Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Are You Offended? Does it Matter?



This video is one of the clips from the sketch that ended Chappelle's Show.


That might be an oversimplification, but it was this sketch--the racist pixies--that Chappelle has since cited in interviews as the reason he left the show (and walked away from $50 million). This is the topic of my paper for this class; I want to explore what it is about this sketch, amongst a plethora of envelope-pushing racial satire, that pushed Chappelle over the edge.

I don't think it's the content itself. This content, while possibly a little racier, isn't that much different from previous content on the show. Chappelle has always been one to make his audience a little uncomfortable with the social atmosphere around them, and, in my opinion, that's the whole point.

He's said in interviews that the problem was the audience, or at least one member of it. While filming the black pixie (who Chappelle portrays in blackface) one member of the audience laughed "particularly long and loud" (interview with Time) and made Chappelle uncomfortable. Chappelle began to question "if the new season of his show had gone from sending up stereotypes to merely reinforcing them" (Time).

There's the problem: Chappelle can't control what it is his satire does. He always runs the risk of reinforcing stereotypes. He just became more aware of that risk as his audience broadened and he became exposed to the different readings present in his work. As one scholar I'm reading puts it: "I know what I'm laughing at, but I don't know what you're laughing at" (Haggins, Laughing Mad, 205). Chappelle cannot control his audience, not even that one physically present in his studio. He certainly cannot control that audience that grows infinitely larger as DVDs are bought and sold, as youtube videos are shared.

I really like Dave Chappelle's comedy. I think that Chappelle's Show did a great job of pushing the boundaries in a way that potentially opened eyes to injustice and absurdity. Discussions of race in America are often muted, and Chappelle's is certainly not. As Haggins says later in her essay, the "task of the provocateur is to incite dissension--to make people question things as they are--it's not necessarily his job to provide the answers" (236).

I don't know how I feel about this sketch. He was obviously uncomfortable with it and never wanted it aired. Comedy Central released it as part of the unfinished third season in the "Lost Episodes," which I had refused to watch before because I thought it was wrong of them to release them. I watched it for this paper. I think it is important to tease out the subtleties of satire and try to figure out where the line is. How much of this is completely up to the audience? How much of an audience can a performer control?

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