Joke’s on You: An Examination of Humor as a Cultural Divider/Queer Uniter

By: Megan Marie Metzger

March 20, 2014

Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: That’s not funny.

Feminists have long suffered a reputation for being

humorless sourpusses. This is likely based upon their inclination

to object when confronted with a brand of humor that may pass as

funny to some and racist, sexist, classist, homophobic,

transphobic and/or ableist to others. In an article for Hypatia,

Merrie Bergmann questions “what reply is adequate to attempts at

appeasement like: ‘What's the matter? Can't you take a joke?’ or:

‘It's all in fun. Where's your sense of humor?’" (Bergmann 1986,

65)

The culture of comedy during the 1960s and ’70s thrived on

this offensive humor. Stately white masculine older men, “good

old boys” like Rat Pack head honcho Frank Sinatra,

“Quintessential American” Bob Hope and randy TV personality

Richard Dawson made jokes at the expense of women, people of

color and gays and lesbians, usually to their faces, and instead

of showing anger or hitting back with an equally biting retort,

1

the butts of the jokes were encouraged to keep their mouths shut,

smile, and be a good sport. Relax, it’s just a joke! they might say,

dismissing any opportunity to voice dissent. Some complied with

this bully brand of humor to dominate entertainment. Others

refused, and instead of laughing, they talked back, creating

their own space and making their own work, denying permission for

others to other them.

First, this paper will establish what it means to be a

spoilsport or killjoy by employing works by Sarah Ahmed and Audre

Lorde. Next, it will examine the Be a Good Sport Culture as referenced

by Sarah Ahmed in her essay “Queer Feelings” that permeated

throughout popular American comedy, specifically in the 1950s-

1970s. Lastly, with selected passages from Eli Clare’s memoir

Exile and Pride (1999), this paper will show how artists like

filmmaker John Waters and comedian Margaret Cho work to

reappropriate and queer the culture of humor, using laughter not

only to elicit pleasure, but to overturn the exclusionary

normative order.

Laughter is usually perceived as a pleasurable human

reaction that operates in a variety of ways; sometimes it’s a

2

social lubricant, a way to ease tension after an awkward moment.

As an audience member at a stand-up gig it’s a signal that shows

you’re in on the joke, part of the crowd. A hearty belly laugh is

said to relieve anxiety or stress, the best medicine, as the

cliche goes. But what happens when you’re targeted to be the

source of laughter, the butt of the joke? Laughter becomes a

knife that cuts you to your core, that divides you off from the

rest of the group. We aren’t laughing with you, we are laughing

at you, because you’re something worthy of a ridicule. You’re a

joke. In playgrounds, kids who find themselves at the mercy of

cruel jokes are encouraged not to let the bullies see them cry.

As Sarah Ahmed writes in “Queer Feelings,” pleasure can be

“‘good’ only if it is orientated towards some objects, not

others.” (435) In humor, one person’s punchline can be another

person’s trigger. Sarah Ahmed continues, observing that

sometimes, “in mainstream culture... pleasure is a matter of

being a ‘good sport’.” (435) Being a good sport implies not

provoking the joke teller to ask the questions Bergmann

mentioned. Good sports must convey that not only can they take

the joke directed at them, but that they are complicit in its

3

negative, hurtful connotations. This allowance, this permission,

allows the good sport to continue to play the game.

Usually, those who refuse to comply and vocalize their

objections to material they find insensitive and offensive are

often branded as a “killjoys.” No fun. In "Killing Joy: Feminism

and the History of Happiness," Sarah Ahmed cites Marilyn Frye

(1983) who explained that oppression requires that “you show

signs of being happy with the situation in which you nd fi

yourself: ‘It is often a requirement upon oppressed people that

we smile and be cheerful. If we comply, we signify our docility

and our acquiescence in our situation...anything but the sunniest

countenance exposes us to being perceived as mean, bitter, angry

or dangerous’ ” (2010, 582-583).

