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Ellen DeGeneres is a comical genius. She can take the most inane situations and use them to deliver punch lines with impeccable timing and inflection. Her warm and disarming deadpan combined with a quick wit has made her a favorite personality on daytime TV. Ellen’s comedy is based on intelligent observation rather than mean-spirited attack or scatological filler. The way she keeps us laughing, crying, and of course dancing, helps us live lighter, happier, better lives. So it’s a little preposterous that some are labeling her a racist for a recently tweeted meme about Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt.
Granted, the visual gag sits right at the fulcrum between raucously funny and subtly offensive. Often that’s where you find the best jokes, but it’s a precarious position this time.
It’s funny because… contrast. Humor demands contrast. Humor is immediate and surface. In this instance, Usain Bolt is uber masculine, dark-skinned, and otherworldly fast. Hilariously, Ellen superimposed herself into the photo riding Bolt’s back with an impish grin that would make Danny Devito proud. Sporting a look that’s part badly cast movie supervillain and part CrossFit pixie, she jokes: “This is how I’m running errands from now on. #Rio2016”
Coupled with that is the original reason the photo went viral. During the 100m semi-final while handing out asswhoopage to his competitors, Usain took occasion to flash an almost cartoonish, halogen-bright smile at a nearby photographer. That was comedic alone. Add Ellen to the mix and it’s the kind of wicked gag that Looney Tunes are made of. I don’t know about you, but I laughed!
Taking a simple situation to ridiculous extremes is a common path to humor. When the presented scenario is so far-fetched, the easiest way to confirm its improbability is to laugh at it… hard. Our amusement hinges on the collective understanding: “Ellen is so silly with her exaggerations. Riding the back of an adult male like an animal? This would never, ever happen!”
However, the reason it’s not funny is because of all the times when that actually did happen. Under the surface of the laugh, there is a long, shadowy history in America of dehumanizing and objectifying people of color, particularly in treating them like animals. This may show up as calling them monkeys and gorillas or riding them like a kept horse. At one time there was even the insidious practice of using Black children as alligator bait. And new instances still pop up in the recent era, such as in 2014 when magazine editor Dasha Zhukova was photographed sitting on a chair made of a very lifelike and sexualized mannequin of a Black woman.
This is precisely the centuries-old wound that the Usain/Ellen meme irritates. Those who find the controversy overblown may not have such triggering images fresh in their minds, or more likely are shielded by privilege. When that imagery is repeated over and over, it forms the same unconscious biases that keep systemic racism alive.
Furthermore, a fair amount of people feel like they carry the weight of the privileged upper class on their shoulders. To a racial minority making low wages and paying high taxes, Ellen’s meme may hit an exposed nerve before it hits your funny bone. If you feel harnessed for profit and put-upon so that the darling Ellens of the world can locomote effortlessly, it’s not so funny. Her mischievously riding Usain’s back may register as less adorable and more parasitic, triggering not entertainment but justifiable resentment.
Conversely, if you can laugh off the possibility of a Twitter meme being racist, you may just be blissfully unaware of how deeply racism crawls into America’s dark crevices. That said, Ellen’s image is just one roach and not the full infestation. Whether one wants to stomp on it or let it crawl away, I can understand either response.
Because people don’t know things until they are informed, I personally am willing to forgive a first offense more often than not. It’s so easy to be tone deaf that you can’t just hand down death sentences for it. That too is unjust.
Although intention can’t fully mitigate impact, before you declare someone racist you should consider their motivation and I believe Ellen Degeneres is a far cry from being racist. By contrast, her track record shows her to be a philanthropist and a defender of human rights. When she addressed the Twitter fracas saying, “I am highly aware of the racism that exists in our country. It is the furthest thing from who I am,” I believe her.
Be mindful of this: you don’t necessarily need to actually be a racist in order to do something that supports and propagates a racist system. You can do that by accident with no malicious intent at all. That’s what I think happened, so we should let her off with a warning and a good strong side eye.
As I often like to do, I sit in the middle looking at the experience on both sides. It’s roundly humorous a little to the right, and deeply hurtful a little to the left. You’re gonna feel one and disbelieve the other depending on where you position yourself. From my position, it’s not quite right, but it’ll be okay… I guess.
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Photo: GettyImages
You’re always going to piss someone off when you write, Mark. It’s inevitable. My first reaction was, “gees Louise, can we give it a rest”, but then I thought about it, and realized that although its sometimes like fingernails on a chalk board, you are right. Amazing what can happen when we do that rather then react viscerally. I think it’s called mindfulness. I’m not black either, so it’s easy for me to want to push forward and forget the past. My ancestors were not treated like animals, worse then farm animals. Being third generation Italian, mine is not the… Read more »
Stop burrowing and let your mind fly!!! Lighten up world…not everything has to be perceived in the worst possible way…
I thought I gave due respect to both sides. Wouldn’t the worst possible way be one-sided and unyielding?
What is soo funny about the meme that you laughed “hard and raucously” other than it’s racial connotations. I find this post offensive aggravating and last but not least not informative and false.
What’s funny about the meme is the color and cartoonishness of its composition, which totally reminded me of the Looney Tunes I watched as a kid. However, the information I provided about the history on why these images could be seen as hurtful seems both observable and relevant. If you already knew about that history, then good on you for being aware. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to add more to your body of knowledge this time around.
Thank you for putting into words exactly how I was feeling about this situation. Most of the reaction has been very extreme on one side or the other. Thank you for giving voice to another point of view.
Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, and thank you for having an open heart. May you always keep that ability even as the world attempts to abrade it away.
Thank you Mark for such a thoughtful response. Appreciated your assessment of the situation and masterful articulation of it.
Hats off to you for being able to receive it. Apparently, my masterful articulation still angered a section of people, but some consider that response to simply be a different type of success. So… win-win?