to examine the complexities of American race relations. In
Ethnic Humor in Multiethnic America, David Gillota explores the ways in which contemporary comic works both reflect and participate in national conversations about race and ethnicity.
Gillota investigates the manner in which various humorists respond to multiculturalism and the increasing diversity of the American population. Rather than looking at one or two ethnic groups at a timeandmdash;as is common scholarly practiceandmdash;the book focuses on the interplay between humorists from different ethnic communities. While some comic texts project a fantasy world in which diverse ethnic characters coexist in a rarely disputed harmony, others genuinely engage with the complexities and contradictions of multiethnic America.
The first chapter focuses on African American comedy with a discussion of such humorists as Paul Mooney and Chris Rock, who tend to reinforce a black/white vision of American race relations. This approach is contrasted to the comedy of Dave Chappelle, who looks beyond black and white and uses his humor to place blackness within a much wider multiethnic context.
Chapter 2 concentrates primarily on the Jewish humorists Sarah Silverman, Larry David, and Sacha Baron Cohenandmdash;three artists who use their personas to explore the peculiar position of contemporary Jews who exist in a middle space between white and other.
In chapter 3, Gillota discusses different humorous constructions of whiteness, from a detailed analysis of South Park to andldquo;Blue Collar Comedyandrdquo; and the blog Stuff White People Like.
Chapter 4 is focused on the manner in which animated childrenandrsquo;s film and the network situation comedy often project simplified and harmonious visions of diversity. In contrast, chapter 5 considers how many recent works, such as Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and the Showtime series Weeds, engage with diversity in more complex and productive ways.
Review
andquot;An important contribution to the scholarship on black television representations, Watching While Black fills a gap in the literature by placing recent shows aimed at black audiences front and center.andquot;
Review
andquot;Reading this collection is like channel surfing and landing on theand#160;black spaces. This is what television scholarship looks like and theand#160;televisual experience feels like when the fullness of black life isand#160;made central to television.andquot;
Review
andquot;Beretta E. Smith-Shomade has assembled a timely, necessary contribution to and intervention within the literature on television and blackness.andquot;
Review
andldquo;A valuable addition to the field, Ethnic Humor in Multiethnic America makes a fresh and compelling argument with fascinating readings of many performers and comic routines in stand-up, film, and television.andrdquo;
Review
andquot;A fascinating comparative study of contemporary ethnic humor in popular culture, illuminating the truth that ethnic groups are made and unmade not in isolation, but in dynamic relation to each other.andquot;
Review
andquot;Using comic performanceandmdash;stand-up, situation comedy, animated television series, and children's filmsandmdash;Gillota looks at the impact of diversity on humor. Recommended.andquot;
Review
andquot;Gillotaandrsquo;s work is an important contribution to a growing body of scholarship on the serious business of comedy. His work makes a strong case as to why it is necessary to analyze a particular societyandrsquo;s humor if one seeks to understand its values and the ways in which its history continues to shape its culture today.andquot;
Synopsis
Watching While Black exclusively considers and critically engages programs that Black audiences watch and enjoy. With fresh perspectives, contributors both expose and introduce programming targeted at very specific and under-examined Black demographics. Cutting across forty years of Black television, the book looks at behind-the-scenes practices, significant historical texts, twenty-first century shows, and programs produced for Black audiences around the world.
Synopsis
Prior to the civil rights movement, comedians performed for audiences that were clearly delineated by race. Black comedians performed for black audiences and white comedians performed for whites. Yet during the past forty-five years, black comics have become progressively more central to mainstream culture.
In Laughing Mad , Bambi Haggins looks at how this transition occurred in a variety of media and shows how this integration has paved the way for black comedians and their audiences to affect each other. Historically, African American performers have been able to use comedy as a pedagogic tool, interjecting astute observations about race relations while the audience is laughing. And yet, Haggins makes the convincing argument that the potential of African American comedy remains fundamentally unfulfilled as the performance of blackness continues to be made culturally digestible for mass consumption.
Rather than presenting biographies of individual performers, Haggins focuses on the ways in which the comic persona is constructed and changes across media, from stand-up, to the small screen, to film. She examines the comic televisual and cinematic personae of Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby, Flip Wilson, and Richard Pryor and considers how these figures set the stage for black comedy in the next four decades. She reads Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock as emblematic of the first and second waves of post-civil rights era African American comedy, and she looks at the socio-cultural politics of Whoopi Goldberg's comic persona through the lens of gender and crossover.
Laughing Mad also explores how the comedy of Dave Chappelle speaks to and for the post-soul generation.
A rigorous analytic analysis, this book interrogates notions of identity, within both the African American community and mainstream popular culture. Written in engaging and accessible prose, it is also a book that will travel from the seminar room, to the barbershop, to the kitchen table, allowing readers to experience the sketches, stand-up, and film comedies with all the laughter they deserve.
Synopsis
Winner of the 2008 Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award
Prior to the civil rights movement, comedians performed for audiences that were clearly delineated by race. Black comedians performed for black audiences and white comedians performed for whites. Yet during the past forty-five years, black comics have become progressively more central to mainstream culture.
In Laughing Mad, Bambi Haggins looks at how this transition occurred in a variety of media and shows how this integration has paved the way for black comedians and their audiences to affect each other. Historically, African American performers have been able to use comedy as a pedagogic tool, interjecting astute observations about race relations while the audience is laughing. And yet, Haggins makes the convincing argument that the potential of African American comedy remains fundamentally unfulfilled as the performance of blackness continues to be made culturally digestible for mass consumption.
Rather than presenting biographies of individual performers, Haggins focuses on the ways in which the comic persona is constructed and changes across media, from stand-up, to the small screen, to film. She examines the comic televisual and cinematic personae of Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby, Flip Wilson, and Richard Pryor and considers how these figures set the stage for black comedy in the next four decades. She reads Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock as emblematic of the first and second waves of post-civil rights era African American comedy, and she looks at the socio-cultural politics of Whoopi Goldberg's comic persona through the lens of gender and crossover. Laughing Mad also explores how the comedy of Dave Chappelle speaks to and for the post-soul generation.
A rigorous analytic analysis, this book interrogates notions of identity, within both the African American community and mainstream popular culture. Written in engaging and accessible prose, it is also a book that will travel from the seminar room, to the barbershop, to the kitchen table, allowing readers to experience the sketches, stand-up, and film comedies with all the laughter they deserve.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I
1. The Importance of Roots
2. Two Different Worlds
3. A Black Cast Doesnandrsquo;t Make a Black Show
4. Blacks in the Future
Part II
5. andldquo;Regular Television Put to Shame by Negro Productionandrdquo;
6. andldquo;HEY, HEY, HEY!andrdquo; Bill Cosbyandrsquo;s Fat Albert as Psychodynamic Postmodern Play
7. Gimme a Break! and the Limits of the Modern Mammy
8. Down in the Treme . . . Buck Jumping and Having Fun?
Part III
9. Keepinandrsquo; It Reality Television
10. Prioritized: The Hip Hop (Re)Construction of Black Womanhood in Girlfriends and The Game
11. Nigger, Coon, Boy, Punk, Homo, Faggot, Black Man
12. Graphic Blackness/Anime Noir
Part IV
13. Resistance Televised
14. South African Soapies
15. Minority Television Trade as Cultural Journey
Notes on Contributors
Index