In the 18th Century, when the United States of America was

in its infancy, white women of a higher class were relegated to

the private sphere. Women were limited access to certain parts of

the public sphere at particular time, and almost never without a

male companion or chaperone. Any woman seen out alone at night

was often assumed to be a sex worker (Gilfoyle, 1992). This

indoctrinated [white] women to be seen and not heard, to be

4

polite, to keep their mouths shut and their thoughts to

themselves. Feminism has worked very hard to reverse this and

speak up, to rock the boat. Radical feminists rallied against the

system and urged women not to give a shit what the patriarchy

wanted from them, to not live a life based on winning men’s

approval. Often, identifying as feminist, while it should be an

imperative, isn’t an easy road to take. Ahmed avers “to be

recognized as a feminist is to be assigned to a dif cult fi

category and a category of dif culty. You are already read as fi

not easy to get along with when you name yourself a

feminist.” (2010, 583)

Of course, in any assemblage, even those that rally to enact

social change, the regimented social hierarchy perpetuated in the

United States’ dominant cultural hegemony rears its ugly head.

Ahmer notes:

Within feminism, some bodies more than others can be

attributed as the cause of unhappiness. We can place the

gure of the feminist killjoy alongside the gure of the fi fi

angry black woman, explored so well by writers such as Audre

Lorde (1984b) and bell hooks (2000). The angry black woman

5

can be described as a killjoy; she may even kill feminist

joy, for example, by pointing out forms of racism within

feminist politics. She might not even have to make any such

point to kill joy. (2010, 583)

In “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” Audre

Lorde observes “black and third world people are expected to

educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to

educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the

heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their positions and

evade responsibility for their own actions.” (1980, 115) The

feminist killjoy, and more specifically, the figure of the “angry

black woman” for women of color, encumbers the marginalized butt

of the joke to be put in a position where they have to explain to

the offender why their words were not okay. Further, only

assigning white, cis-gender, straight men of means as the only

individuals capable of using humor to offend is highly reductive.

The job of being a bully is equal opportunity. Lorde cautions

feminists, writing “Ignoring the differences of race between

women and the implications of those differences presents the most

serious threat to the mobilization of women’s joint power.”

6

(1980, 117) Yes, comedy culture is male dominated. Popular TV

shows, even those with a “progressive,” neo-liberal slant like

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (1996), which was created by female

comedian Lizz Winstead has long been plagued with complaints that

it’s a “boys club”1 with a meager percentage of female writers.

Comedy “legends” like Jerry Lewis and Chevy Chase have long

challenged that women aren’t funny. And, as well all know, as

evidenced by the work of American women like Wanda Sykes, Sandra

Bernhard, Maria Bamford, Gilda Radner, Whoopi Goldberg and Tig

Notaro, that’s total bullshit. Despite the different voices heard

in mainstream comedy, individuals and those who are at risk of

being compartmentalized because of the color of their skin, where

they live how they look or who they love are relegated to the

good sport role.

“Good sport” culture permeated popular comedy in 1960s-1970s

America. Humor found on network television, mainstream cinema and

on the Vegas strip consisted primarily of gags whose content

worked to pit and reinforce the “other” against a jeering

hegemony. In Wallowing in Sex: The New Sexual Culture of 1970s American

1 By “conventional” we can fairly assume Levine is implying white, middle-class, able-bodied US citizens with “traditional values.”

7

Television, Elana Levine analyzes various genres’ treatment of

sexuality on TV in the wake of the civil rights, gay pride and

women’s liberation movements in 1960s-’70s United States. On

programs like the wildly popular CBS game show The Match Game

(1973), Levine observes that “television’s sexual humor defused

much of the sexual revolution’s revolutionary potential,

reiterating the centrality and normality of conventional2

heterosexual monogamy.” (2007, 171) Despite battles women, people

of color, the disabled, immigrants and those who identify as

queer fought for equality and visibility, on TV, they were still

humorless shrews or ditzy bimbos (depending of course on their

age and level of “attractiveness”), still silly n-words, still

helpless cripples with funny shoes, still sissies and fairies and

ugly bull dykes.

Within the opening seconds of a 1976 episode of The Match

Game3, celebrity panelist Pat Morita is immediately poked fun at

by the show’s fellow entertainers for his Japanese descent

2 Mr. T and Tina (ABC) was the first US television show to feature an Asian-American actor in the title role. The show was canceled after airing for one month in the 1976 fall season. (Source: IMDB.com)3 Dawson played Cpl. Peter Newkirk on WWII POW sitcom Hogan’s Heroes (CBS) from 1965-1971. (Source: IMDB.com)

8

(Japanese-American Morita was born June 28, 1932 in Isleton,

California). As he introduces the celebrity players, host Gene

Rayburn remarks he and Morita didn’t get a chance to meet

backstage before the show. “I didn’t even get to give you a

kiss,” Rayburn says, speaking into his curiously thin and long

microphone. “What’s the matter, don’t you like Japanese people?”

