Polysemic Scaffolding: Explicating Discursive Clashes in Chappelle's Show

Communication, Culture & Critique ISSN 1753-9129

ORIGINAL ART ICLE

Polysemic Scaffolding: Explicating DiscursiveClashes in Chappelle’s Show

Lisa Glebatis Perks

Program of Communication and Rhetoric, Nazareth College, Rochester, NY 14618

This article explicates the discursive foundations that bubble up multiple meanings inracial humor, describing three prominent discursive clashes at the heart of Chappelle’sShow’s polysemic comedy: Egregious stereotyping versus subtler mediated racism, invertedracial stereotypes versus traditional stereotypes, and serious versus nonserious discourse.Throughout the article, I make a case for ‘‘polysemic scaffolding,’’ a method that positionspolysemy as a taken-for-granted interaction among text, author, and audience, and insteadseeks to understand the discursive patterns that will eventually have their polysemicmeanings activated. This article underscores the importance of not only undertakingpolysemic criticism, but also of uncovering the discursive scaffolding upon which thepolysemy is based.

doi:10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01070.x

In 2004, TV Guide proclaimed Dave Chappelle the ‘‘funniest man on TV,’’ and anaccompanying article described his sketch comedy program Chappelle’s Show as takinga ‘‘riotously blunt look at race in America’’ (Fretts, 2004, p. 26). In 2006, however,Chappelle abruptly journeyed to Africa, leaving behind his groundbreaking show and,for a time, his professional reputation. In an interview with Time magazine, Chappelleexplained that his hasty departure resulted from concerns about Chappelle’s Show’seffects on viewers. During the filming of a sketch about Black stereotypes, a Whitespectator laughed ‘‘particularly loud and long,’’ causing Chappelle to wonder if ‘‘thenew season of his show had gone from sending up stereotypes to merely reinforcingthem’’ (quoted in Farley & Robinson, 2005, p. 72). Presumably, Chappelle’s authorialintention was not to reinforce African American stereotypes, and his ethical dilemmahighlights the sociocultural magnitude of polysemy. Concerns over the availablemeanings of Chappelle’s Show’s humor make the program ripe for rhetorical inquiry,inviting the following question: How is the humorous discourse structured so as toencourage activation of polysemic potential in the text?

Corresponding author: Lisa Glebatis Perks; e-mail: [email protected]

270 Communication, Culture & Critique 3 (2010) 270–289 © 2010 International Communication Association

L. G. Perks Polysemic Scaffolding

In her 1998 article titled ‘‘Polysemy: Multiple Meanings in Rhetorical Criticism,’’Leah Ceccarelli explicates the disparate critical uses of the term polysemy, defined inpart on the perceived source of the multiple meanings. The phrase ‘‘resistive reading’’refers to an active audience’s subversion of a text’s dominant meaning, ‘‘strategicambiguity’’ refers to an authorial entity’s intentional use of polysemy in order toappeal to a diverse audience, and ‘‘hermeneutic depth’’ refers to a critic’s argumentabout the polysemic meanings audiences should recognize in a text (Ceccarelli, 1998).All three types of polysemy could function as appropriate critical lenses for Chappelle’sShow. For example, Chappelle’s concern over racist undertones in audience laughter(Farley & Robinson, 2005), along with disparate findings from focus groups withChappelle’s Show viewers (Perks, 2008), suggest that viewers play a role in cullingbounded multiplicity from the program’s discourses (resistive reading). Chappelle’sprofessed counterhegemonic authorial intentions do not recuse the show from alsobeing considered strategically ambiguous because the popular text has undergoneadditional encoding from many authorial entities who would desire that a diversepopulation take pleasure in the text. Additionally, the popular press is divided onits interpretation of Chappelle’s Show as antisocial or prosocial (see, e.g., Andom,2004; Fretts, 2004; Ogunnaike, 2004), thus suggesting that scholars could effectivelyargue that the text sustains contradictory readings (hermeneutic depth). Instead ofchoosing from among the three types of polysemy, I suggest that a fourth mode ofpolysemic inquiry will yield a more productive critique of Chappelle’s Show, sheddinglight on the discursive mechanisms that promote activation of polysemy.

Throughout this article, I make a case for ‘‘polysemic scaffolding,’’ a method thatconsiders polysemy a taken-for-granted, eventual interaction among text, authors,and viewers, and instead explicates the discursive textual patterns that precedepolysemy. To utilize this method, critics catalog the discursive ingredients of a textand describe the discursive interactions that will ultimately result in polysemy. Thisfourth mode of polysemic inquiry is most closely related to hermeneutic depth, butwhereas hermeneutic depth ‘‘activates a text’s polysemic potential’’ (Ceccarelli, 1998,p. 408), polysemic scaffolding excavates the discursive foundation that exists priorto activation. Polysemic scaffolding emphasizes not what the text means, but how itwill mean. This method ideally yields theories that can be used to understand thediscursive properties and corresponding range of meanings of analogous texts.

All humor relies on contrasts that can be either gradual or sudden (Feinberg,1967), and it is the discursive interactions at the heart of these contrasts that imbuehumorous texts with implicit polysemy. According to Fiske (1986), comedy relies ‘‘onthe collision between discourses, and neither the text, nor the dominant ideology,can ever control all the potential meanings that this collision produces’’ (p. 402).The spaces created by the discursive collisions allow individual viewers to anchorthe discourse in a way that is consistent with their own subject position and enableauthors and critics to exploit the multiple meanings. This article describes threediscursive collisions at the heart of Chappelle’s Show’s humor about race and racism:

Communication, Culture & Critique 3 (2010) 270–289 © 2010 International Communication Association 271

Polysemic Scaffolding L. G. Perks

egregious stereotyping versus subtler mediated racism, inverted racial stereotypesversus traditional stereotypes, and serious versus nonserious discourse.

I ultimately argue that Chappelle’s Show exposes ambiguous cultural definitionsof and discursive boundaries surrounding race using the energy of unruly, poly-semic products of discursive clashes. The inclusion of conflicting discourses thatcirculate around issues of racial stereotypes, racial epithets, discrimination, andWhite privilege render visible the semiotic system of racial stereotypes, invert racialsignifiers to weaken the semiotic bonds, and continuously shift the generic con-straints through which the discourse is interpreted. My argument is supported bya detailed textual analysis of several prominent Chappelle’s Show sketches. Similartelevision programs—such as Da Ali G Show, Family Guy, Mind of Mencia, TheSarah Silverman Program, and South Park—have proliferated in recent years, andthe patterns described here have applicability to the broader genre of comedy thataddresses stereotypes or differences. This analysis underscores the importance of notonly undertaking polysemic criticism, but also uncovering the discursive scaffoldingupon which the polysemy is based.

