Going too far? Part II - What is racism really?

Poor Olivia Munn. Two months into her stint as “senior Asian correspondent” on The Daily Show with John Stewart, she’s had to deal with one criticism after the other. Jezebel, a feminist blog, was perhaps the most vocal about her casting. In “The Daily Show’s Women Problem,” an interesting, yet somewhat flawed, critique of TDS’ employment of women, Munn’s hiring wasn’t based on her being funny or anything, but a ratings grab. 

According to Nielsen, the Daily Show's audience does lean male—about 60 percent. That's who producers seemed to have in mind when they hired Olivia Munn. Though it's far to early to assess Munn's performance based on her few seconds onscreen so far, her previous career path has led some to criticize The Daily Show for hiring someone better known for suggestively putting things in her mouth on a video game show… and being on the covers of Playboy and Maxim than for her comedic chops.

And less you think she’s only facing attacks for being a hot girl, trying being a hot Asian girl. Our friend at Racialicious Thea Lim posted this open-letter to Munn recently. 

What angers me about your comedy, Olivia Munn, is how it is built on gleeful collusion with misogyny and racism. If we’re talking about the race stuff, unlike other comedians of colour (Katt Williams! Dave Chappelle! Russell Peters!) whose jokes—while hit or miss with the kyriarchy—rely on poking fun at white racism, your jokes generally rely on racist stereotypes about your own damn people, to get a laugh out of a racist white audience.

Gosh! I’m almost tempted to do a youtube video a la the Britney Spears fan, tearfully pleading into the camera to all the folks out there to leave Olivia Munn alone! Leave her alone! 

Racism and comedy have a long and complicated relationship. I can remember watching old Charlie Chan movies with my dad with Swedish actor Warner Oland portraying the Chinese detective, and laughing at all the fortune cookie talk. What a racist eight-year-old I was! Of course I was also taught that racism is wrong, and growing up in a fairly large Chinese neighbourhood in Toronto, and hanging out with a largely Asian crew of friends, it wasn’t hard to see that the people I grew up with didn’t talk like Charlie Chan. So I never learned to think of Chinese or Asian peoples as inferior or poor with grammar or anything negative, despite the movies I watched. 

As I grew older, I became fond of comedians like Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock for their racially charged stand-up routines. Poking fun at whites, blacks, Asians, Native Americans, and whomever else seemed like par for the course with them. Of course, there comes a point when you have to wonder just what purpose any of this serves, if it is indeed about serving a purpose, and who gains or loses as a result. 

So when someone like Russell Peters, who is Pakistani and frequently dons a Pakistani accent and jokes about south-Asian and other racial groups, does it send the wrong message to the people in the audience and at home, who are largely white, that this is a true representation of Pakistani or south-Asian people? 

I know this is a problem Chappelle struggled with. During the taping of the third season of his hit series Chappelle’s Show, he overheard a crew member laugh in a way that made him uncomfortable. The sketch he was taping featured a pixie appearing in the guise of a racist stereotype, with Chappelle donning blackface and acting like a character from a minstrel show. “It was the first time I felt that someone was not laughing with me but laughing at me,” Chappelle reportedly said of the incident. He left the show for this (and arguably other reasons). 

I admire Chappelle for not wanting to write socially irresponsible material, but the “racist pixie” sketch was just one in a long line of envelope-pushing sketches for Chappelle’s Show. Where was the same discomfort with the “Mad Real World,” a sketch that spoofed MTV’s The Real World, and featured a white guy living with a group of black people acting out every negative black stereotype imaginable? That sketch wasn’t really of a send-up of racial stereotypes either. 

But here’s the thing about both sketches. They’re freakin’ hilarious, as was the entire show. Chappelle’s Show is fondly quoted and hailed by black, white, Asian, etc as one of the funniest shows ever made (sorry other races, there’s too many of you to name). So if the show did on occasion reinforce racial stereotypes even while trying to poke fun at them, does that make it (and us) racist?

Of course anyone can be racist, and comedians are no exception. Some things can’t be excused, like Michael Richards use of the “N” word and hateful rant against two black audience members at a stand-up comedy club in LA four years ago. That was Klan-level racism, and his reputation was nearly destroyed after that. But someone like Lisa Lampanelli, dubbed the Queen of Mean because of her brash, offensive, and x-rated stand-up, makes arguably racist jokes too, but she’s continually booked for Comedy Central’s Roast series.

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So why does the Queen of Mean's career flourish while Kramer’s sits in the toilet? 

I think a lot of comedy has to do with context. Lampanelli plays a character on-stage, an almost intolerable one at that. You may laugh at her comedy or cringe, (I mostly just change the channel), but she’s basically playing a role, so it creates a comfortable level of distance for the viewer. There’s a line obviously, and comedians come across this all the time, but blurring it is a tricky and complicated ordeal.

But let’s go back to Munn. Thea’s piece focused on Munn relying on racist stereotypes of Asians for the comedic pleasure of white people, which include mocking her mother’s Chinese accent and speaking in Vietnamese (supposedly in order to mock the way Vietnamese people sound). I have to disagree with this. If making fun of your parents' accent or culture is racist, than a lot of kids I know with immigrant parents are racist. Which brings me to the second point about comedy – it’s supposed to be self-deprecating. Comedians always make fun of themselves, and comedians from ethnic or racial backgrounds are no exception. Jewish comedians are perhaps the most prolific and hilarious at this. Is it racist when an Asian or black person does it about their own people, for what’s no doubt a largely white audience?

This brings me to the last point. It’s all about taste. I know Munn’s comedy will rub some people the wrong way, (her skits on Attack of the Show are much worse than the three sketches she’s shot for TDS thus far), but what people find racist in comedy is largely subjective. My black uncle winces at the word “nigger” for obvious reasons. He grew up with that word thrown at him from white people all the time. And I don’t think he cares about context and who’s saying it either. For him, that word is bad regardless of whether it’s a black or white person saying it. Similarly, I can understand someone objecting to Lisa Lampanelli, Sarah Silverman, Dave Chappelle, Russell Peters, and my dear Olivia Munn. I've sat through racist jokes and been put off, other times I laughed my ass off. Comedy is all about contradictions, laughing at the maligned, the unfortunate, the ridiculed - even when you know it's wrong. Should race be excluded from that? Racism is the most divisive issue on the planet, and it’ll continue to put people off whether it’s intended to be satirical or not. It’s kind of meant to.