Quoted: Adelina Anthony on Comedy as Resistance
Making queer Chicana experience comedic affirms our pains and glories – hijole, just the fact that we exist and thrive. If I flip the dynamic around and poke fun at whiteness or heterosexuality, that’s the work of resistance, because I’ve inverted the paradigm and I’m using comedy to laugh at those structures that work to make us invisible. Since I’m writing with a queer Chicana audience in mind, it’s meant for us. We recognize the stereotype[s] – even how we sometimes play into them ourselves. If I pole fun at lesbians of color (with a progressive agenda, of course), then it’s the work of healing – and that’s the best effect of laughing in a group setting. The roar of the audience on some jokes points to that collectivity of experience and culture.
—Adelina Anthony, Bitch Magazine “Sit Down Comedy” Fall 2009 issue.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist wrote:
True… but sometimes certain groups (the non-targeted audience) can throw the humor back and make it ugly…
like how some racist white people did that with Dave Chapelle’s comedy bits.
Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 11:06 am ¶
AnonymousArab wrote:
“…like how some racist white people did that with Dave Chapelle’s comedy bits.”
True that. Or hell, even worse- like Carlos Mencia. *Shudder*
Still, that people will always be racist is not a good reason to stop.
Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 3:01 pm ¶
LaurynX wrote:
Thanks for introducing me to her!
Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 10:02 pm ¶
noah wrote:
Oy, I had to explain this, albeit less eloquently, when we were discussing identity in one of my classes. It will be a glorious day when, during a conversation about race, no one asks why it’s ok for folks of color to make fun of white people, but not vice versa.
Posted 25 Oct 2009 at 11:47 am ¶
dersk wrote:
Carlos Mencia has comedy bits?
Posted 26 Oct 2009 at 10:46 am ¶