Disciplinary politics of polysemic humor reception

Scholars do not universally embrace the same degree of viewer agency and textualopenness. Drawing from the cultural studies tradition, and Fiske’s work in particular,rhetorical scholar Raymie McKerrow asserts that texts are only products of the critic’swork uniting discursive fragments and that these ‘‘fragments contain the potential forpolysemic rather than monosemic interpretation’’ (McKerrow, 2000, p. 142, emphasisin original). Solomon (1993) situates herself in the same camp, boldly stating thatworks are often polysemic and that ‘‘texts are created in part within readers and froma process of intertextuality’’ (p. 62). She encourages critics to be ‘‘more sensitive toour role in creating texts on and around works,’’ also urging that we ‘‘pursue moreassessments that explore the polysemic nature of works’’ (p. 64).1

While McKerrow and Solomon call for greater attention to the roles that critics,texts, and viewers have in the production of polysemy, rhetorical scholars Condit(1989) and Dow (1996) opine that the open nature of texts has been overstated.Condit argues it is more probable that viewers will activate the dominant meaningin the text after taking into account viewers’ ‘‘access to oppositional codes, the ratiobetween work and pleasure produced in decoding a text,’’ and the particular waysin which the program uses the dominant code (p. 103). According to Condit, theseconstraints on the rhetorical situation leave viewers more likely to disagree with thevalue of a dominant reading (ascribing a polyvalent, not polysemic quality to the text)than to actually resist or reinterpret the meaning if the text does not resonate withviewers’ schema. I agree that textual polysemy should not be viewed as unbounded;however, unique generic conventions should be taken into consideration whenassessing relative rates of polysemy, and Condit’s theory is predicated on analysisof two viewer interactions with a dramatic television text. Contradictory meanings,



not just disagreements with the value of a meaning, are more likely to emerge fromhumorous televisions texts (compared to other genres such as drama and action) dueto several generic features including comedy’s presence of incongruous and clashingdiscursive frames discussed earlier (see, e.g., Feinberg, 1967; Fiske; 1986; Pickering& Lockyer, 2005), the segmented nature of many comedic television texts, and theambiguous layering of comedian and comedic personae.

The property of segmentation helps rupture the power of a dominant readingby creating isolated pockets of meaning following discursive collisions. Fiske (1986)explains that structuring television around commercial breaks causes programs tohave ‘‘short, self-contained segments linked by association rather than by logic,’’unlike films that present a more coherent narrative (p. 402). Television viewersare thus invited to have a stronger hand in organizing the meanings of the textthemselves, but the lack of narrative unity may resist ideological closure if the viewersare unable or unwilling to resolve the tension between the textual segments (Fiske,1987). Chappelle’s Show can be considered even more open because, like The ColbertReport, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, In Living Color, MADtv, Mind of Mencia,Saturday Night Live, and other programs that descended from the variety show, eachepisode is formatted as a series of largely independent sketches with few consistentnarrative elements coursing throughout. Because of this cornucopia of self-containedtextual fragments, the program offers amused pleasure without ready ideologicalclosure.

Ambiguous authorship further enhances the polysemy of humor. Both Howells’(2006) essay on the polysemiology of comic character Ali G and Pickering andLockyer’s (2005) chapter on comic impersonation describe contradictory theoriesabout who Ali G is supposed to be an imitation of. The authors highlight actorSacha Baron Cohen’s refusal to grant interviews out of character as another featurethat confuses viewers as to the intentions and butt of his jokes. Pickering andLockyer note that authorial ambiguity, and viewer awareness ‘‘of both personaand person concealed behind the persona’’ (p. 189), enables comedians to moreeasily shepherd viewers between shifting frames of comic and serious discourse.Whereas Baron Cohen utilizes ‘‘deadpan satire and commitment to character,’’(LaMarre, Landreville, & Beam, 2009, p. 216), Chappelle adds an additional layerof complexity to the ambiguous authorship: He commits to character duringthe sketches and appears to be the genuine ‘‘Dave Chapelle’’ in interviews, butadopts a pseudopersona when introducing the sketches. Some of the introductionsseem to truthfully describe the inspiration for the sketches, whereas others involveclearly false scenarios that seem intended to ease the transition between sketches.This multilayering of persona/person/pseudopersona allows the comedian to avoidputting down an anchor of authenticity that would more forcefully shape viewerdecoding.

Empirical studies do indeed confirm that viewers have agency in decodinghumorous, satirical texts. As Malik (2002) explains, research on Till Death Us Do Partdemonstrated that a text ‘‘can produce and circulate contradictory and competing



meanings and readings and can, as such, say more than one thing’’ (p. 94). Examiningviewer interpretations of Till Death’s American cousin, All in the Family, Vidmar andRokeach’s (1974) study on selective perception found that viewers who had higherlevels of prejudice admired bigoted protagonist Archie Bunker and condoned hisuse of racial slurs, whereas lower-prejudiced individuals were more likely to admireArchie’s liberal son-in-law, Mike. A study commissioned by the CBS network on Allin the Family (Bogle, 2001), one conducted by Cooks and Orbe (1993) on the FOXsketch comedy program In Living Color, and another by LaMarre et al. (2009) onThe Colbert Report, yielded similar results: Viewers interpreted the supposed satiresin ways that reinforced their preexisting racial or political viewpoints.

Theories of polysemy: Minor discourse and ambivalence

Herman Gray’s theory of ambivalence and Kuan-Hsing Chen’s theory of minordiscourse provide a fruitful starting place for polysemic criticism of Chappelle’sShow and similar humorous texts. Gray examines mediated representations ofracial stereotypes, arguing that even an intentionally satirical or parodic portrayal‘‘constantly forces viewers to jockey for a ‘reading position’’’ (Gray, 1995, p. 131).He describes in greater detail the primary interpretive avenues available to viewers ofsatirical representations of racial stereotypes: ‘‘For some, this ambivalence contestshegemonic assumptions and representations of race, in general, and Blacks, inparticular, in the American social order; for others, it simply perpetuates troublingimages of blacks’’ (p. 131). In her ambivalent analysis of the detective drama Spenser:For Hire, Cloud (1992) is skeptical about the potential for Hawk, the African Americancriminal foil to White hero Spenser, to resist a stereotypical reading; nevertheless, sheacknowledges that many critics found Hawk to be a ‘‘powerful role model image forblack urban youth’’ (p. 312). Consistent with contemporary cultural studies theories,ambivalence does not position each viewer as solidly situated within one orientation,but describes the viewer-text meaning negotiation as an ongoing process between thetext and viewers of various subject positions.

Unlike ambivalence, minor discourse does not explicitly address comedic por-trayals, but focuses more broadly on mediated portrayals of marginalized groups.Chen invites critical media scholars to create a space for and celebrate the uniquediscursive practices of nondominant (or minority) groups in a way that does notprivilege a preferred reading of their representation. He explains that the theory ofminor discourse ‘‘concerns itself with the living conditions of minorities and theproblems they confront in the everyday life of modern world,’’ striving to stand withand struggle with the repressed, not to speak for them (Chen, 1989, p. 55). In otherwords, the term minor discourse describes continuous and collective efforts to carveout a space for minority voices to represent their unique experiences. Accordingto Norma Schulman, Black comedy is an example of this phenomenon: It wieldssociocultural power by highlighting ‘‘rich cultural forms of expression that members



of the African American community can claim as their own’’ (Schulman, 1994,p. 114).

Critics have employed frames of ambivalence and minor discourse to analyzea program that is arguably Chappelle’s Show’s closest generic precursor: FOX’s InLiving Color (see Gray, 1995; Schulman, 1992). Analyses of the program reachdisparate conclusions, positioning the sketch comedy in different places in thehegemonic/counterhegemonic continuum, and acknowledging varying degrees ofpolysemy: Whereas Cooks and Orbe (1993) argue that the program is ‘‘not aneffective tool for pro-social learning’’ (p. 231), Gray (1995) and Schulman (1992)describe both oppressive and transgressive tensions in the show. Stromer-Galley andSchiappa (1998) identify a rhetorical criticism trend of drawing disparate conclusionsabout the same text, and label this stultifying critical tug-of-war an ‘‘interpretivestalemate’’ (p. 42). The frequency of interpretive stalemates suggests that scholarlycritics are not immune to the media effects’ principle of selective perception. Suchan interpretive impasse could easily occur with readings of Chappelle’s Show, andpolysemic scaffolding represents one way to circumvent this problem by using amethod that enhances understanding of how the text invites various meanings.