asks panelist regular Brett Somers. The crowd responds with

laughter and Rayburn continues with the gag. “Alright, I’ll kiss

you.” As he leans in, he complains about Morita’s thick,

masculine mustache and opts to kiss him on the cheek. After

Rayburn’s peck, Morita sticks out his tongue, and smacks his

face, feigning a giddy lovestruck teenager. The crowd erupts

approvingly with wild applause. Richard Dawson, another Match

Game mainstay, interjects with a combination Pearl-Harbor-gay-

panic gag: “The only thing is, December 7th you wanna attack

Pearl Bailey.” Rayburn and Dawson continue to lob racist jokes at

Morita; when Morita plugs his upcoming series, Mr. T and Tina4,

4 During his tenure on Family Feud, Dawson garnered the nickname the “Kissing Bandit” for sneaking a kiss with every single female contestant. To Dawson’s credit, when ABC executives chided Dawson for kissing non-white women and urged him to stop, citing viewer complaints, he refused. “It's important to methat on Family Feud I could kiss all the people. It sounds crazy but when I first came here [to the US, Dawson was born in England] Petula Clark was on a show with Nat King Cole and he kissed her on the cheek and eighty-one stations

9

Rayburn asks “Are you Tina?” Morita replies in a clipped British

accent: “No, I’m Mr. T. It’s because I drink it all the time I

guess.” Dawson slants his eyes, crosses his arms and in a poor

Asian accent, remarks “very interesting.” “Hahaha, that’s good!”

chuckles Somers, while the camera pans to Morita smiling and

nodding, his mouth closed, to show that he is a good sport who

can take a joke. This exchange all takes place in the first two

minutes of the show and is just a small portion of the jokes

Morita cheerfully endured at the expense of his Japanese heritage

during the episode’s twenty minute run.

Watching this clip I can’t help but wonder what the late,

great Pat Morita would have said to Richard Dawson, also

deceased, if, instead of smiling and going along with the jokes

at his expense, Morita opted to fight back with a wicked, witty

retort--to not be a good sport. Would Pat Morita question Richard

Dawson’s masculinity by mentioning the fact that while Morita and

his family spent actual time in an internment camp during World

War II, Dawson, the privileged Hollywood actor, merely played a

in the South canceled him. I kissed black women daily and nightly on Family Feud, and the world didn't come to an end, did it?” (IMDB.com)

10

WWII POW on TV5? Would he call out the ribald and aging Richard

Dawson for being a “dirty old man” who insisted on groping and

kissing every unwitting female contestant on The Match Game and,

later the Family Feud?6

No mention of Match Game should ever exclude show fixture

Charles Nelson Reilly, a gay male icon who, as AV Club critic

Robert David Sullivan notes, “was a role model for a lot of

youngsters who didn’t yet realize they needed one.” ("10 Match

Game Episodes That Hit Viewers Right in the Blank", 2014) Reilly

never directly acknowledged his homosexuality to the public until

much later in his life, as part of his autobiographical one-man

theatre show Save it For the Stage (2000). In 2006, the year before

his death, Reilly adapted the play for film, calling it The Life of

Reilly. In it, he recalls the story of meeting NBC president

Vincent J. Donehue, when he was a young, struggling New York

actor. Reilly paints the picture of himself, young and hopeful,

walking into the NBC executive’s tony corner office with the

5 Because, duh, there is obviously no such a thing in this world as a gay male trucker!6 I put this use of ironic in quotations because if Joyce was poking fun at gay panic, then this approach mirrors present-day “hipster racism/homophobia,”which often succeeds in a completely misappropriating what it means to actually be ironic.

11

beautiful view that extended to the Bronx where Reilly grew up.

The actor, in the twilight of his life, known primarily as a

kitschy relic, a “funny uncle-type,” is vulnerable in this scene,

revealing that the young, struggling actor’s hopes were dashed

when Donehue tells him plainly that “they don’t let queers on

television.” He continues “what [Donehue] said didn’t bother

me...his words were inaccurate.”

Charles Nelson Reilly did more than prove Donehue wrong.

