Donald Glover’s Atlanta humorously investigates race relations with varying levels of awkwardness, subtlety, and surrealism. It is a noteworthy example of the ambiguity and relativity of cultural knowledge as it relates to comedy because of both the show’s content and reception. The show has been criticized for being a story of blackness for white people rather than black people, although much of the show’s humor makes fun of out-of-touch whiteness (as in “White Guilt”) and relies on “cultural insider-knowledge” of blackness (as in “Black Eligibility”) (Critchley 67). While it is obviously limited to explore the idea of white audiences and black audiences as monoliths, the very variety within those individual responses and opinions on the show points to the ambiguity of racial humor. Given Donald Glover’s history of having his blackness interrogated on the grounds that he “acts white,” he seems uniquely positioned to write such comedy.
In “Black Eligibility,” a high school senior is tested on his knowledge of Black American culture to earn a scholarship, judged by a panel including comedian George Wallace. Laughing at these cultural reference points can be an affectionate bonding of exclusive shared understanding as much as it can simultaneously make fun of them as markers of authenticity. As in Laguna’s discussion of repetition, the humor here builds on years of history of oppression and an accumulated cultural framework. Interestingly, clips such as these and the show overall seem to be enjoyed regardless of whether or not the intricacies of all the references are caught. While racial humor seems to be predicated on the salience of particularity rather than universality, this humor can be experienced differently. For instance, one black writer finds the formal comedic tradition of “double talk” compelling while one white writer does not recognize this specificity and instead is more influenced by the surreality of the show, experiencing the comedy as more about ambiguity and unclear discomfort. With racial humor then, perhaps it is not a question of “getting it” or not as much as how different people get it. White audiences may laugh at themselves if they see their own flaws, or, more problematically, may be laughing at stereotypical characterizations of black culture they subconsciously hold as true. Further, if white audience members like the aforementioned writer miss the more specific cultural references and experience the comedy as a more nebulous, humorous atmosphere with no punchline, they in a sense reinforce the joke of proving blackness and white out-of-touchness. Reception, then, also to an extent reinforces interpretations of the comedy itself.
I think these are great examples, and I especially like how the idea that Laguna introduced on page 113, that “whiteness… is always being negotiated… But, through comedy, we can trace how that negotiation is happening organically.” In the White Guilt example, Lakeith Stanfeld’s Darius is shown as an oustider not only from the perspective that he is the only black guy in the room, but also that he is at a party in a foreign country. Thus, his watching their behaviour in response to a perceived racial sleight almost comes across like Attenborough observing nature.