MovieChat Forums > Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy Discussion > One-Only One- Complaint

One-Only One- Complaint

posted 14 years ago by morticia021358-1
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As a lover of properly executed research and a former stand up comic, this program opened my eyes to many of the back stories of earlier comedic legends.

It is easy to see why the uninformed audiences of today would take offense at the antics of Stepin Fetchit (a name taken from the White man's command that the Black man before him "step and fetch" something on their immediate say so) and The Kingfish from "Amos & Andy" (a "born hustler" if ever there was one). As members of the subsequent generations who have been the beneficiaries of the Civil Rights Movement and it's now sickly child, Affirmative Action, most modern audiences take for granted the availability Def Comedy Jam and Last Comic Standing and the grandfather of them all, Showtime at the Apollo (and who do not watch TCM or BET's classic movie series because that material isn't topical)and have very limited exposure to the works of Bert Williams, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Mantan Mooreland and Jackie "Moms" Mabley, nor do they know the historic significance of their material or the trial by fire these and other artists experienced to gain some level of autonomy over their work.

I mentioned in another post that comedy is subjective, that what makes me laugh won't necessarily make someone else laugh. Comedy is also born of pain and separation and hunger and it is the rare individual who has the backbone to get up in front of a room full of hostile drunks and pour out their heart in an attempt to get a giggle out of these people with 5-15 minutes worth of your own material. When it works, you're golden; when it doesn't, it's so quiet sometimes, you could hear roaches fart.

I hope to be able to find this program on DVD, so it can be added to my personal library. It is extremely thought provoking, educational and entertaining as hell. I only have one complaint about an aspect of the research that I feel needs to be addressed: Roxie Roker and Franklin Cover, though brilliant as Helen and Tom Willis on "The Jeffersons", were not the first interracial couple on network television. The first interracial couple was Desi Arnez and Lucille Ball from "I Love Lucy". Remember, he was Cuban (and heir to the Bacardi Rum empire), and she was White.

[–] 249 14 years ago

In Latin America, although there was/is lots of race mixing....there are "pure" Spanish, from Spain...Pure Negro from parts of Africa, and pure "indian"...from the original indigenous people .

I think Desi was pure spaniard/white.

This different way of classification is what allowed some players with Black blood who were of latin american origin to play in major league baseball before a Black man like Jackie Robinson.

[–] morticia021358-1 14 years ago

Thank you, 249, I learned a bit more today than I already knew. Unfortunately, it is the "Spaniard" part of Desi's racial make-up with which American statisticians concern themselves, therefore making his marriage to Ms. Ball interracial. As long as the skin tone isn't too dark, not too many people got bent out of shape. As to the inclusion of Latinos in Major League Baseball, helping ball clubs win World Series trophies was pretty much all the club owners were worried about, and generally didn't create the fear that the White race would become diluted by allowing them to play the game.