Richard Pryor is arguably your favorite comedian’s favorite comedian so in this episode, Hallease and Evelyn look at how comedy has changed throughout modern history, and attempt to define what the G.O.A.T contributed to its evolution.
– Here at Say It Loud, comedy is our middle name.
00:03
– [Hallease] We could be talking about standards of beauty,
00:05
baby names, fashion trends,
00:07
the fascinating world of ancestry DNA testing.
00:10
We always find a way to make it funny.
00:13
– Wigs are usually involved.
00:14
I will not apologize.
00:16
– But when we sat down to write an episode
00:18
about being funny?
00:19
Like, the actual art of comedy?
00:22
We bombed, y’all.
00:23
– Hello, everybody.
00:26
Comedy.
00:28
I told my mom I was gonna
00:30
work for a show called Say It Loud, and
00:34
she told me,
00:35
“Go ahead and buy some new cardigans.”
00:38
I said, “Mom, I’m not Mr. Rogers.
00:42
– [HECKLER] Get off the stage. – That was a PBS joke.
00:45
– We want to understand
00:46
how our culture has used comedy to open up,
00:49
share our human experiences, and expose hard truths.
00:53
Somebody’s routine clearly still needs work,
00:56
so we’ll spare you our jokes for now
00:58
and look to the greats for guidance.
01:00
– Frequently cited as the greatest of all time,
01:03
Richard Pryor is probably your favorite comedian’s
01:05
favorite comedian.
01:07
– Any comic working in America, whether they
01:09
know it or not, was influenced by what he’s done.
01:12
– And it’s because he ushered in visceral,
01:15
uncomfortable observation and vulnerability,
01:18
from the perspective of his Blackness.
01:20
– We know George Carlin exists.
01:22
We know, we know. – We got it.
01:23
(upbeat music)
01:28
– Richard, Richard is the rawest in show business.
01:31
Richard is the one that made me wanna do comedy.
01:33
– It’s 1964, a slick-haired, clean-shaven,
01:37
24-year-old guy named Richard Pryor
01:39
makes his television debut
01:40
on a show called On Broadway Tonight.
01:43
– Yeah, I had a wild neighborhood, I gotta tell you,
01:45
because my mother’s Puerto Rican, and my father’s Negro,
01:48
and we live in a real big Jewish tenement building
01:52
in an Italian neighborhood. (audience laughs)
01:55
Every time I go outside, the kids say,
01:56
“Get him, he’s all of them!”
01:58
– Pryor used his own life as the butt of the joke
02:01
while commenting on the absurdity
02:02
of American race relations at the time.
02:04
– We take this for granted now.
02:06
We expect comedy, especially stand-up,
02:08
to be both deeply personal,
02:10
yet insightfully uncover an aspect
02:12
of this weird world we live in.
02:14
It doesn’t have to be political per se
02:16
or even politically correct,
02:18
we just expect it to say something.
02:20
But it wasn’t always that way.
02:22
– Minstrelsy relied on mockery
02:24
to entertain the audience with song, sketches, and dance.
02:27
Vaudeville comedy routines were based on funny situations
02:30
or silly misunderstandings.
02:32
And slapstick used exaggerated physical comedy
02:35
to make the masses laugh.
02:37
Now, do you have to enjoy these particular art forms?
02:40
No.
02:40
But each of them had their own structure, themes, and place
02:44
in the limelight of pop culture.
02:46
– These days, we’ve come to value the personal
02:48
over the situational.
02:50
Steve Allen, creator and first host of The Tonight Show
02:53
said in a 1957 Cosmopolitan interview:
02:56
“Tragedy plus time,
02:57
“plus the will to be amused equals comedy.”
03:00
And that’s where Richard Pryor comes in.
03:02
– Nothing was off-limits, not cuss words, not slurs,
03:06
not his childhood trauma, or even his own wrongdoing.
03:10
The comedians in the genres we referenced earlier
03:13
were larger than life,
03:14
exaggerated parodies of human behavior.
03:17
Richard Pryor was just human.
03:19
– Look,
03:20
what Richard was able to do
03:23
was say
03:25
“I’m giving you
03:27
my black experience.”
03:29
– Historically, Black folks weren’t in control
03:32
of their image or portrayal in mass media.
03:34
The stories on stage or on screen were rarely, if ever,
03:38
in our own words or of our own creation.
03:41
Being unapologetically Black
03:43
isn’t about debunking stereotypes,
03:45
it’s taking control of your own story,
03:47
telling the truth about who you are,
03:49
where you come from, and how that makes you see the world.
03:52
– It inspired a generation of comics and audiences
03:55
who hadn’t seen their experiences on stage before.
03:59
– Okay, he was black and young, and so were we.
