“Laughing to Keep from Crying: Performance and Racial Identity in the Works of Richard Pryor, Dave Chappelle, and Sherman Alexie”

Katherine Hyunmi Lee, Indiana State Univ.

Klee16@isugw.indstate.edu

Todd Lawrence, University of St. Thomas: “Forgivable Blackness: Richard Pryor and the

Performance of Black Masculinity”

In this paper, I will explore the dynamic between public black masculinity and white mainstream culture through the comedy of Richard Pryor. Responding to and building on Siva Vaidhyanathan’s claim that African American culture is mainstream culture and that its popularity depends on the desire of white audiences to be “insiders” to black cultural expression (1998), I will contend that it is ultimately the nature of the relationship between white society and black masculinity – a relationship built upon sexual fascination and anxiety – that explains why explicit and confrontational performers such as Richard Pryor were so embraced by white and black audiences alike. As bell hooks has argued, racial difference is often used as the “spice, [the] seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture” (1992). In this case, the unrepressed performance of black masculinity, even in comedy, fulfills the voyeuristic impulse of a white audience to glance under the tent flap at the profane other, as well as gratifying the narcissistic desire to witness the mimicking of white impotence – to be the object of black ridicule.

Katherine H. Lee (Chair), Indiana State University: “’When Keeping It Real Goes

Wrong’: Racial Politics and Performativity on Chappelle’s Show”

As was recently recounted on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Dave Chappelle’s identity crisis as a performer was triggered in part by a white crew member’s overly enthusiastic response to the usage of “nigger” during a taping of a sketch. Chappelle’s dilemma—being caught between socially-relevant comedy and social responsibility—speaks to a crucial issue within representational identity politics: the proliferation of meanings generated by racialized images. Critics have taken Chappelle to task for evoking racist stereotypes, even as he uses them to interrogate racism in America. Such dependence upon dominant images, according to his critics, ultimately perpetuates racist constructions and ideas. But this critical view of Chappelle’s work is problematic at best: the demand for exclusively “positive” or non-stereotypical images belies the fact that racial identities are constitutively interpellated by—and therefore intimately connected to (rather than separate from)—dominant culture, a fact that Chappelle understands only too well. Thus in this presentation I will discuss racial representations in various sketches from Chappelle’s Show, and examine how the emphasis on the performative nature of racial identities and stereotypes destabilizes rather than restablizes dominant constructions.

Jacqueline McGrath, College of DuPage: “Humor and Indian Consciousness in Slam Poetry Performance”

When it comes to consuming and studying verse, slam poetry in performance (while sexy and even trendy) remains the back-door, trailer trash, distant cousin of mainstream literary poetry. And slam poetry competitions—more than any other spoken art with the exception of free style rap performance, perhaps—is densely populated by artists and audiences of color, thanks in large part to its grass-roots, all inclusive, deeply political principles. In particular, many of the stars and competition champions of slam poetry events throughout the country are people who have Native American heritage or identities. One of those artists and competitions winners, the omnipresent Sherman Alexie, performs his poems before audiences in ways that raise questions about the role of Indians’ comic sensibilities and audience reception of such comedy. In other words, this theoretical and field-work influenced discussion will explore the mechanics of humor and comedy in Sherman Alexie’s slam poetry performance, while addressing the contextual function and meaning of artistic jokes.