Sarah Lugo Rudner
CMC 400
Literature Review
Not a Laughing Matter:
Race Perceptions within Comedy in the United States
February 24, 2012
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Sarah Lugo
Professor Ted Gournelos
CMC 400
22 February 2012
Literature Review
Not a Laughing Matter:
Race Perceptions within Comedy in the United States
Literature Review
The concept of race and racism in humor in American society has been a long-standing
deliberation. More specifically, racial humor currently tends to occur mostly when individuals
direct humor towards there own racial identity. Some people think that issues of racism are long
gone and that the discourse of comedy is progressive in creating an open space for racial humor.
Other views are clear as well, as some people see racial humor as dividing, with analyses
explaining that comedic stereotypes reinforce racial hierarchy in our society. Past scholarly text
tells us how race within comedy exists and why it may potentially be damaging or beneficial to
our culture.
From a contemporary standpoint, Lois Leveen sees ethnic jokes as a way in which
ethnicity can be defined positively and humor as a way to claim pride in one’s own ethic identity.
Only When I Laugh: Textual Dynamics of Ethnic Humor by Leveen looks at various racial jokes
and analyzes how joke tellers have the ability to have pride in telling a joke about their own
ethnic group, even if the joke uses harmful stereotypes. Her study concludes that through
recognizing racial and ethnic disparities as humorous, one is able to reassign the ethnically
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“Other” from themselves (Leveen 29). It is important to note that Leveen considers racial humor
to be valuable in creating pride because racial jokes give the minority the ability to speak to the
majority when they otherwise would not be heard.
Other scholarly work also shows how racial comedy has developed from the minority
being unheard, but in cases rooted from historic events. DoVeanna Fulton’s content analysis of
Comic View and Metaphysical Dilemmas: Shattering Cultural Images through Self-Definition
and Representation by Black Comediennes looks at humor use of black women comedians as a
means of coping. The study suggests that these comedians humor stem from the pain they dealt
with in regards to social inferiority. Folklorist, Daryl Cumber Dance echoes this by stating that
“If there is any one thing that has brought African American women through the horrors of the
middle passage, slavery, Jim Crow, Aunt Jemima, the welfare system, integration, the O.J.
Simpson trial, and Newt Gingrich, it is our humor. If there is any one thing that has helped us to
survive the broken promises, lies, betrayals, contempt, humiliations and dehumanization that
have been our lot in this nation and often in our families, it is our humor” (qtd. in Fulton 81).
Fulton argues that racial humor in the United States specifically began as a means to which black
slaves could survive. Through generations, as a result of using humor as a coping method, these
women have developed a “triple conscious” that “calls for struggle and laughter” due to society’s
creation of several non-representative images of black women. Black women are forced to use
humor as a means of dealing with the social structure from inside it and against it (Fulton 83).
Scholars Boskin and Dorinson believe that while African slaves made fun of white
masters in order to laugh, public communication of Black humor in the United States did not
truly progress until after the development of another oppressed group, Jewish humor. The
development of Black humor, along with the arrival of the European immigrants, came the
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expansion of ‘ethnics’ preforming stereotypes for the entertainment of White America (Banjo
140). The scholarly work of Boskin and Dorison, Ethnic Humor: Subversion and Survival
studies numerous ethnic jokes throughout time to prove that the origins of ethnic humor are due
to general social rivalry. They believe that ethnic humor began “as a function of social class
feelings of superiority and white racial antagonisms, and expresses the continuing resistance of
advantaged groups to unrestrained immigration and to emancipation’s black sub citizens barred
from opportunities for participation and productivity” (Boskin 81). In other words, humor
continuously functions as way of reinforcing power within social class structure. Boskin and
Dorinson’s work suggest that contemporary comedy is an illustration of the result of evolved
racial humor into sarcastic stereotypes being adopted by their targets; that through exercising
humorous self-deprecation mockery, minorities theoretically get to have control of the
stereotypes that have been assigned to them by the dominant race.
Furthering the concept of racial humor as a means of power control, Being in the Joke:
Pedagogy, Race, Humor argues Cris Mayo’s belief that racial humor has developed to create
opportunities for lower-status racial humor to target all around in the social structure and also
critique social dominance at the same time due to their oppressed experiences. W.E.B. Du Bois
expresses this feeling in stating, “to the black world alone belongs the delicious chuckle…We
are the supermen who sit idly by and laugh and look at civilization” (qtd. in “Being in the Joke”
245). Mayo’s research argues that lower status people now have the freedom to use humor to
their advantage in relation to the dominant class whereas humor was once reserved for the
higher-status. Unlike Boskin and Dornison, Mayo believes this development only goes so far and
does not mean justice due to the circumstance that racial humor can create different
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interpretations. Hence, someone laughing at a stereotype is not the same as understanding the
embedded critique, parody, or irony (“Being in the Joke” 246).