04:03
And so,
04:04
a new generation of humor came from Richard.
04:08
– Mark Twain said
04:10
that the secret source of humor is not joy, but sorrow.
04:15
And that man up there is the Evil Kenevil of comedy.
04:20
– He talked about his substance abuse, his temper,
04:23
interactions with the police or women.
04:26
We know it as the saying
04:27
“you gotta laugh to keep from crying”.
04:29
And if you got a lot to cry about,
04:31
whether it’s your personal experience
04:32
or a collective history, humor is a huge coping mechanism.
04:37
– So when he tells a joke like this–
04:39
– I’m doing a standup on the show because the people,
04:42
NBC said, “Well, America don’t know who you are.
04:45
“And you come out, and they’re scared.
04:47
“They just see black people, and they get nervous
04:49
“If they don’t know who they are.
04:50
“You should come out and introduce yourself.”
04:53
I was born.
04:54
(audience laughs)
04:56
– You’re laughing because, it’s true.
04:58
You’ve either lived it or witnessed it,
05:01
and you’re bonding over shared knowledge or experience.
05:04
– Then they feel safe, “Oh it’s all right, Marge,
05:06
“you can watch him.
05:08
“He was born, it’s wonderful.”
05:10
– Comedy is also a critique.
05:12
It creates a space where you can take back your power
05:15
or disarm others
05:16
by choosing to make fun of someone or something.
05:19
Take this joke
05:20
about different types of interactions with white guys.
05:23
– Some white dudes you cut in front of
05:24
don’t play that, though, right.
05:26
You cut in front of him, “All right, cut the [Redacted].”
05:29
(audience laughs)
05:30
– At the root of this joke is a very real observation:
05:34
some people get nervous around a group of Black folks.
05:37
Pryor chooses to zero in on the way these people move
05:41
and talk and nails it.
05:44
“White dude, ‘sure go ahead, sure cut in, sure cut.
05:47
“Well, then, what do you want, trouble?
05:49
“There’s a whole bunch of ’em.
05:51
“They could be cousins or anything.”
05:53
– You can’t spend your whole life
05:55
sitting with this knowledge that there are people
05:57
who are afraid of you.
05:58
It’s just too heavy. – Yeah.
05:59
– So instead, you make fun of the situation
06:02
and the characters involved as if to say,
06:04
“Isn’t this absurd?
06:06
“We’re both just people.”
06:08
– It could be Pryor, Dick Gregory.
06:11
– When Negros in Chicago move into one large area,
06:13
and it look like we might control the votes,
06:16
they don’t say anything to us.
06:17
They have a slum clearance.
06:19
(audience laughs)
06:25
We do the same thing on the West Coast,
06:27
but you call it freeway.
06:28
(audience laughs)
06:31
– Wanda Sykes or Amanda Seales.
06:33
– When I was growing up, my mother,
06:34
she wouldn’t even let us dance in the car.
06:37
You know, we sitting in the car,
06:38
a good song come on the radio, we (humming)
06:43
my mother’s like, she would stop the car.
06:45
“White people are looking at you.”
06:47
(audience laughs)
06:50
– Wait, huh?
06:51
“White people are looking at you.”
06:54
I’m like,
06:55
“Oh, damn.”
06:57
(audience laughs)
06:59
She was right.
07:00
– They use comedy
07:01
to challenge cultural norms or complacency.
07:04
They blow the lid off all the ugly stuff
07:06
our society thinks it’s hiding.
07:09
– That’s why there’s often tension in the laughter.
07:11
This sort of comedy plays on people’s biases.
07:15
The humor relies on your ability to at least acknowledge
07:18
or buy into the prejudice the comedian experienced
07:20
or the stereotypes in the joke.
07:22
That tension reorients the audience’s point of view.
07:26
– To get the joke or find it funny,
07:28
you usually have to sympathize,
07:30
even if that means you’re implicated in the joke.
07:33
And once a comedian can get you to that point,
07:36
to laugh at your own behavior,
07:37
they can take it on home
07:39
by giving you a dose of social commentary.
07:40
– There ain’t a white man in this room
07:43
that would change places with me.
07:45
None of you.
07:46
None of you would change places with me,
07:48
and I’m rich.
07:50
(audience laughs)
07:52
– Where you might have had a wall up,
07:54
laughter makes it possible to turn that wall
07:56
into a window into another point of view.
07:59
Satire sticks with us.
08:00
Which might be why this particular style of comedy
08:03
is so popular.
08:04
Just look at SNL or the Daily Show.
08:06
– Studies shows that people who get their news
08:08
from a comedy show exhibit more fact retention
08:11
than people who read a newspaper or watch CNN,
08:15
all because of the brain’s dopamine-reward system.
08:18
– Laughing feels good,
08:20
which makes you remember stuff better.
