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- Title
Fight the Power: African American Humor as a Discourse of Resistance.
- Authors
BAILEY, CONSTANCE
- Abstract
What happens when jokes, particularly those that originated in an in-group context, become mass mediated and consumed by white audiences? This article seeks to illustrate the ways that psychoanalysis can inform the study of African American humor. Specifically, I argue that the appropriation and subsequent trivialization of Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock's humor arises out of a desire to denigrate the social and political commentary that underlies African American humor. Beyond the ability of psychoanalysis to help us understand the fetishistic consumption of blackness, this article proposes that rather than reifying hegemonic definitions of blackness, many black comics are actively trying to interrogate such constructs; however, the historical realities of imperialism and slavery have made such a task difficult at best.
- Subjects
UNITED States; AFRICAN American wit &; humor; AFRICAN American comedians; CHAPPELLE, Dave, 1973-; ROCK, Chris, 1965-; AFRICAN Americans in mass media; MASS media &; race relations; CHAPPELLE'S Show (TV program); RACISM in mass media; SLAVERY in the United States; HISTORY
- Publication
Western Journal of Black Studies, 2012, Vol 36, Issue 4, p253
- ISSN
0197-4327
- Publication type
Article