CounterReformation

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FMS 490 Standup Comedy As Social
Discourse Lesson 2 The Holy Trinity of
Contemporary Comedy (Plus 2) Part 2
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Lesson 3 Agenda

• 3 Faces of Black Comedy
• Dick Gregory From Comic To Cultural Critic
• Bill Cosby Super Negro Nice Guy to Americas Dad
  ( Super African American)
• Richard Pryor Comic Provocateur Socio-Cultural
  Critic
• Lets Watch Some Standup!

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Section 1 Three Faces of Black Comedy
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Dick GregoryUsing the Mic As A Weapon
Socio-Political Commentator I am as far
away from you as Delta Airline is anytime there
is any problem, I will be back. Speech at St.
John's Baptist Church Birmingham, Alabama May
20, 1963
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Bill Cosby Universalist Racounteur

• Creator of Communal Experience
• And you got it rainin' It's not a shower is
  it? Okay. Lord me and you, right ? 'Cause I knew
  it all the time.

Bill Cosby is a Very Funny Fellow Right (1964)
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The Black Side of the Trinity
Articulator of Culture Provocateur
You know what your problem is? You don't know
how to deal with the white man! You got a
white-man complex. I know how to deal with him.
That's why I'm in the position I'm in today."
"Wino Junkie (1974)
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Section 2 Dick Gregory From Comic To Cultural
Critic
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Breaking the Color Line

• Playboy Club Chicago 1960
• The Black Mort Sahl
• The Sick Comics
• Celebrity As A Tool

If Ive said anything to upset you, maybe its
what Im here for. Lenny Bruce shakes up the
puritans Mort Sahl, the conservatives and
mealmost everybody!
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Putting Your Mic Your Body Where Your Ideology
Is
Please go to the screening section for the lesson
watch Dick Gregory Shoveling Snow.
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50 Years of Speaking Truth to Powervs.
Mainstream Fame
WATCH Dick Gregory BBC Special Dick
Gregory-Martin Lawrence's 1st Amendment Standup
Dick Gregory Black State NEXT
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Section 2 Bill CosbySuper Negro to Americas
Dad( Super African American)
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The Televisualized Persona 1960s

• Model for Minority
• Universalist vs. Assimilationist
  
• Super Negro
• Alexander Scott
• Please go to the screening
• section for lesson
• watch Early Cosby Mix.
• 
  

I-Spy NBC (1965-68)
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The Televisualized Persona 1980s

• Super African American
• Family Friendly/Family Values
• Cliff Huxtable
• Act-Based Comedy

The Cosby Show NBC (1984-92)
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Comic ICONWho Happens to Be Black
It may seem that Im an authority because my
skin color gives me a mark of a victim. But
thats not a true label. I wont deal with the
foolishness of racial overtones on the show. I
base an awful lot of what Ive done simply on
what people will enjoy. Please go to the
screening section for the lesson and watch Bill
Cosby Himself.
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Section 3
Richard Pryor Comedic Social Discourse
Personified
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Constructed Persona

• In The Beginning
• Dick Gregory used to have stuff in Jet
  magazine. Thats how I started reading his
  material and doing it on stage. That was my first
  breakthrough. . . .Then I moved on to Bill Cosby
  . . . and I made a lot of money as Bill Cosby.

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The Persona Times Were Changing

• The days of pretending to be as slick and
  colorless as Cosby were numbered. There was a
  world of junkies and winos, pool hustlers and
  prostitutes, women and family screaming inside my
  head, trying to be heard.

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Cultural Commentary By Any Means Necessary
Watch Live in Concert

• I was a Negro for twenty-three yearsI gave it
  up . . . there was no room for advancement.

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Three Faces of Pryor
Standup
Film
TV
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For Your Consideration
How do the comics performances given in the
early sixties differ from their acts later in
their career? How do they differ from each other?
How does the content of the their acts relate to
the evolution of their personae and their
relationship to the political and social era when
they came of comic age?

• (Posted on the eBoard)

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For Your Consideration

• Bruce, Carlin and Pryor are considered part of
  the Trinity and Cosby and Gregory are not. Why?
  Consider the trajectories of the comics careers
  and their influence on their comic progeny.
• (Posted on the eBoard)

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Next Time All the Funny Ladies Pt. 1In the
Beginning