Ambivalence and minor discourse are productive starting points in evading acritical stalemate, but both theories emphasize the polysemic products of meaningrather than the discursive foundation of meaning. Critics employing polysemicscaffolding should not emphasize polysemic responses (that premise can be taken-for-granted in many comedic texts, particularly those that address stereotypes), butoffer a microscopic examination of the discursive patterns that invite activation ofpolysemy.

In the text that follows, I describe the discursive scaffolding that collectivelycomprises Chappelle’s Show’s textual foundation of polysemy. The article explicatesthree discursive collisions, the first two primarily related to ambivalence and the thirdto minor discourse: egregious stereotyping versus subtler mediated racism, invertedracial stereotypes versus traditional stereotypes, and serious versus nonserious dis-course. To help readers identify and locate the sketches, I cite them in a (Season,Episode) format.

Egregious stereotyping versus subtler mediated racismThere are several ‘‘stock characters’’ from various Chappelle’s Show sketches whoexemplify ambivalent African American stereotypes, forcefully juxtaposing thesecomedy characters against the more subtle racism of the general mediascape. Thesecharacters include Tyrone Biggums, a crack addict, and Tron Carter, a gambling drugdealer. The mediated African American stereotype of drug use is put on full displayas Biggums steals from children, threatens to kill people, admits to carjacking hisfamily, prepares peanut butter and crack sandwiches, raves about the deliciousnessof dog food, and flushes himself down the toilet to escape rehabilitation.2 As MeansColeman (2000), Oliver (1994), and others have observed, African Americans oftenappear on prime time television as drug users and criminals; however, Chappelle’s



Show takes the antisocial qualities of African American stereotypes to a level rarelyseen within the already troubling television landscape.

As he primes the season two audience for another sketch, Chappelle offers thisexplanation for the show’s use of blatant stereotypes:

I think I’m being misunderstood so I just wanted to take a moment to explainmyself. I’m not advocating in any way shape or form any kind of racial hatred.I’m just making fun of each other’s cultures. It’s fun. The problem is when youdo stereotypical kind of jokes, there’s no room for subtlety. (II, 3)3

Chappelle’s Show presents stereotypes on steroids, pushing the signifiers past thebreaking point at which the cultural semiotic system can no longer safely har-bor them. Like a Rosetta stone, the egregiousness of Biggums’ actions highlightsthe semiotic connection between African American male signifier and drug-using/violent-mediated signified, exposing the sign’s full ugliness and activatingsimilar semiotic connections elsewhere. To explain using the words of Hall (1981),the egregious stereotypes transpose inferential racism, which disguises the discrim-inatory predicates of the stereotypes, into overt racism that can be more readilycritiqued.

Tron Carter exemplifies overt racism in the season one sketch titled ‘‘Reparations,’’which presents a vision of postreparations United States that highlights changes inemployment patterns and demands for goods (I, 4). With their reparations checks,African Americans buy truckloads of cigarettes, form extensive lines at liquor stores,bolster gold and diamond stocks, start 8,000 record labels, and purchase 3 millionCadillac Escalades. The economic landscape changes so drastically that Carter’s ‘‘hothand in the dice game’’ eventually earns him the title of the richest man in America.‘‘I’m rich, biatch,’’ the proud cry of the African American janitor who purchased atruckload of cigarettes with his reparations check, exposes the semiotic connectionin portrayals of impulsiveness (whether related to drugs, violence, or conspicuousconsumerism) in the African American community. In this manner, the sketch givesa clear voice to a barrage of negative African American stereotypes, clashing with themore inferential racism that circulates intermittently in other mediated texts, andoffering up a potentially fruitful space for critique once the stereotypes are laid bare.

Although seemingly hegemonic on the surface, the interaction between egregiousAfrican American stereotypes and more common, subtle mediated stereotypes pro-duces an ambivalent rhetorical space. When viewed from a transgressive perspective,the blatant stereotypes can be considered a form of minor discourse that functionsas an ingroup reclamation of external symbolic constructions. In their essay ‘‘EthnicHumor: Subversion and Survival,’’ Boskin and Dorinson (1998) observe that ‘‘mock-ing the features ascribed to them by outsiders has become one of the most effectiveethnic infusions into national humor, particularly by Afro-Americans and Jews’’(p. 220). Successful television and film producer Keenen Ivory Wayans defended hisseries In Living Color in a similar vein, stating, ‘‘If I take something and ridicule it tosuch a degree that people could never look at it as anything real, then it really helps



to destroy a preconceived notion’’ (Bogle, 2001, p. 379). By recirculating their ownexaggerated stereotypes to duel with semiotic constructions others have ascribed tothem, minority groups may reclaim power over the construction of their identities.

‘‘Reparations’’ includes other potentially subversive elements such as multiplejoke targets: Egregious stereotypical jokes are made at the expense of ‘‘Mexicans’’ andWhites. White newscaster Chuck Taylor (Chappelle made up in ‘‘Whiteface’’) utilizesarchaic phrases such as ‘‘hot damn,’’ overenunciates his words, and espouses racistviews, thus functioning as a metonym for the White establishment and hegemonyin the news media industry. One of Taylor’s most unseemly dialogs is his shockedreaction to the postreparations crime statistics: ‘‘The crime rate has fallen to zeropercent. How could that be? Did the Mexicans get money today, too?’’ Because hediscriminates against other races/ethnicities and exemplifies White privilege, Tayloris positioned as a disliked, high-status person who is thus an acceptable target forjokes (see, e.g., Wicker, Barron, & Willis, 1980, pp. 707–708).

Spraying a diversity of targets with humorously disguised insults can be apotentially productive discursive strategy that draws attention to the stereotypes ofmany races and ethnicities, thus undermining all reductive representation. In otherwords, when many different people are targeted, viewers may recognize the absurdityof their own and others’ stereotypes. An African American woman from the seasonthree studio audience even praised a sketch’s dispersal of stereotypes because shethought it took negative attention away from Blacks: ‘‘Everyone was touched [bythe stereotypes]. So I think it was a variety so that made it funny and not justBlack people always feeling like the joke is going to be about me’’ (III, 2). The greatvariety of stereotypical depictions, including White stereotypes, also helps combatthe powerful invisibility of Whiteness as the ‘‘unmarked’’ race or privileged positionagainst which others are measured (see, e.g., Nakayama & Krizek, 1999, p. 88). Whitesare ‘‘Othered’’ in many sketches such as ‘‘Reparations,’’ ‘‘Stereotype Pixies,’’ and‘‘Ask a Black Dude,’’ highlighting the show’s position as a space of minor discourse,one that privileges minority views and voices.

In contrast to the counterhegemonic interpretations, it is also possible that aperceived balance in stereotyping may discourage critical interrogation of mediatedstereotypes by maintaining a facade of ‘‘equality’’ or reinforcing a perceived accuracyof stereotypes. In their rhetorical analysis of racial stereotypes in Rush Hour 2,Park, Gabbadon, and Chernin (2006) found that the portrayal of powerful Whitesreinforced a subaltern hierarchy, but their analysis of focus group discourse revealedthat the film ‘‘successfully creates the impression among the viewers that all racesare objects of mockery, distortion, and exaggeration’’ (p. 168, emphasis in original).Stereotype diversity is also potentially problematic because a few points of resonancewith stereotypes can encourage an ‘‘all or nothing’’ judgment of the semiotic codeveracity, an interpretation that all of the represented stereotypes are premised on a‘‘grain of truth.’’