Reilly was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

(1962), appearing more than 100 times (IMDB.com). Other

television credits included The Ed Sullivan Show (1963), The Ghost and

Mrs. Muir (1968), Love, American Style (1971), Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In

(1972), The Love Boat (1982), and game shows like What’s My Line

(1964), Hollywood Squares (1972) and of course Match Game.

While the object of the game may have been to try and get as

many matched words from fill-in-the-blank phrases, the actual

point of Match Game was to provide answers rife with “sexual

innuendo and double entendres…[that] provided the release to

which Match Game’s ubiquitous sexual tension inevitably built.”

(Levine 2007, 170) The “sexual tension” built on Match Game “was

12

nearly always suggested rather than overtly stated [which] was

important to the TV industry’s claims of family-friendly

propriety.” (Levine 2007, 170) Again, much like Levine’s use of

“conventional,” it’s safe to assume that “family-friendly” means

heteronormative, middle-class, white families with “traditional

values.” Reilly not only queers the show with his physical gay

male body (his trademark thick square glasses and silk ascot, his

abrasive high-pitched nasal voice), he affirms his agency by only

allowing himself the power to make him the target of any gay

joke. Instead of allowing other (straight) panelists to razz him

for his sexuality, he queers what it means to be a good sport by

beating them to the punch before they even have a chance. For

instance, on an episode that aired in 1974, Rayburn gives the

clue, “every Saturday night, Frank gets picked up by a BLANK.”

The audience shrieks in anticipation at the potential of a racy

answer. The female contestant sheepishly answers, “a sailor,” and

the audience groans in disapproval. Much to the surprise of

Rayburn and the studio audience, the first panelist, Orson Bean,

matches with “sailor.” Bean quips “he takes him dancing and they

have a wonderful time and he buys him a fried egg sandwich and he

13

kisses him goodnight at the door. That’s it. That’s the story.”

Second panelist Brett Somers launches into her answer, explaining

“Orson is wrong...’Frank’ is a girl who is named after her daddy.

And she went out and picked herself up a fella.” Somers then

reveals her card, also a match with “sailor.” With her answer and

explanation, Somers keeps the “naughty” gay double entendre

intact by also “normalizing” it by defining the relationship

between Frank and the sailor as an innocent, heterosexual one.

Onto Reilly, well-aware of what the implications would be if he

too answered with “sailor” decides “to be a little different,” he

says as he makes his trademark nasal “oh huh” while arching his

eyebrows and answers with “a lady of the streets (San Vicente).”

The audience groans and Reilly fights back saying “so he was a

normal guy--is there something wrong with that?!?!” The crowd

goes wild and Rayburn shakes his head, telling Reilly, “oh,

Charles, you’re too much.”

In a 1978 episode, Rayburn asks a contestant, “did you hear

about the Jolly Green Giant’s Halloween Party? He took all the

other giants to the ocean, they stuck their heads in the ocean

and bobbed for BLANK.” The first two panelists answer with

14

“sharks” and “whales,” while Reilly answers with “the only answer

that’s correct: watermelons. What do you bob for on Halloween?”

Rayburn answers “apples” to which Reilly replies, “what’s the

biggest fruit you can get--present company excluded? Take it from

me, that’s the definitive answer.”

Unlike the constant reaction cuts to Pat Morita in the

episode where his Japanese heritage was mocked, I saw no similar

filming technique on any of the episodes I watched that cut to

Reilly anytime a joke mocking gay men was mentioned. For example,

on the series’ premiere of the randier night-time version of the

show titled Match Game PM (1975), panelist Elaine Joyce answered

“fellow” to the phrase “Arthur said, ‘my blind date was horrible.

Kissing her was like giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with a

BLANK.’” Joyce explained her answer, reasoning that “Arthur was

a, well, he was a trucker so the worst thing he could think of to

kiss would be another fellow.”7 Cut to Richard Dawson, who, in a

feminized voice, turns to Joyce with “don’t knock it unless

you’ve tried it.” Joyce leaps from her chair, mouth agape and

shrieks, “Ugh, my god they’re all around us!” The camera remains

7 Analyzed Match Game episodes were found on YouTube via links provided by the cited AV CLUB web article.

15

pointed to the bottom row, the only actual gay man there silenced

from responding to Joyce’s homophobic disgust. In this particular

instance, Reilly was a good sport by omission.

