Kevin Landers- The Irony of Anti-racist Humour & SNL

The most gripping section from the readings this week was, in my opinion, the section from the “Comedy Has Issues” article entitled ‘Take Our Wives, Please,’ wherein the Stewart Lee bit about Ang Lee is analyzed, and further, the deconstruction of the racial elements of the joke are examined. Through the systemic dismantling and analysis of the joke, the authors note that while the joke itself is borne out of a perspective of innocent obliviousness and wordplay, the bit works due to a fundamental awkwardness stemming from Stewart Lee’s “Ang Lee-Angry” pun playing into the R-L toggle that is characteristic in western perceiptions of asian nationals’ english accent. While the joke is flagrantly opposed to this perceiption, the reason the entire bit works is that the audience understands that this misunderstanding is at the root of the conflict as well as Stewart Lee’s awkwardnss, and the authors acknowledge that it is also likely some faction of the audience is simply laughing at the unacknowledged racial stereotype. This reminded me of the Saturday Night Live sketch “28 Reasons to Hug a Black Guy,” a lampoon of the American public high school convention of singling out minority students and forcing them to present ti the rest if their class cultural information about their race, in this instance, the three black students prepare a rap song for the rest of their (white) classmates about black history month. The punchline of the sketch is that 27 of the 28 reasons to hug a black guy are “slavery.” The sketch works on an innocent level wherein the fact that their being asked to rpesent about the month is ludicrous enough, but is then compounded by the shocking bluntness of the students repeating “slavery,” and the palpable uncomfortable wave that washes over all of the other students. This is comparable to the dubious nature of the Lee joke for the fact that, like the only black students being singled out to present, this sketch is quite literally excercising the same concept in having the only three black cast members on the show serve as the centerpiece, never mind the fact that this sketch aired in a year where the absence of black comics on SNL had been noticed and written about, directly resulting in the hiring of Sasheer Zamata. (I wish I had a better source for this but the new yorker article was deleted so I am unfortunately left with the Daily Mail.)