Another prominent sketch representing stereotypes, and one that also attacksmultiple targets, is the ‘‘Stereotype Pixies,’’ the making of which allegedly inspired



Chappelle’s flight to Africa. Actors Donnell Rawlings and Charlie Murphy, who playmany supporting roles on the show, take the helm in Chappelle’s absence introducingthe sketch and engaging the studio audience members in a discussion about theirinterpretations. Murphy prefaces the sketch stating that it is intended to duplicatesituations in which ‘‘you actually altered your behavior because you’re afraid of theway, you know, someone of a different color may react, or they possibly may thinkyou were living up to a stereotype’’ (III, 2). The introduction frames the sketchesas models for resisting and trying to control the interactions between stereotypesand self-perceptions. In this series of sketches, African American, Asian, Latino, andWhite ‘‘pixies’’ (played by Chappelle who is dressed differently for each race orethnicity) urge men of the same race or ethnicity to fulfill their stereotypes. Thestereotypes are so culturally recognizable that I need not spell out the racial or ethnicconnections for readers: One pixie is dressed in Blackface and promotes eating friedchicken, one plays castanets and endorses purchasing stolen leopard-skin seat covers,one is dressed as a samurai and makes fun of a man’s difficulty in pronouncing theletter ‘‘L,’’ and the final pixie encourages a man to dance the twist and quote raplyrics without seeming to understand them.

Although all of the sketches represent the clash between overtly racist, hyper-stereotypical discourse and more subtle discourse of inferential racism, somestereotypes are arguably more damaging than others, leading to a more volatilediscursive interaction of disparate elements. For example, the drug use and theftin the Latino sketch carries more negative connotations than the dorky stereotypesarticulated in the White pixie sketch. This point is echoed by an African Americanwoman in the audience who noted,

I feel like it’s derogatory to Black and Spanish people but it plays on the goodstereotypes of White people. Even though there’s a pixie for the White people itplays on that they’re educated and that you know they listen to rock music, butthat’s not bad. But to play on we like chicken and we like shukkin’ and jiving . . .

(III, 2)

In this woman’s sense-making process, it seems that the products of the discur-sive clash were readily reincorporated into the tradition of minstrelsy in AfricanAmerican representation. Other audience members (both African American andWhite) reassembled the textual fragments in a different way, countering that theywere not offended by the collection of stereotypes. Another African Americanwoman read the stereotypes as purposely and productively creating viewer discom-fort: ‘‘I thought it was funny. I thought it was intelligent. It was uncomfortable, andI think that’s the point of it. It’s supposed to draw attention to people’s stereotypesand talk about it and make it funny’’ (III, 2). As Hariman (2008) explains, parody (inthis case, parody of mediated stereotypes) folds media back on themselves to createa self-conscious, doubled image that is ‘‘neither radical nor conservative, but both atonce’’ (p. 254). The pattern of folding media back on themselves is but one piece ofthe parodic discursive interaction. Polysemic scaffolding can help better understand



the total discursive interactions: the tensions when the two disparate pieces are foldedinto contact with one another, what discourses are broken or strained in the processof folding, and the confusion that goes along with the mirroring process of discursiveidentification and disidentification.

Inverted racial stereotypes versus traditional stereotypesStereotype inversion, meaning that a racial stereotype is detached from its customarysignifier and applied to a person of another race or ethnicity, is a common form ofhumor on Chappelle’s Show. This second ambivalent discursive formation highlightsthe presence of semiotic play in Chappelle’s Show’s brand of humor. Whereas theprevious section addresses how several sketches render visible the connection betweensignifier and signified with a clash between subtle and blatant stereotypes, this sectiondiscusses how the program’s discourse exposes the arbitrary nature of the semioticconnections. The discursive pattern identified here is a species of Burke’s (1954)theory of perspective by incongruity, which describes the rhetorical strategy of usinglanguage symbols in ways that are inconsistent with their past use. According toBurke, this rhetorical form encourages individuals to interrogate their orientationsand assumptions in order to make sense of the incongruity (see, e.g., p. 90). Theracial stereotypes described in the previous section are again present, but the shiftingsignifier weakens the semiotic bond, rhetorically opening spaces to question theascribed meanings. Some of the most prominent sketches that include this discursivepattern are ‘‘Clayton Bigsby: Blind White Supremacist,’’ ‘‘Two Legal Systems,’’ and‘‘The N----- Family.’’4

The story of Clayton Bigsby, the African American and blind White supremacist,is one of the most infamous sketches from Chappelle’s Show. This sketch borrows theformat of the Public Broadcasting Service news program Frontline, depicting the firstpublic interview of African American Ku Klux Klan leader Clayton Bigsby (playedby Chappelle). As the back-story explains, Bigsby grew up in the Wexler Home ofthe Blind where he was told he was White in order to ‘‘make it easier on [him]’’(I, 1). Chappelle’s introduction to this sketch, which aired in the program’s very firstepisode, uses textual cues to highlight the role of viewer agency in the process ofreception,

I still haven’t been cancelled yet, but I’m working on it and I think this next piecemight be the one to do it. This is probably the wildest thing I’ve ever done in mycareer. And I showed it to a Black friend of mine—he looked at me like I had setpeople back with a comedy sketch. I’m sorry. Let’s roll it. (I, 1)

His shrug of the shoulders and insincere ‘‘I’m sorry’’ signal that he does not findthe sketch or its free-flowing racial slurs to be oppressive, nor should the audience.However, by simply acknowledging the diversity of opinions regarding this particularsketch, Chappelle’s discourse invites viewer participation in the process of organizingthe symbolic codes. This introduction, while intended to frame one particular sketch,may also set the tone for viewers’ agentic experiences with the overall program.



Bigsby spews vituperative remarks toward many minorities, which of course canbe interpreted as ‘‘setting people back.’’ After being asked why he does not like AfricanAmericans, Bigsby responds, ‘‘First of all they’re lazy good for nothing tricksters,crack-smoking swindlers, big-butt-having, wide-nose-breathing all the White man’sair, they eat up all the chicken, they think they’re the best dancers, and they stink’’ (I,1). Bigsby’s emphasis on the word ‘‘stink’’ signals the climax of his tirade. Throughoutthe sketch, Bigsby also shouts ‘‘White power’’ and seems to comfortably weave manyracial epithets into his conversations. Whereas this description of the sketch seemsto fit with the previous section on egregious stereotyping, it is important to remindreaders that Bigsby is African American, drawing judgments about people whoshare his apparent racial identity, thus creating a disjunctive frame for the sketch’sverbal discourse. Frontline correspondent Kent Wallace highlights the incongruities,remarking that he is ‘‘overwhelmed by the irony.’’ Collectively, the awkward couplingof Bigsby’s appearance as an African American, with his hateful White supremacistrhetoric, creates semiotic excess, affording viewers agency in selecting and activatingparticular meanings.

Due to the sketch’s prominent visual discursive clash and the resulting semioticexcess, ‘‘Clayton Bigsby’’ may be read as a satire of racism. Many of the jokes involveboth incongruities and deprecation, thereby couching the deprecation in an unstableframe. For example, the N-word is often situated within multiple layers of discursiveincongruities: the outrageous premise of the sketch coupled with unexpected dialog.In one interaction, Bisgby calls a car full of White teenagers n-----s after hearing theirloud rap music. The White teens respond, ‘‘Did he just call us n-----s? Awesome!’’There appear to be three discursive twists and turns in the previous exchange:(a) An African American man utters a racial slur that is used against people of hisown race to (b) describe White teenagers, and (c) they delight in the label. Whilethe discursive disjunct potentially carves out space to critique the meaning of theword, the unpoliced rhetorical space may also send the messages that there are lessnegative connotations associated with the N-word, that it may be used as praise, oras acceptable joke fodder. Chappelle reports later in season two that White peoplecame up to him and freely repeated the N-word when expressing their enthusiasmfor the Bigsby sketch—much to his dismay (Chappelle, 2005). It is clearly difficult, ifnot impossible, to control the meanings that may be made with the textual fragmentsof a discursive collision about racism.