Had the camera dared to capture a reaction from Reilly, what

would we have seen? What barb would the late, brilliant Charles

Nelson Reilly have delivered to Elaine Joyce that would rendered

her perceived disgust (there is no indication given in her

delivery as to whether or not the Broadway theatre actor’s

homophobic response was “ironic”8) as ugly to the 1970s TV

viewing audience as it looks to me when I watch it on my laptop

in the present day?

In the canon of hegemonic American pop culture, Bob Hope is

lauded as a national treasure. In 1997, Congress awarded Hope

honorary veteran status of the US Armed Forces for his work

entertaining the troops during his many USO tours. A 2010

cnsnews.com profile describing a Library of Congress exhibit

celebrating his legacy described “a letter on display written by

feminists who claim they want to stage their own USO. show.

8 See http://bitchmagazine.org/post/kerbloffle-the-olivia-munn-saga

16

‘Since this is a counter-USO show, we think that the script

should have none of the sexist scenes in it that Bob Hope

specials have, dancing girls or any portrayal of Women (sic)

being inferior to men (which they aren’t),’ the letter states.”

(“Library of Congress’ Bob Hope Exhibit Showcases Political

Activism More Than Comic’s Legacy,” 2010)

Hope also shares another equally “esteemable first.”

According to a Hollywood Reporter listicle, Hope called a man a

“fag” for wearing a flashy tie during a 1988 visit on The Tonight

Show. “This was the first time GLAAD...successfully pressured a

celebrity to apologize for using a gay slur. At a time when

public support for gay rights was still small, Hope agreed to

record a public service announcement condemning anti-gay bigotry,

graciously paying for it himself.” (“10 Controversial Gay Gaffes

That Shook Hollywood,” 2011) While it was indeed “gracious” for

the privileged, wealthy Hope to spring for his own PSA, no money

could ever erase the sexist bigotry that, no matter how many

honors his country bestowed upon him, was undeniably an integral

part of his lengthy legacy.

Bob Hope’s variety TV specials that aired throughout the

17

1970s “frequently had an anti-gay or homophobic cast, as in a

November special in which Bob Hope derided ‘Sissy Power,’ his

derogatory label for gay liberation.” (Levine 2007, 172a)

In “Lucy and Desi: Sexuality, Ethnicity, and TV’s First

Family,” Mary Desjardins examines Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s

public personas as negotiated through race, class and gender.

Ball and Arnaz guested on an episode of The Bob Hope Show (NBC,

1948), lampooning both their real-life professional and personal

relationship and the fictional husband and wife they played on I

Love Lucy (1951). Desjardins observes that, while “Hope’s film

star persona was based on the feminine man...as a variety show

host (not unlike his USO host persona), Hope is transformed into

a sophisticated wielder of sexual and racist jokes.” (1999, 64)

During the episode, both Ball and Arnaz’s real-life personas

and the characters they play on TV are mashed together; instead

of portraying herself as the highly successful television

producer in a male-dominated industry, Ball’s performance leans

more toward the hare-brained, bumbling Mrs. Ricky Ricardo bored

housewife TV character, nagging her husband for a part on his

show. Hope who admits he’s “often wondered what would have

18

happened if [Ball] married [him] instead of [Arnaz]...’if I were

the husband in I Love Lucy’” (Desjardins 1999, 62) casts himself in

the Ricky Ricardo role. By casting himself as Ball’s husband,

Hope asserts his superiority, connecting his “racism to

masculinist, heterosexual competition...exposing links between

patriarchal control of gender and racial definitions.”

(Desjardins 1999, 64) Cuban-born Arnaz is relegated to a second

banana role, playing William Frawley’s “Fred” character. Actress

Vivian Vance, who played Fred’s wife Ethel on I Love Lucy, also

appears, pitting Ethel and Lucy against each other in a rivalry

for Arnaz’s/Fred’s affections. As Desjardins explains, “Hope-as-

Ricky evidences desire for Lucy, Ethel and Lucy are rivals for

Desi-as-Fred, while he and Hope-as-Ricky enact a rivalry over

masculinity. In other words, heterosexual patriarchal

prerogatives are stabilized through the centering of the women’s

desiring of the men and the men’s competition through ‘exchange’

of the women.” (1999, 64-65)

Instead of affecting a Latin accent (which honestly, thanks

for sparing us Bob), Hope plays Lucy’s husband as the white man

that he is. Arnaz’s Cuban otherness is often the target of Hope’s

19

jokes; Hope asks Arnaz, “what happened: Did you just come back

from a ‘wetback’ luau?” (Desjardins 1999, 63) These displays of

racism, sexism and patriarchal dominance are played for laughs,

and as Hope’s long career suggests, there was a wide audience for

this brand of offensive humor. Ball’s success as a trailblazer in

her industry allots her no agency to portray herself as such,

even when she was supposedly appearing as “herself” on Hope’s

variety show. Despite Arnaz being born into a wealthy,

influential family, the fact that he was born into a country

where Spanish is the “native language,” he is nothing to Hope but

a “wetback.”

