Blog Topic Two: Humor and Stereotypes

            Playwrights of color used humorous stereotypes to make a comment on the humor that early Americans had in a way that the audience would still be entertained while still being presented with an idea to think about. Today these stereotypes are still being used by the race or ethnicity they are meant to portray as a means to share in the past of their culture being ridiculed. That could almost be the punch line to each racial joke – the fact that these stereotypes are not true and perhaps never really were.
            The members of the audience listening to these jokes who are not of the ethnicity being used for humor are meant to laugh, but perhaps like the plays written before these jokes, they are also meant to think about the truth of each humorous punch line.

Although it’s perfectly acceptable to find a performance or joke humorous, because the point of them is to make people laugh, as a general rule, it’s never okay to laugh at another person. However, when deciding if it’s okay or not to laugh, whether the joke is racial or not, it’s up to the audience to decide whether it’s appropriate or not to laugh. A comedian doing a skit exemplifying his or her race is much different than white people interacting with members of another race joking around with each other. In the clip “And Now You Know,” he was acting inappropriately because he assumed just because someone was joking with a close friend, it was okay for him to include himself in on the joke. Since laughter is not a negative reaction, he thought that the laughter surrounding the racial stereotypes made it acceptable for him to join in laughter. However, just as you wouldn’t turn to a stranger next to you and say, “Yeah, that Aunt Barb is crazy. You should put her in a nuthouse,” because he or she happened to be speaking to his or her family member about it, someone shouldn’t act as the man in the clip and add in a racial joke to the African American’s comment as a joke towards his personal friend.

            Humor does help keep these stereotypes alive, but perhaps, and hopefully, in a way such as the characters in Day of Absence, Los Vendidos, Winnetou’s Snake Oil Show from Wigwam City, and Yankee Dawg You Die show how these stereotypes affect the individual members of that race and how they’re negative. Instead of simply amusing the audience, they’re used as a tool to tell the audience in an exaggerated manner that these stereotypes aren’t exactly true, and by adding interactions with those who created the stereotypes in some performances, the audience gets to see stereotypical performances of themselves as well. Rastus is included with the idea of a typical white Southern man to show how African Americans were treated less like people and more like children – the performance is funny, but it also holds some truth for the audience to deal with afterwards (19). Similarly, the machines/people being marketed in Los Vendidos are overgeneralizations of stereotypes that are meant to show how easily Mexicans were bought and sold for labor and were used more like machines than employees. The third play we looked at showcases many aspects of Native American culture with many jokes included, but the important note to make is how their culture was taken from them as well as their land, as seen by Gunther, who thinks of himself as a Native American just because he demanded to become Winnetou’s blood brother. The last play tells of the many demeaning roles Asian Americans had to take in films and how these stereotypes impacted two specific actors. We’re not only seeing perpetuated stereotypes within hilarious performances, but the effects of the stereotypes that are portrayed.