A major critique of a lot of the sitcoms and teen dramas of the 90’s and the early 2000’s was that there was zero to negative representation of minority voices. Thinking Friends, Seinfeld, even Gilmore Girls, though a classic, carried the stereotypes of the Kim family and a lot of lightly racist jokes in the rapid-fire dialogue of the Gilmore women. Critchley’s argument that humor is “local and a sense of humor is usually highly context-specific,” as well as the idea that “humour is a form of cultural insider-knowledge,” I think, perfectly outlines the necessity of good representation in comedy. People watch comedy to laugh, but I think a lot of jokes that reference minority identities in these early comedies are written by white people for white.
Enter ABC in the 2010’s, who read the room and saw the audience for inclusive family comedies with cultural jokes designed to laugh with, not at. Black-ish is obviously the uber successful example of this, but the one that resonated with me because of my cultural background is obviously Fresh Off the Boat. My family, my mom to be specific, wasn’t a crazy fan of the show but it was hard to downplay her excitement when it first premiered, I think also because she is a fan of the original Eddie Huang.
This scene in particular is one I remember her laughing out loud about. Eddie, the oldest son, snuck a sip of beer with his friends and immediately begins to turn red. He freaks out, and runs to his dad, who only laughs and explains the phenomenon of “Asian Flush.” It’s this type of joke that perfectly displays “cultural insider-knowledge” — you’d really only be able to laugh and understand if you are a victim of the Asian flush, like my mom, or have a friend who is.
I completely agree with your sentiment – this notion of racial comedy being mostly to the amusement of white people even fits back into films like Duck Soup, where the Marx brothers, although they were ethnically representative of their character’s nationalities, played up their ‘immigrant humour’ for the sake of white laughter.
I agree with everything you said, especially about the “comedies written by white people for white people”: you can tell when jokes on minorities are written by white people because they are usually based on stereotypes. These types of jokes are written to “make fun” or “mock” minorities instead of making people laugh.
I think this is a perfect example for your statement on humor being a form of cultural insider-knowledge. I think this show does it in a perfect way where it is not humor written by white people for white people; but rather something that people within that culture can understand and laugh about. It’s refreshing to have more shows today like Fresh Off the Boat that give proper representation to minorities and people from other cultures, and scenes like this one explain the necessity for more representation in media.