Like the other entertainers who were subjected to being good

sports, Arnaz and Ball were likely complicit in their mere

existence as a worthy subject for a variety of reasons. Given the

history and culture of show business, it may have been impossible

to imagine the field open its doors to people other than

privileged benefactors of the patriarchy. Perhaps Arnaz counted

his lucky stars that he could book radio shows despite his thick

Cuban accent.

Maybe Sammy Davis, Jr., who, in the 1950s, had to sleep in

20

separate, segregated quarters on the other side of town because

the place where he and the rest of the Rat Pack performed their

live shows didn’t allow “Coloreds” to eat in their dining rooms,

gamble in their casinos or sleep in their hotel suites complied

with his blackness, his glass-eye, his size, his Judaism as prime

targets for Frank and Dinos and the boys to poke fun at because

he felt it was the only way to “play the game.”

Sammy Davis, Jr., appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show, in

1989, just one year before his death from throat cancer at age

64. He spoke of the racial barriers he helped break by eventually

refusing to work in any clubs that still enforced segregation.

Hall admits his own blissful ignorance by admitting that, upon

reading Davis’ accounts of his time as a young, segregated

soldier serving his country during WWII. “I guess I always

thought that having the kind of talent you have makes living [as

a black man] in America, a little easier. It scares me to read

that they painted you white, that they poured urine in your

beer...did that really happen?” Davis, who grew up in Harlem to

parents who made their careers in vaudeville, admitted he was

protected by his parents and community from the grotesque racial

21

inequality that the United States of America is arguably defined

by. In Sammy, Davis writes “I could see the protection I'd

gotten all my life from my father. I appreciated [his] loving

hope that I'd never need to know about prejudice and hate, but

they were wrong. It was as if I'd walked through a swinging door

for eighteen years, a door which they had always secretly held

open.” (2000, 46) Davis, small but regal, explains between

pulled puffs off his cigarette his encounters with racism in the

US Army. Fellow black soldiers would warn Davis “Hey man, don’t

be a[n Uncle] Tom, do what you’re supposed to do.” Davis

continues, as he rose to fame as a major celebrity and

entertainer, he heard criticism from not only whites but “his

people” that his success was synonymous with attempts at racial

assimilation:

They said ‘he wants to be white.’ I don’t want to be white!

If I was white...I think a white Sammy Davis, Jr. [would be]

BAD! [audience laughter] It’s because of what I am. Because

of my innate blackness. MY innate blackness. It’s not

[Arsenio Hall’s], it ain’t Richard Pryor’s it ain’t Sidney

[Poitier]’s, It isn’t Eddie Murphy’s, but it’s mine…

22

[Arsenio,] you come out and you do your thing and you do the

humor that is ‘now’ humor and if you’ll deal with a white

situation or a black situation... you do it with humor. I

tried to do it with entertaining. To try to get some doors

open, because all of them were closed back in those days.

All of them..you had nobody to back you up. Not the

government, not the people, not the city...as soon as I got

my foot in the door I started doing everything that I ever

wanted to do. I went overboard. Off the deep end.

Davis worked tirelessly to forge a niche in show business by

presenting himself not only as a unique and beloved entertainer,

but to show racist America that his “innate blackness” is as

different as any other African American’s “innate blackness,”

that an entire race cannot be reduced to one joke. Davis took the

punches from his co-stars and showed that he was not only a good

sport, but someone who played the game so that others, who often

felt laughed at simply for being who they are could turn the

table on its motherfucking head, making the joke on the

oppressor.