Another prominent example of stereotype inversion is the story of ‘‘The N-----Family,’’ which Chappelle links to ‘‘Clayton Bigsby’’ in this introduction:

Last season we started the series off with this sketch about a Black Whitesupremacist. Very controversial, yeah. Very. Sparked this whole controversyabout the appropriateness of the N-word, the dreaded N-word . . . You start torealize these sketches in the wrong hands are dangerous. You know and thatN-word is a doozy, especially for us Black folks . . . But what if we just use theword for other people? Would it be so bad? I don’t know. So I made a sketch. It’s



about a White family whose last name happens to be N----- That’s all. Let’s seehow offensive the word seems now (II, 2).

The latter part of the dialog attributes intentionality to Chappelle’s semiotic mis-chievousness, acknowledging his purpose of testing the power of the N-word withthis Leave it to Beaver parody. As Chappelle notes, the N----- Family is White andmany of the jokes revolve around African American stereotypes. When little Timmysleeps late one morning, his dad labels him ‘‘one lazy N-----,’’ a phrase that seems tojust roll off his tongue much like the dad’s exclamation that his baby niece has ‘‘thoseN----- lips.’’ Chappelle, playing the family’s milkman Clifton, also espouses severalstereotypes in his interactions with the family. Toward the end of his morning visit,Clifton remarks, ‘‘I hate to bother you about this, but you didn’t pay your bill lastweek, and I know how forgetful you N-----s are about paying bills.’’

Like ‘‘Clayton Bigsby,’’ ‘‘The N----- Family’’ is premised on an overarchingsemiotic shift (a White family’s last name is a racial slur that is not commonly appliedto White people) with additional layers of incongruity, many of which are providedby their African American milkman. The incongruities line up almost identicallywith those seen in the Clayton Bigsby/White teenager exchange up until the thirdstep: (a) An African American man (Clifton) utters a racial slur that is used againstpeople of his own race to (b) describe a White family, and (c) they are indifferent tothe label. But does this semiotic inversion and clash with semiotic convention renderthe N-word impotent? The N----- Family does indeed seem blissfully ignorant of theconnotations of their name, modeling a ‘‘sticks and stones’’ mentality in which theword is freed of its semiotic baggage and bounces off its intended target harmlessly.However, this model might temporarily disguise the negative connotations of theword without tempering its overall fire. Although Chappelle professed a progressivemotive with the ‘‘The N----- Family’’ sketch, the experiment did not seem to workout as the comedian intended. Later, in his 2006 appearance on Inside the ActorsStudio, Chappelle expressed greater caution: ‘‘I’m going to have to say that if [theN-word is] used incorrectly, that the venom’s still there. That word can still start afight . . . I’m not going to make a promise that I won’t say it again on television, butright now I just feel like, like people aren’t responsible enough.’’

A similar form of stereotype inversion/preservation is shown in ‘‘Two LegalSystems,’’ a sketch depicting how White white-collar criminal Charles Jeffries andAfrican American drug dealer Tron Carter would be treated if the justice systemunderwent a reversal in racial discrimination (II, 5). In contrast to the previoussketches, much of ‘‘Two Legal Systems’’’ humor seems to be derived from racistjokes that are uncoupled from an African American signifier and applied to Jeffries,without additional levels of incongruous signification. For example, a White Judgecalls Jeffries a ‘‘filthy big lipped beast’’ and an ‘‘animal,’’ also stating that serving timewill give Jeffries ‘‘plenty of time to lift weights and convert to Islam.’’ These jokes raiseconcern that the shifted signifiers can be readily recuperated back into the dominant



ideology because they lack multiple incongruous layers to symbolically distance thejokes from their more common racist usage.

Although it only contains one overarching semiotic shift, ‘‘Two Legal Systems’’does shake up the semiotic code in another way: The sketch transitions severaltimes between the stories of Carter and Jeffries, providing several opportunities forthe inverted stereotypes to clash with expected, traditional stereotypes. Detectivesforcibly enter Jeffries’ home using tear gas and killing his Golden Retriever in orderto make the arrest. In the next scene, Carter voluntarily turns himself in to thepolice hours later than he promised, but he is still greeted with warm thanks anda ‘‘delicious cheese-spread.’’ The punctuated nature of the discourse (it alternatesseveral times between the two stories) and the stark contrasts in the men’s experiencesmay thus encourage meaning negotiation and renegotiation, leading to a more opentext. Although Carter and Jeffries are stereotypical characters, the contrast betweentheir treatment and the traditional manifestations of racial bias in the legal systemshakes up semiotic codes and opens up a space for interrogation.

Serious discourse versus comedic discourseSketches such as ‘‘Mad Real World,’’ ‘‘Racial Draft,’’ ‘‘Dave in Jury Selection,’’ and‘‘Reparations’’ can be considered fitting examples of minor discourse because theyinclude social commentary, or ‘‘serious’’ discourse, in the form of discussing racism orracial disparities. This rhetorical strategy capitalizes on the carnivalesque suspensionof hierarchy and judgment that is affiliated with comedic spectacle (Bakhtin, 1984,p. 10) to carve out a space for palatable contemplation of uncomfortable social issues.Many of the aforementioned sketches include references to racial discrimination,providing contrasting layers of serious and nonserious discourse that gently stretchthe boundaries of comic generic convention. I have identified two separate butrelated subtypes of this larger discursive pattern: Framing refers to introducingand/or concluding a sketch with social commentary, and intratextual layering refersto punctuating the sketch with several moments of social commentary.

These two subtypes of serious versus comedic discursive interactions involvedisparate amounts and types of collisions. Framing a comedy sketch with a seriousintroduction or conclusion yields a maximum of two serious versus comedic discur-sive clashes—one at the beginning and/or one at the end of the vignette. Likely, inthese types of sketches, additional discursive clashes (not just those between seriousand comedic discourse) must course through the text in order to evoke amusement.The infrequency of serious discourse in framing and greater variety in the types ofdiscursive clashes may temper the minor discourse, drawing focus away from theserious message. Framing may draw strength, however, in the principles of recencyand primacy: Audience members are more likely to remember what they viewed firstor last. Perceived authorial intent can also guide readings, so if Chappelle introducesa sketch in a way that promotes minor discourse as a salient feature, those particularmeanings may be highlighted.



The ‘‘Mad Real World’’ is an infamous sketch that features many racial stereotypes,but starts off with a message about Hollywood racism. This sketch builds on theracial conflict of MTV’s The Real World, attempting to turn the tables and create ahouse in which a lone White man lives with ‘‘six of the craziest Black people’’ (I, 6).Throughout the sketch, the six African American members of the house play dice andcards, smoke marijuana, evade working, steal, and fight. Eventually, the roommatescall a meeting to kick out their White roommate because they ‘‘do not feel safe with[him] in the house anymore.’’