08:22
– And maybe that’s why Black people continue to use comedy
08:25
as a tool for social change.
08:27
It’s definitely harder to hate someone
08:29
while you’re laughing with them.
08:31
– ‘Cause some people, people don’t hate each other,
08:33
and people start talking to each other,
08:35
and then they start talking to each other, they find out
08:38
who’s the problem.
08:40
– Which is?
08:41
– Uh, greedy people.
08:43
– But while we’d all like to believe in comedy’s
08:45
unwavering ability to bridge the gap between us all,
08:49
when you’re a sub-culture within a larger society,
08:52
nothing, not even humor, is entirely for you.
08:55
That’s not how culture works,
08:57
especially when technology is involved.
08:59
– Journalist Wil Haygood aptly described this catch-22.
09:03
With more visibility,
09:05
comes more opportunity to be seen and heard
09:08
and misunderstood.
09:10
To paraphrase,
09:11
“The negro comics’ trajectory has gone from minstrel shows
09:14
“to the big screen.
09:16
“Sometimes the laughter is of a confused sort,
09:18
“owing to misinterpretation, the joke merged with history
09:22
“and the ears of whites placed at awkward angles.”
09:25
Television put Black entertainers
09:27
like Richard Pryor into white homes
09:29
where there had been no Black people before.
09:31
– Did Richard Pryor’s use of the n-word
09:33
empower the wrong people?
09:35
Is it his responsibility
09:36
to even take that into consideration?
09:39
As he paved the way for more unapologetic Black comics
09:42
with various Black experiences,
09:44
the issue of crossover or palatability
09:46
was questioned or compromised.
09:48
– Stand up, sketch shows, and sitcoms
09:51
could be someone’s only interaction
09:53
with a particular group of people.
09:54
And not everyone is laughing at the same joke.
09:57
In 2005, Dave Chappelle famously exited his show
10:00
at the height of its popularity,
10:02
and quit comedy for over a decade.
10:05
– And it all started with one long and hardy laugh
10:07
from a white guy in his audience,
10:09
as Chappelle performed a satirical sketch in blackface.
10:12
It made Chappelle deeply uncomfortable,
10:14
and he had to ask himself
10:16
if his work was effectively criticizing stereotypes
10:19
or simply reinforcing them.
10:21
– What I didn’t consider is
10:22
how many people watch the show,
10:26
and how the way people use television is subjective.
10:30
Somebody on set that was white laughed in such a way…
10:34
I know the difference of people laughing with me
10:36
and people laughing at me.
10:38
And it was the first time I’d ever gotten a laugh
10:41
that I was uncomfortable with.
10:44
Not just uncomfortable, but like,
10:46
“Should I fire this person?”
10:48
(audience laughs)
10:51
I don’t want black people to be disappointed in me
10:55
for putting that out there.
10:56
– Well you don’t wanna be disappointed in yourself.
11:00
– You know what, Oprah?
11:01
(audience laughs)
11:02
You’re right. – Yeah.
11:04
– I mean, I can’t even lie.
11:05
I struggle with this, too,
11:06
as a frequent consumer of Instagram comedy.
11:09
These videos get millions of views
11:11
and thousands of comments.
11:13
I know why it’s funny,
11:15
but does everybody else?
11:16
– Especially with the use of AAVE or Ebonics,
11:19
certain movements and behaviors.
11:20
We might be in control of our content now more than ever,
11:23
but social media can make us lose sight
11:26
of intentions and context
11:28
when stuff is interpreted and reposted by others.
11:30
– Oh, and don’t forget Black Twitter.
11:32
Remember when we said comedy is tragedy plus time?
11:36
The span of time between traumatic events and viral hashtags
11:40
is almost instantaneous now.
11:42
– Does this quick-witted coping mechanism
11:44
lead others to believe things aren’t really that bad?
11:47
Just because we fire off thousands of
11:49
BBQ Becky tweets in a day doesn’t mean we enjoy the idea of
11:52
having the cops called on our family function.
11:55
So, who are some of your favorite funny people
11:56
online right now?
11:57
– Right now I am loving @YesImPrettyVee and @TheBSimone2.
12:01
These are some funny ladies on Instagram,
12:03
and also everywhere, but I watch them on Instagram.
12:05
And I love how they use physical comedy, so it’s
12:08
their exaggerated movements, their exaggerated voices,
12:12
but they’re also like super observant,
12:15
so they’re somehow extra and on point at the same time.
12:18
And I think it’s so smart. – And that’s like a skill.
12:21
– It’s a skill, yes. – A legitimate skill.
12:22
I mean, for me, you know, aside from you–
12:24
– Oh, thank you. – Obviously,
12:27
I also enjoy KevOnStage. – Yes.