The middle section of Eli Clare’s stark and stunning memoir,

23

Exile & Pride (1999) finds the author grappling with the words that

others have used to name his existence as an other, a queer,

disabled body in the grips of a country who has historically

othered disabled individuals to the point of grotesque

exploitation. Clare searches for the language to accurately

identify himself, to establish agency over his naming, and finds

himself mulling over the word “freak.” It’s a puzzling word for

Clare. “Unlike ‘queer’ and ‘crip,’ [‘freak’] has not been widely

embraced in my communities.” (Clare 1999, 84.) Clare continues to

wallow in the word, and shares with the reader the troubling

origin of the “freak” in US culture, a history that “tells the

story of an elaborate and calculated social construction that

utilized performance and fabrication as well as deeply held

cultural beliefs.” (Clare 1999, 86). Amputees, dark-skinned

“natives” and little people became “Armless Wonders...Wild Men

Borneo…[and]...Midgets” (86) who starred in actual “freak shows”

that “carefully construct[ed] an exaggerated divide between

“normal” and Other, sustained in turn by rubes willing to pay

good money to stare.” (Clare 1999, 87)

The story Clare tells is as rich and complex as the rest of

24

Exile & Pride. Of course, it’s devastating to think of these human

beings “made freaks, socially constructed for the purposes of

entertainment and profit” (Clare 1999, 89) were thought as not

people with thoughts and hopes and stories were treated like

exotic or scary animals in a zoo, or worse, inanimate objects to

gawk at like paintings in a museum, which “capitalized…on the

ableism and racism, which made the transitions from disabled

white person, disabled person of color, nondisabled person of

color, nondisabled person of color, to freak even possible.” (89)

On the other hand, as Clare reveals, “the people who worked

the freak show did not only live as victims.” (1999, 89) Clare

told the stories of those who “made decent livings; some, like

Charles Stratton, Mercy Lavinia, Warren Bump, and William

Johnson, even became wealthy.” (89) While this is positive it’s

still problematic, because, by using these disabled bodies for

profit, the white abled bosses who employed them “used ableism

racism to his benefit” thus perpetuating “normality” [to be]

defined exclusively in terms of whiteness and able-bodiness.”

(Clare 1999, 91)

The freak show can be considered an analogue of our society,

25

a place where “the complexities of exploitation pile up, layer

upon layer.” (91) “White people and nondisabled people” (AKA

white, cis-gender, heteronormativity) “[use] racism and ableism

to turn a profit” (91) The cultural hegemony and its willing,

complicit subjects work together to “consciously manipulate” (91)

other willing, complicit subjects and “use lies to strengthen its

own self-image.” (91-92) Clare, recalling Foucault’s theorization

of how power is produced and perpetuated, “believe[s the freak

show’s exploitation] exerted influence in many directions.”

(Clare 1999, 92)

Clare’s brilliant, in-depth exploration of not only his

feelings regarding the word “freak” but the actions of other

people who brought him to his conclusions is his journey to the

reclamation of words like “queer” “cripple” and “freak;” slurs

whose original intentions were only to hurt people and put them

in their place. In feminism, reclaiming words like “bitch9” has

9 Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler co-founded Bitch Magazine: A Feminist Response to Pop Culture in 1996. When Jervis and Zeisler were asked why they chose Bitch as their magazine’s title, they explained that the word is “an epithet hurled at women who speak their minds, who have opinions and don't shy away from expressing them, and who don't sit by and smile uncomfortably if they're bothered or offended. If being an outspoken woman means being a bitch, we'll take that as a compliment.” (Bitch Media FAQ, 2014)

26

operated to take the power away from the oppressor by

reappropriating the word as a compliment, its charged negative

connotation lessened.

On the fringe of mainstream American popular culture,

subversive, independent filmmakers and alt-comics refuse to

pander to the “good ol’ boy” syndicate who seeks entertainment

that reaffirms and reifies their dominant positioning in the

social hierarchy. They make work that gleefully pokes fun at

their own otherness to expose how ridiculous, ignorant and

grotesque it is for people to live their lives by asserting their

dominance. Baltimore artist and cult legend John Waters rose to

acclaim for his low-budget films that celebrates and beautifies

the transgressive weirdo who refuses to play by the rules that

promise to guarantee a “normal, happy life.” The queer characters

who populate John Waters’ not only don’t want to be good sports,

they would rather eat shit (literally!) than play the game.