These stereotypical portrayals can of course be read using the fractured lensof ambivalence, but the frame of minor discourse helps reveal another layer ofthe rhetorical situation. Chappelle’s introduction and commentary about the sketchposition it as a parody of racist events on The Real World. He states in the introduction:

The thing that makes me like mad, not mad, but I just don’t like this about TheReal World is every few years they always put a Black guy on there and try tomake him look crazy. Like he’ll freak out, but it’s like of course he’s going tofreak out—you put him around six of the craziest White people you could findand then expect him to live a normal life. (I, 6)

Two notable cues about mediated racism can be drawn from Chappelle’s introduction:(a) Black people who ‘‘freak out’’ on The Real World have done so in response toantagonisms from their ‘‘crazy’’ White roommates and (b) ‘‘Mad Real World’’ is nota picture of ‘‘average’’ African Americans, but six of the ‘‘craziest.’’ Chappelle raisesthe same issue in DVD commentary, explaining that the story of African AmericanDavid Edwards being kicked off of The Real World Los Angeles (because his femalehousemates claimed that they did not feel safe with him in the house) serves as theinspiration for the sketch (Chappelle, 2004).

Instead of frontloading social commentary, Chappelle saves his serious messagefor the end of ‘‘Dave in Jury Selection.’’ To illustrate that ‘‘what’s a reasonable doubtfor a White person, you know, might not be a reasonable doubt for a Black person,’’Chappelle shows how he would respond if interviewed for jury selection at the trialsof O. J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, Robert Blake, and Robert (R.) Kelley (II, 9). Afterproviding an exaggerated list of evidence he would need to prove R. Kelly’s criminalguilt (including video footage that incorporates police representatives, notes fromhis friends who were there, and two forms of government ID from the participants),Chappelle presents social commentary to wrap up the entire sketch. When pressed bya lawyer that his doubts about R. Kelly’s guilt are unreasonable, Chappelle responds:

Look, we’re talking about a justice system that has 500 people whose cases wereoverturned by DNA evidence. I’ve seen a tape where five cops beat up a n-----and they said they had a reasonable doubt. I got my doubts, too, all right? Howcome they never found Biggie and Tupac’s murderer, but they arrested O. J. thenext day? Nicole Simpson can’t rap. I want justice! (II, 9)



With this summary, Chappelle points out several injustices and racial disparitiesthat may have inculcated in him, and many others, distrust for the legal system.Chappelle’s powerful closing statement represents a discursive contrast to his humor-ous, exaggerated doubts about R. Kelly’s guilt and lamentation that ‘‘Nicole Simpsoncan’t rap.’’ Whereas the social commentary may induce cognitive dissonance in thosewho have the privilege to ignore racism in their daily lives, the ‘‘sillier’’ statementsabout R. Kelly and Nicole Simpson offer a space for cathartic release. This discursiveclash may thereby open up a safe space for those who are not predisposed to thinkabout racism to select and focus on the nonserious jokes.

Chappelle attacks from both sides, bookending ‘‘Reparations’’ with seriouscommentary. In the introduction to the sketch, Chappelle points out that thearguments for affirmative action and reparations rest on decades of unpaid workendured by the nation’s African American forefathers. At the end of the sketch, heinformally interviews people in the studio audience about their opinions: An olderAfrican American woman states that she is in favor of reparations, while a manseated near her alludes to the failed promises of Reconstruction stating that he wantsland. The interviews disperse authorship for the social commentary from Chappelleon to a wider cross section of the African American community, demonstratingmore widespread support for efforts to rectify historical and contemporary racialeconomic disparities. One cannot be sure if the serious dialog buttressing the sketch isenough to push a satirical reading of the ‘‘Reparations’’’ images of liquor store lines,egregious consumption of material goods, dice games, and laughter at reinvesting themoney into the community, but the bookending minor discourse can be considereda potentially productive framing device through the recency and primacy of thereminder for the continued, contemporary significance of reparations.

In contrast to framing, sketches with intratextual layering have frequent inter-spersions of the same type of discursive clash. The serious versus comedic combat ismore frequent and potentially dominates the overall tone of the sketches. Intratextuallayering of prosocial commentary is a prominent feature in the ‘‘Racial Draft’’ and‘‘The N----- Family.’’ The ‘‘Racial Draft’’ is a National Football League (NFL)-styledraft that aims to decisively categorize celebrities of multiple racial or ethnic back-grounds. The most overt discussion of racism comes after the African Americandelegation selects Tiger Woods. Playing the role of commentator, Chappelle observes‘‘[Woods has] been discriminated against in his time, he’s had death threats, and hedates a White woman—sounds like a Black guy to me’’ (II, 1). A few moments later,Chappelle reports that Woods lost all of his commercial endorsements because ofbeing pronounced Black.

The two primary jokes about discrimination against African Americans follow asimilar discursive form of representing serious commentary about discrimination,then contrasting with a punch line that makes light of the situation and rhetoricallyoffers a space for cathexis or emotional discharge. In Chappelle’s list of characteristicsthat make Tiger Woods ‘‘Black,’’ he transitions from more serious to less seriousissues by addressing death threats and racism, then ending on Woods’ interracial



partnership. Unlike the serious issues of discrimination and death threats, Chappelle’sstatement that Woods ‘‘dates a White woman’’ does not allude to the benefits ofWhite privilege. Similarly, Chappelle raises the serious issue of discrimination, statingthat Woods has lost all of his endorsements after being declared Black. However, hetempers the foray into racism and White privilege by dismissing the negative turn ofevents, advising with a smile, ‘‘tough break, n-----, there’s always FUBU.’’

Much like the ‘‘Racial Draft,’’ ‘‘The N----- Family’’ includes a modicum of minordiscourse. For example, when a White man finds out that his daughter has a datewith ‘‘the N----- boy from school,’’ he is concerned and angry until finding outthat the boy is White and ‘‘N-----’’ is just his last name. The man then attemptsto compensate for his racism by utilizing stereotypes and a patronizing pattern ofcomplimenting African Americans stating: ‘‘[Timmy N----- is] a very good athleteand so well-spoken.’’ The incident has resonance with recent news stories, includingJoe Biden’s much-criticized 2007 description of Barack Obama as ‘‘articulate’’ (Thai& Barrett, 2007).

More references to racism emerge when Timmy N----- runs into his milkmanClifton and Clifton’s African American wife while waiting for a table in a restaurant.Clifton exclaims to Timmy, ‘‘I bet you’ll get the finest table a N----- ever got inthis restaurant [the cast laughs]. Oh lord, this racism is killing me inside [morelaughter from the cast]!’’ In the previous quote laughter from the cast helps providea clearer window into the intratextual framing of the dialog. Although Clifton’sreference to racial discrimination in restaurants could be considered an example ofminor discourse, the cast’s accompanying laughter clashes with the seriousness ofthe exchange, leaving unstable textual fragments in its wake. Ironically, althoughChappelle claims that the sketch is aimed to challenge the offensiveness of the N-word,it is remarked as a derogatory term at the end of the vignette. When the maıtre d’calls ‘‘N----- party of two,’’ Clifton, not realizing that the table is for Timmy, defendshimself and his wife saying, ‘‘Just because we’re colored doesn’t mean we came outhere to be disrespected!’’

Conclusions

Although Hariman (2008) claims that ‘‘many racist, sexist, and ethnic jokes have beenrightly swept away by progressive social movements’’ (p. 247), these types of jokes aretolerable and even popular5 when situated within Chappelle’s Show because of theirpolysemic potential that helps viewers evade cognitive dissonance. It is important toask how the text enables a diverse viewership to cull palatable meanings from the text.Polysemic scaffolding helps to answer that question for Chappelle’s Show, and forother comedy programs that wrestle with race, by articulating the discursive patternsand interactions that promote polysemic readings.6

This article excavates discursive foundations that bubble up the available mean-ings described in Gray’s theory of ambivalence and Chen’s theory of minor discourse,explicating three prominent discursive clashes at the heart of Chappelle’s Show’s pol-ysemic humor: egregious stereotyping versus subtler mediated racism, inverted racial



stereotypes versus traditional stereotypes, and serious versus nonserious discourse.The discord created by the collisions destabilizes the original discourses, opening arhetorical space to question cultural definitions of race and racial discrimination. Theinclusion of conflicting discourses that circulate around issues of racial stereotypes,racial epithets, discrimination, and White privilege magnifies the semiotic system ofracial stereotypes, plays with semiotic bonds of racial signifiers, and gently pushes thecomedic generic constraints so as to make serious issues more palatable to a diverseaudience.

