The document discusses the topic of racial comedy through analyzing the work of comedians Key and Peele. It includes an excerpt from an essay Key and Peele wrote for TIME magazine arguing that humor helps people cope with fears and that comedy should make fun of everything without exclusions. They believe excluding groups from comedy is a form of bullying. The document also discusses Chris Rock's perspective on white America and asserts why racial comedy can be funny, such as helping people understand other cultures through jokes. Videos of relevant Key and Peele comedy sketches are included to illustrate their work and perspective on these issues.

1. Race & Comedy

2. Today
1) Updates
2) Interlude: Chris Rock on White America
3) Key & Peele on the nature of humor and race
(with videos)
4) So what does that tell us? What CAN and can’t we
do?
5) Next time…

3. Don’t forget
You have two major projects due today, to
the Niihka drop-box. You should submit:
1) Your logo with your memo and your pitch
letter (three things)
2) your typography remix with memo (two
things)

4. Please…
… use the drop box. I know some of you have emailed
me, but unless for some reason your computer
CANNOT upload to Niihka, please do. It makes my
grading process 10X smoother if all the projects are
in one place instead of spread among the battle-field
of my email box. A happier, efficient Dr. Phill
means quicker grading and feedback for all of you.

5. Race and Comedy
To start us out, I want to offer Dr. Phill’s 5 assertions
why racial comedy is funny (whether it should or
shouldn’t be).

6. One
Deep down, maybe even in a place
where we can’t see or feel it on a daily
basis, humans fear the other, the
person who is so unlike them. A way to
subvert that fear is to laugh in the face
of it.

7. Two
Humor is a pathos based (pathetic–
perhaps?) response. Because of that, it is
enhanced by other forms of pathos. Fear,
anxiety, danger, etc. make comedy’s
impact stronger. And some other emotion
relates to race for most people.

8. Three
Comedians from othered groups, due to
the culture spawned by political
correctness, perceive and are perceived
as having more security to talk about
their own race. This means that some of
the most edgy comedy comes from people
who aren’t like you and can point it out.

9. Four
In spite of “political correctness,” many of
us grow up around bullies, and bullying is
viewed as cool. Because of PC, as adults
(unless we’re, you know, jerks) we don’t
throw racial insults or pick on kids for
wearing glasses or being fat. But deep
inside, we still think it’s cool.

10. Five
We also want to understand other cultures,
but we often don’t know how to ask
certain questions. When we hear a joke
that explains something, we feel both the
enjoyment of the comedy and the relief of
learning something new.

11. TRANSITION:
Chris Rock

12. Key and Peele
Over the next several slides, I’m going to offer
you the text of a TIME magazine essay Key
and Peele wrote in March of this year.
Interspersed, we’ll stop from time to time to
watch a piece of their comedy. When we’re
done, we’ll talk about it.

13. “When did America get so politically
correct? It’s when we refuse to mock a
group that we truly act like bullies.
Would you make fun of a burn victim?
Well, we did. Sort of …

14. “We’re comics. In the most recent season
of our TV show, in a sketch titled “Insult
Comic,” a traditional stand-up comedian
professes that he is “going to get
everybody” in his set (the guy toward the
front with big ears, the fat guy, the
woman with comically large breasts).

15. “That’s the phrase, isn’t it, when a critic wants
to praise a comedian for the fearless nature of
his or her comedy? That he or she ‘gets
everybody’? That ‘nobody is safe’? One of the
club patrons in our sketch, however, is a
wheelchair-bound burn victim. ‘You skipped
me,’ he calls from the audience, with a robotic-sounding
artificial larynx. ‘Go for it,’ he says, ‘I
can take it.’

16. “But can we, as a society,
take it anymore?

17. “Today it seems that we live in a world of
extremes. On one end of the spectrum, we
have anonymous Internet trolls looking for
opportunities to dole out cruelty with
impunity. But in mainstream culture, it often
seems we’re drowning in a sea of political
correctness that lapped up on our shores a
couple of decades ago and has yet to recede.

18. “It’s amazing to think how popular
television shows like All in the Family and
Good Times might fare today in a
Hollywood pitch meeting. Films like
Blazing Saddles and Silver Streak wouldn’t
make it past the development stage at a
studio. Too edgy.

19. “Somewhere along the line,
we’ve forgotten the true
purpose of humor: to help
people cope with the fears and
horrors of the world.

20. “Sure, sometimes at Key & Peele, we
swim in the shallow waters of pratfalls,
airplane observations and simple old-school
punnery. But what we strive for–
and what we think more people should
strive for–is deeper: to make fun of
everything.

21. “At the same time, though, it’s our duty.
To not make fun of something is, we
believe, itself a form of bullying. When a
humorist makes the conscious decision to
exclude a group from derision, isn’t he or
she implying that the members of that
group are not capable of self-reflection?

22. “Or don’t possess the mental
faculties to recognize the nuances
of satire? A group that’s excluded
never gets the opportunity to join
in the greater human conversation.

23. “Luckily, a lot of people get this–at
least when it comes to their own
cultures. Like the burn victim in our
sketch, they plead, ‘You skipped
me! Do me!’

24. “There was the half-Hispanic, half–
Native American man who told
Keegan recently just how much gold
there was to be mined from his hybrid
culture.

25. “A young Arab man told us how much he
loves Karim and Jahar (a couple of
sexually repressed Arab characters we
play). ‘You gotta do more of them!’ he
begged. Gay and lesbian couples tell us to
‘keep going … There’s plenty to make fun
of … Trust us!’

26. “Where a lot of people get nervous,
however, is when it comes to laughing
at other people’s culture or perceived
weaknesses. That’s when we worry
that we’re being insensitive–that
we’re being mean.

27. “But ask yourself again what’s
worse: making fun of people or
assuming that they’re too weak
to take it?

28. “The white whale of comedy is still out
there. The day we can make fun of a black
lesbian dwarf with Down syndrome who’s
in a wheelchair, and someone who isn’t a
black lesbian dwarf with Down syndrome
is able to laugh–instead of trying to
protect the dwarf’s feelings–we can pack
up our artificial larynxes and retire.”

29. For Thursday
Please take a look at all of the information about
Audacity below the assignment on the Audio
Assignment page. Download and install Audacity on
your machine. Bring headphones (and a microphone)
to class if you have them. We will start with about 40
minutes on satire looking at Jon Stewart, then we’ll
progress into Audacity basics.