Waters’ Baltimore is a dystopian Utopia where the “scum of

the Earth” (the queer, the fat, the disabled, the people of

27

color, the old, the poor, the drug users, the sex-workers) are

the superstars and the racist, sexist, size-ist homophobes

(Desperate Living, Hairspray) heteronormative “goody-goody-two-shoes”

are the losers. Divine, Waters’ drag queen muse, was a morbidly

obese bald gay man born Glenn Milstead when the cameras weren’t

filming. But in Waters’ films like Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female

Trouble (1974), his Divine alter-ego is a beautiful, glamourous,

dangerous, femme fatale and fashion model who embraces a deviant,

filthy life rife with crime and promiscuity. Waters explains his

choices to make the films that he makes, remarking “my idea of an

interesting person is someone who is quite proud of their

seemingly abnormal life and turns their disadvantage into a

career.” (Waters 2011, 98).

Margaret Cho, a Korean-American comedian who identifies as

bisexual, has built her career sharing her experiences struggling

to fit into a world that didn’t want her. Using autobiographical

details of her growing up in San Francisco as the daughter of

immigrant parents who owned a bookshop in the Castro district,

Cho redefines herself not as an exotic other to fetishize or

homogenize, but as an activist and a radical. Her brutally honest

28

material, which includes a “racist-if-anyone-else-did-it”

impression of her mother, succeeds in not only evoking laughter,

but exposing that no matter how hard some people try to

assimilate, to “play the game,” they could fail, even risking

death. In 1994, Cho broke boundaries as the first Asian-American

woman to star in her own TV show. She was the female counterpart

to Pat Morita, and the show was ABC's All-American Girl. Cho’s curvy

body and full face were “too fat for TV, according to ABC

executives. Producers were concerned that Cho was either “too

ethnic” or "not ethnic enough." The anxiety to please the network

mixed with a dangerous crash diet caused Cho’s kidneys to fail,

and she almost died. All American Girl ended up being a mediocre,

watered down appropriation of Cho’s wicked brash wit, and it was

canceled after one season. Depressed, Cho wallowed in booze and

drugs. But, as all real artists do, she turned her pain into

triumph, turning this story into her masterpiece, the comedy

special I'm the One That I Want (2000). It's vulnerable, heart-

wrenching and piss-your-pants funny. After this experience, Cho

has molded her career in a way that pleases only her and her

devoted fanbase. Cho may still play the game, but it’s by her

29

rules.10

This paper has worked to present the culture of humor and

mainstream entertainment through a feminist, queer lens. Its

intention is not to show a false sense of “this is where we were,

but, gee, look how far we’ve come!” “Good Sport” pressure still

exists, even in spheres like the alt-comedy genre, where hipster

racism (“I’m just being ironic!”) prevails. The game isn’t over,

but there are new, different and liberating ways to play.

Works Cited

"Sammy Davis on Arsenio Pt 2 of 3." YouTube. 25 Mar. 2008.

Ahmed, Sara. "Killing Joy: Feminism and the History of Happiness." Signs 35.3 (2010).

Bergmann, Merrie. "How Many Feminists Does It Take to Make A Joke? Sexist Humor

and What's Wrong with It." Hypatia 1.1 (1986).

Clare, Eli. Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation. Cambridge, MA:

SouthEnd, 1999.

10 Excerpts of this description of Cho’s film are borrowed from a previously published work by me for The Pitch Weekly (http://www.pitch.com/kansascity/girl-you-want/Content?oid=2188298)

30

Davis, Sammy, Jane Boyar, and Burt Boyar. Sammy: An Autobiography: With Material Newly

Revised from Yes I Can and Why Me. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.

Gilfoyle, Timothy J. City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920. New York, NY: W.W. Norton,

1992.

Havalovich, Mary Beth., and Lauren Rabinovitz. Television, History, and American Culture:

Feminist Critical Essays. Durham: Duke UP, 1999.

Levine, Elana. Wallowing in Sex: The New Sexual Culture of 1970s American Television. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2007.

Lewis, Andy. "10 Controversial Gay Gaffes That Shook Hollywood." The Hollywood

Reporter. N.p., 10 Nov. 2011.

Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing, 1984.

Starr, Penny. "Library of Congress’ Bob Hope Exhibit Showcases Political Activism

More Than Comic’s Legacy." CNS News. 11 June 2010.

Sullivan, Robert David. "10 Match Game Episodes That Hit Viewers Right in the

Blank." A.V. Club. 26 Feb. 2014.

Waters, John, and James Egan. John Waters: Interviews. Jackson: University of Mississippi,

2011.

31