The substantial polysemy of Chappelle’s Show and other comedy harbors apotential power to encourage viewers to alter their existing schema (whether inprogressive or regressive ways) because comedically couched social messages can bereceived on viewers’ own terms, subtly inviting, not demanding persuasion. Andtherein lies the progressive sociopolitical power and weakness of humorous discourse:This charismatic, comfortable, and nonauthoritative form of persuasion can not onlybe readily received, but also easily ignored.

Several humor scholars have wrestled with the paradox that progressive humorousmessages can have both latent power and potential impotence (see, e.g., Carlson, 1988;Feinberg, 1967, p. 7; Palmer-Mehta, 2006, p. 187). Polysemic scaffolding representsa tool to unravel that paradox by parsing out the discursive structures of a humoroustext into smaller atoms of analysis that can then be tested for efficacy. Such findingscould have a widespread impact on promoting greater correlation between intendedand received humorous messages, from television programs, to political campaignads, to public service announcements. Before empirical studies happen, however,I suggest that the catalog of polysemic scaffolding can and should be extended.

Although the patterns identified here can certainly be found in other texts, thereare likely many other discursive formations coursing through comedy of varioustypes, and even other genres of texts, begging for critical discovery through polysemicscaffolding. Additionally, there is more work to be done exploring the relationshipamong the discursive patterns. For example, do these three patterns identified in thisessay have a symbiotic relationship? Is there a certain ratio of these patterns that ismost palatable to viewers? Has comedy shifted its preference for egregious stereotypes,inverted stereotypes, and serious discourse according to unique historical situations?Are there different discursive patterns that complement or supplant these three inother comedic texts that are unrelated to race? Instead of making an argument abouthow the text should be or is read, rhetorical critics need to dig deeper into the founda-tion of meaning, examining intratextual discursive patterns to explicate the semioticplayscape. For what use is describing meanings if we do not understand their origins?

Notes

1 Although I emphasize polysemic critiques of humorous texts in this article, it is importantto note that several scholars have published insightful polysemic critiques of texts from avariety of genres (e.g., Cohen, 1991; Rockler, 2001; Rowland & Strain, 1994; Solomon &McMullen, 1991).



2 With these and other examples, multiple signifiers contribute to the collisions; however,due to space limitations, this article focuses on the most salient signifiers, primarily dialogand character actions.

3 Each sketch will be cited in (season, episode) format for ease of locating the vignette.4 The ‘‘N----- Family’’ opens up showcasing a somewhat unique spelling of their

name—substituting ‘‘ar’’ for the ‘‘er’’ at the end of the racial slur. I have chosen to usedashes instead of spelling out the family’s name to signify the continuing negativeconnotations with any version of the word.

5 Chappelle’s Show has achieved immense popularity, with the first season DVD selling over2 million copies and breaking ‘‘TV on DVD’’ sale records (Becker, 2005; Johnson, 2004).

6 Episodes from Comedy Central’s Mind of Mencia and South Park also employ the threediscursive patterns as foundational elements in some of their comedy premised on racialstereotypes and discrimination. For example, Mind of Mencia’s ‘‘Stereotype Olympics’’sketches involve a collision of egregious versus subtle stereotypes, whereas the season fiveSouth Park episode ‘‘Here Comes the Neighborhood’’ draws on the formal pattern ofinverted signifiers, and involves clashes of serious versus nonserious discourse as class issubstituted for race when rationalizing discrimination.

References

Andom, M. (2004, July 18). No laughing matter. The Seattle Times, p. C4.Bakhtin, M. (1984). Rabelais and his world (H. Iswolsky, Trans.). Bloomington: Indiana

University Press.Becker, A. (2005). Chappelle reaps more DVDends for Viacom. Broadcasting & Cable,

135(6), 32.Bogle, D. (2001). Primetime blues. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.Boskin, J., & Dorinson, J. (1998). Ethnic humor: Subversion and survival. In N. A. Walker

(Ed.), What’s so funny?: Humor in American culture (pp. 205–223). Wilmington, DE:Scholarly Resources.

Burke, K. (1954). Permanence and change: An anatomy of purpose. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press.

Carlson, A. C. (1988). Limitations on the comic frame: Some witty American women of thenineteenth century. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 74, 310–322.

Ceccarelli, L. (1998). Polysemy: Multiple meanings in rhetorical criticism. Quarterly Journalof Speech, 84, 395–415.

Chappelle, D. (Producer). (2004). Chappelle’s show: Season one—Uncensored [DVD]. USA:Comedy Central.

Chappelle, D. (Producer). (2005). Chappelle’s show: Season two—Uncensored [DVD]. USA:Comedy Central.

Chappelle, D. (Producer). (2006). Chappelle’s show: The lost episodes [DVD]. USA: ComedyCentral.

Chen, K.-H. (1989). Deterritorializing ‘‘critical’’ studies in ‘‘mass’’ communication: Towardsa theory of ‘‘minor’’ discourses. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 13, 43–61.

Cloud, D. L. (1992). The limits of interpretation: Ambivalence and the stereotype in Spenser:For Hire. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 9, 311–324.

Cohen, J. R. (1991). Intersecting and competing discourses in Harvey Fierstein’s TidyEndings. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 77, 196–207.



Condit, C. M. (1989). The rhetorical limits of polysemy. Critical Studies in MassCommunication, 6, 103–122.

Cooks, L. M., & Orbe, M. P. (1993). Beyond the satire: Selective exposure and perception inIn Living Color. Howard Journal of Communications, 4, 217–233.

Dow, B. J. (1996). Prime-time feminism: Television, media culture, and the women’s movementsince 1970. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Farley, C. J., & Robinson, S. (2005, May 23). Dave speaks. Time, 68–73.Feinberg, L. (1967). Introduction to satire. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press.Fiske, J. (1986). Television: Polysemy and popularity. Critical Studies in Mass

Communication, 3, 391–408.Fiske, J. (1987). Television culture. New York: Routledge.Fretts, B. (2004, August 8–14). What!? Dave Chappelle is what!? TV Guide, 20–26.Gray, H. (1995). Watching race: Television and the struggle for Blackness. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press.Hall, S. (1981). The whites of their eyes: Racist ideologies and the media. In G. Bridges and

R. Blunt (Eds.) Silver linings (pp. 28–51). London: Lawrence and Wishart.Hariman, R. (2008). Political parody and public culture. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 94,

247–272.Howells, R. (2006) ‘‘Is it because I is Black?’’: Race, humour and the polysemiology of Ali G.

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 26, 155–177.Johnson, R. (2004, December 13). Getting a piece of a DVD windfall; Sales are soaring and

Hollywood is split over dividing profits. Retrieved October 3, 2008, from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/business/media/13dvd.html?oref=login

LaMarre, H. L., Landreville, K. D., & Beam, M. A. (2009). The irony of satire: Politicalideology and the motivation to see what you want to see in The Colbert Report.International Journal of Press/Politics, 14, 212–231.

