Some time before Obama took office I began watching prime-time TV for the first time in years. It’s been quite a while, and one of the first things we noticed was that race issues have become common fair game on most, if not all of the popular comedy TV shows. (Has this been discussed in the media? I expect I missed some magazine article about it because the change has been profound. Please click me with anything interesting you might have read).
Precisely when did this begin? Did it begin to surface with those clever Simpsons episodes, such as with the East Indian convenience store character? Were they the first to test the race waters with their pop-culture wit, slowly thawing us out in the 90’s and the early 2000’s? (South Park has been over the top for some time now, maybe it was the shock-and-awe approach?)
Examples of the current appearance of wide-open race jokes include The Office, 30 Rock, My Name Is Earl, and of course Comedy Central, but then that’s not Primetime. Maybe Comedy Central started the whole thing when I wasn’t looking.
When I’m in the mood (and you have to be) I have a taste for Sarah Silverman, who is by design the most offensive you can get and still be funny. Then again, if you are like some of my family and friends, you don’t find her funny and then the only thing left is the offended part. You have my support either way. I didn’t say Sarah Silverman was Lenny Bruce, but to me it feels good to laugh at subjects we have avoided (openly, anyway) for decades.
Before this new development occurred I would cringe and wince if someone attempted a race-related topic of any kind. In the past, particularly for whites, just bringing up the subject of race could be like painting an “I’m a Racist” target on your back.
I think Bill Clinton started to change things when he began talking about race during his two terms as president. He could speak respectfully and eloquently about minorities without pissing off the whole nation, and it was a big relief. Like letting a little pressure out of a very tight balloon, Americans began allowing more discussion and finally, humor about the subject.
I probably missed some key moment somewhere, but to get to the point it is now at 9pm Primetime it must have included key African-American leaders changing their views and opinions over time. Was it Oprah, or Jesse Jackson? Was there an announcement?
Of course, this is a collective thing, not just leaders. In the end, we’re all making this decision together or it just wouldn’t happen.
I appreciate the change. As a 50-year-old, I find it as amazing as I do funny to hear the kind of jokes they do now on The Office. A few seasons back, Rashida Jones, (the actress daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton), arrives as a new employee and her boss Michael wants to know if her father was military. The joke is that Michael’s an idiot of course, but we get it, and it’s funny and offensive.
But the main thing is we’re laughing now. As long as my black friends think it’s funny, if the joke is good I’m laughing too, and it feels great.
The icing on the cake is our new president. Obama himself reminds us he is bi-racial. But I think we see a black man for the most part, and I think it’s because he navigated the path a black man takes. I love thinking I might have something in common with him; we both have white mothers and we’re about the same height. Obama is so cool I’ll take any comparison I can get.
Did you catch that Wanda Sykes joke at the White House Correspondents Dinner? The way she sees it, “You’re a black man until you screw up, and then it’s “who’s the half-white guy?” I don't know if she meant it this way, but I think she makes another point; it seems (particularly these days) that whites have made the biggest screw-ups in history. I hope Obama breaks that cycle using whatever source he can find in himself.
But either way, I hope we can keep laughing.
No comments:
Post a Comment