12:29
– His brand of comedy isn’t necessarily feel good,
12:32
but in a hectic world,
12:34
I could always go to him for a good wholesome laugh.
12:36
– Guilt-free laugh. – A good guilt-free laugh.
12:40
– I think for me, it’s all about
12:42
you know, being true to myself.
12:43
If it’s something that I think is edgy, I decide,
12:45
I spend a lot of time before I make the video deciding
12:49
if I’ll make it, if I do, what angle I take,
12:51
’cause I don’t like to hassle with deleting videos.
12:54
Nobody is above these jokes.
12:55
Everybody get these jokes, me, my wife, kids, my grandma.
12:59
You, if you fell down the stairs, you get these jokes.
13:02
And I know we just met, these jokes are for everybody.
13:04
– One of my favorite sketches that you did
13:06
is the Calling in Black sketch.
13:08
I would think a lot of people probably know you for
13:10
because it really had a great commentary around
13:14
something that we’re all sort of experiencing
13:16
and going through.
13:18
And to understand the joke,
13:19
you have to be socially aware. – Yes.
13:21
Sometimes, I need a minute.
13:24
Okay, and that’s where calling in black
13:26
would be so clutch.
13:28
Oh, no, no, it’s not contagious, I need
13:30
a solid day to reaffirm my humanity to myself.
13:33
So, I’ll see you tomorrow.
13:35
I have a slight fever
13:36
boiling with the rage of the police killing my people.
13:39
– So, how hard was it to write that?
13:41
Is it hard?
13:42
– Mmm, yes.
13:43
So, Call In Black was a video I made
13:45
that was me re-imagining
13:46
what it sounded like and looked like if I was able
13:50
not to call in sick, but to call in black.
13:52
Like, we’ve had a hard new day–
13:54
– A hard news day. – You know what I’m saying,
13:56
Not guilty– – Yeah. (chuckles)
13:57
– You know, having been declared not guilty,
13:59
and I just need a day off. – Yeah.
14:01
– You know, so, it was definitely a difficult process,
14:05
because I had to teeter that line between making sure people
14:09
didn’t think I was making light of a situation,
14:11
but instead I wanted to communicate how exhausted I was.
14:15
So, it’s definitely
14:18
a lot of effort that goes into that.
14:19
Comedy looks effortless, but it’s very effortful,
14:23
and so, I had to make people feel what I felt.
14:25
– I think I would love people to realize that
14:29
probably our greatest skill
14:31
is making it look easier than it really is.
14:34
Laughter is involuntary.
14:36
I have to say something that triggers
14:38
a response in your brain that laughs.
14:42
That is very difficult.
14:44
Comedians, we gotta prove to you I’m funny.
14:46
And sometimes you come to a comedy show,
14:48
for whatever reason people do this all the time,
14:50
come to a comedy show,
14:52
and they’re like, “You prove to me that you’re funny.
14:54
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
14:55
They don’t necessarily come to laugh,
14:57
we gotta work to prove to you that we’re funny.
15:01
People only give you about,
15:02
there’s slot only give you about three to five minutes.
15:04
– Comedy has been our greatest gift and our sharpest tool.
15:08
Should Chris Rock have boycotted the Oscars that one time?
15:11
That’s up to your personal opinion,
15:13
but getting the Oscars to pay you
15:15
to roast Hollywood to their face?
15:19
– Hollywood is
15:20
sorority racist.
15:23
It’s like, “We like you, Rhonda,
15:26
“but you’re not a Kappa.”
15:28
(audience laughs)
15:31
– It was awkward.
15:32
I mean, even on this show,
15:33
we use comedy to talk about pretty hard topics,
15:36
because we want you to engage with us,
15:38
and as Baughman said,
15:40
“One of the greatest sins in teaching is to be boring”
15:43
– For better or worse, Pryor’s work was groundbreaking
15:46
because it was honest.
15:48
The good, the bad, and the ugly personified.
15:52
And if we’re going to teach each other
15:53
about our experiences, sometimes that’s the only way to go.
15:57
– So what makes y’all laugh?
15:58
Let us know in the comments.
16:00
Also we’ve linked a bunch of resources
16:02
for you to check out about this topic.
16:04
So, go forth and learn about what makes pain so funny.
16:07
– Subscribe or follow this channel, give this video a like,
16:11
follow us on social media @SayItLoudPBS,
16:13
and we’ll see y’all next time.
16:15
– [Both] Bye.
16:16
– Yeah, what’s the deal with, um,
16:19
you know, uh, privacy settings,
16:22
and the terms and services, am I right?
16:25
What’s the deal with, um,
16:27
algorithms, am I right?
16:29
Like, Al Gore Rhythm.
16:32
(music chiming)
16:35
(dramatic music)
—
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