Moreover, Mayo’s point has been proven as a common dilemma for racial comedy.
Famous comedian, Dave Chappelle has said to have experience seeing his humor be absorbed in
unintended ways. Many times in comedy, especially for stand up comedians, the concept of
using your ethnicity or race to make a joke is not a new concept. Recognizing how that humor is
being understood, on the other hand, is innovative. Omotayo Banjo suggests that how the
audience engages with racial humor says a lot about their sense of superiority versus cultural
competence. Banjo’s What are You Laughing at? Examining White Identity and Enjoyment of
Black Entertainment addresses the issues behind audience reactions to comedy in stereotypes.
His case study findings propose that Whites racial attitudes depended more on openness to
cultural integration and less on a sense of power and dominance (Banjo 151).
However, Ji Hoon’s similar study in Naturalizing Racial Differences Through Comedy:
Asian, Black, And White Views On Racial Stereotypes In Rush Hour 2 used several focus groups
to view the film and then to determine how much the viewers felt the film’s racially charged
stereotypes were offensive or not. The results were that of the four racially mixed focus groups
almost none of the participants felt offended by the blatantly obvious racial stereotypes. The
study concluded that the results confirmed the concept that “comedy ultimately controls and
limits audiences’ critical reflection of potentially racist characterizations, thereby making
viewers susceptible to the beliefs of racial difference” (Hoon 173). Thus, stereotypes have the
ability be naturalized through humor as a tool.
A crucial point is made when Banjo explains that racial humor goes from “shifts in power
from private, in-group communication to out-group exploitation and then to ethnic rearticulating
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of self-identity” (Banjo 140). Meaning, when the out-group has exchange with the private, ingroup communication, the ethnic ideas are misconstrued and, since the out-group is the
dominate, they have the power to control the ethnic ideas, which in turn creates the cycle of
stereotypes being reabsorbed by the self. Thus, Banjos points out why strategically absorbing
and laughing at your own ethnic group’s stereotype will actually continue to be a way of
reinforcing white dominance.
According to Cris Mayo’s Incongruity and Provisional Safety: Thinking Through Humor
there is a sort of safety in humor. In the perspective of Freud we can better understand that “our
enjoyment of a joke is based on a combined impression of its substance and its effectiveness as a
joke and we let ourselves be deceived by one factor over the amount of the other. Only after the
joke has been reduced do we become aware of this false judgment” (qtd. in “Incongruity and
Provisional Safety” 516). Through the previously cited scholarly research, we know that Freud’s
statement is evident in regards to racial comedy because jokes and humor can have many
different interpretations. Freud makes a point to express how much power humor has over people
and our culture, which can be taken to mean that racial humor has the same power as well. Freud
clarifies this in explaining that humor servers to protect an argument or idea from criticism (516).
The concept that humor is one of the few safe discourses for race to be dissected says a lot about
race in America. If research suggests that humor is a safe place for the discourse of racial humor,
then to whom is the discourse of humor safe for and why?
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“On my Honor, I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this
work.” SLR
Works Cited
Banjo, Omotayo. "What Are You Laughing At? Examining White Identity And Enjoyment Of
Black Entertainment." Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 55.2 (2011): 137-159.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Jan. 2012. [24]
Boskin, Joseph, and Joseph Dorinson. "Ethnic Humor: Subversion and Survival." American
Quarterly 37.1, Special Issue: American Humor (1985): pp. 81-97.
Fulton, DoVeanna S. "Comic Views and Metaphysical Dilemmas: Shattering Cultural Images
through Self-Definition and Representation by Black Comediennes." The Journal of
American Folklore117.463 (2004): pp. 81-96.
Ji Hoon, Park, Nadine G. Gabbadon, and Ariel R. Chernin. "Naturalizing Racial Differences
Through Comedy: Asian, Black, And White Views On Racial Stereotypes In Rush
Hour 2." Journal Of Communication 56.1 (2006): 157-177. Academic Search
Premier. Web. 24 Jan. 2012. [22]
Leveen, Lois. "Only when I Laugh: Textual Dynamics of Ethnic Humor." Melus 21.4, Ethnic
Humor (1996): pp. 29-55.
Mayo, C. "Being in on the Joke: Pedagogy, Race, Humor." Philosophy of education
(Edwardsville, Ill.).0 (2009): 244.
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Mayo, Cris. "Incongruity and Provisional Safety: Thinking through Humor." Studies in
Philosophy and Education 29.6 (2010): 509-21. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 20 Feb.
2012.