Malik, S. (2002). Representing Black Britain: Black and Asian images on television. ThousandOaks, CA: Sage.

McKerrow, R. E. (2000). Critical rhetoric: Theory and praxis. In C. R. Burgchardt (Ed.),Readings in rhetorical criticism (2nd ed., pp. 126–147). State College, PA: Strata.

Means Coleman, R. R. (2000). African American viewers and the Black situation comedy:Situating racial humor. New York: Garland.

Nakayama T. K., & Krizek, R. L. (1999). Whiteness as a strategic rhetoric. In T. K. Nakayama& J. N. Martin (Eds.), Whiteness: The communication of social identity (pp. 87–106).Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Ogunnaike, L. (2004, February 18). A comic who won’t hold back. The New York Times,pp. E1, E5.

Oliver, M. B. (1994). Portrayals of crime, race, and aggression in ‘reality-based’ police shows:A content analysis. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 38, 179–194.

Palmer-Mehta, V. (2006). The wisdom of folly: Disrupting masculinity in King of the Hill.Text and Performance Quarterly, 26, 181–198.

Park, J. H., Gabbadon, N. G., & Chernin, A. R. (2006). Naturalizing racial differencesthrough comedy: Asian, black, and white views on racial stereotypes in Rush Hour 2.Journal of Communication, 56, 157–177.

Perks, L. G. (2008). A sketch comedy of errors: Chappelle’s Show, stereotypes, and viewers.Dissertation Abstracts International, 69(7), 2523A (UMI No. AAI3315297). Retrieved May24, 2009 from Digital Dissertations database.



Pickering, M., & Lockyer, S. (2005). The ambiguities of comic impersonation. In S. Lockyer& M. Pickering (Eds.), Beyond a joke: The limits of humour (pp. 180–197). Basingstoke,Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Rockler, N. R. (2001). A wall on the lesbian continuum: Polysemy and Fried Green Tomatoes.Women’s Studies in Communication, 24, 90–106.

Rowland, R. C., & Strain, R. (1994). Social function, polysemy, and narrative-dramatic form:A case study of Do the Right Thing. Communication Quarterly, 42, 213–228,

Schulman, N. (1992). Laughing across the color barrier: In Living Color. Journal of PopularFilm and Television, 20, 2–7.

Schulman, N. (1994). The house that black built. Journal of Popular Film and Television, 22,108–116.

Solomon, M. (1993). The things we study: Texts and their interactions. CommunicationMonographs, 60, 62–68.

Solomon, M., & McMullen, W. J. (1991). Places in the Heart: The rhetorical force of an opentext. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 55, 339–353.

Stromer-Galley, J., & Schiappa, E. (1998). The argumentative burdens of audienceconjectures: Audience research in popular culture criticism. Communication Theory, 81,27–62.

Thai, X., & Barrett, T. (2007, February 9). Biden’s description of Obama draws scrutiny.Retrieved June 20, 2008, from http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/31/biden.obama/

Vidmar, N., & Rokeach, M. (1974). Archie Bunker’s bigotry: A study in selective perceptionand exposure. Journal of Communication, 24, 36–47.

Wicker, F. W., Barron, W. L., III., & Willis, A. C. (1980). Disparagement humor:Dispositions and resolutions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 701–709.

Wurtz, J. (Director). (2006). Inside the Actors Studio: Dave Chappelle [DVD]. USA: ShoutFactory Theatre.


El Andamiaje Polisémico: Explicando el Choque Discursivo en el Programa de Chappelle Lisa Glebatis Perks

Resumen

Este ensayo explica las fundaciones discursivas que emergen de los significados múltiples del humor racial, mediante la descripción de 3 choques discursivos prominentes en el corazón de la comedia polisémica del programa de Chappelle: el estereotipar en forma flagrante versus el solapado racismo mediático, los estereotipos raciales invertidos versus los estereotipos tradicionales, y los discursos serios versus los no serios. A través del artículo, afirmo el caso del “andamiaje polisémico,’’ como un método que posiciona a la polisemia como una interacción no tenida en cuenta entre el texto, el autor y la audiencia, y en cambio busca entender las pautas discursivas que activarán eventualmente los significados polisémicos. Este artículo subraya la importancia de, no solo asumir una crítica polisémica, sino también revelar el andamiaje discursivo por el cual la polisemia está basada.

多义架构：阐释Chappelle节目中分歧的冲突 Lisa Glebatis Perks

美国纽约Nazareth学院传播与修辞学系

【摘要：】

本文阐释了关于种族的幽默中能够引起多重含义的分歧的基础，描述了多重含义喜剧《Chappelle 秀》中三个显著的分歧的冲突：过分的模式化形象与微妙的媒体中的种族主义，反向种族模式化形象与传统模式化形象，严肃与不严肃的话语。在文中作者援引“多义框架”的方法，该方法将多义性定位为文本、作者和观众之间理所当然的互动，并且试图理解终将激活其多重含义的分歧的模式。这篇文章不仅强调了多义性批评的重要性，而且也强调了揭示多义性所基于的分歧框架的重要性。

L’échafaudage polysémique : une explication des accrochages discursifs dans le Chappelle’s

Show

Lisa Glebatis Perks

Cet essai explique les fondements discursifs d’où émergent des significations multiples dans

l’humour racial, en décrivant trois importants accrochages qui sont au cœur de la comédie

polysémique du Chappelle’s Show : la stéréotypification flagrante contre un plus subtil racisme

médié, les stéréotypes raciaux inversés contre les stéréotypes traditionnels, et le discours sérieux

contre le discours non sérieux. Tout au long de l’article, je défends l’« échafaudage

polysémique », une méthode qui traite la polysémie comme une interaction tenue pour acquise

entre le texte, l’auteur et l’auditoire, et qui cherche plutôt à comprendre les schémas discursifs

dont les significations polysémiques seront rendues actives. Cet article souligne l’importance non

seulement d’entreprendre une critique polysémique, mais aussi de révéler l’échafaudage discursif

sur lequel s’appuie la polysémie.

Polysemisches Rüstzeug: Die Explikation von diskursiven Reibungsflächen in der Chappelle’s Show

Lisa Glebatis Perks

Dieser Aufsatz expliziert die diskursiven Grundpfeiler, die in den verschiedenen Bedeutungen von rassistischem Humor zum Vorschein kommen. Beschrieben werden diese anhand von drei diskursiven Einwürfen als Kern der polysemischen Komik in der Chappelle’s Show: hervorragende Stereotypisierung versus mediatisierter Rassismus, verkehrte rassistische Stereotype versus traditionelle Stereotype und ernster versus nicht‐ernster Diskurs. Im Laufe des Artikels argumentiere ich für ein „polysemisches Rüstzeug“ als eine Methode, die Polysemie als eine selbstverständliche Interaktion zwischen Text, Autor und Zuschauern positioniert, und bestrebt ist, die diskursiven Muster, welche möglicherweise ihre diskursiven Bedeutungen aktivieren, nachzuvollziehen. Dieser Artikel unterstreicht nicht nur die Wichtigkeit, polysemische Kritik anzubringen, sondern versucht auch, das polysemische Rüstzeug als Basis von Polysemie, herauszuarbeiten.

Polysemic Scaffolding: Explicating Discursive Clashes in Chappelle’s Show Chappell 쇼에서의 토론적 충돌의 설명: 다의어 스캐폴드 Lisa Glebatis Perks 본 논문은 종족에 관한 유머에서 여러의미를 만들어내는 토론적 기초들에 대한 설명으로, Chappell 쇼의 다양한 의미를 내표하는 코미디의 중심에서의 세가지 주요 기술적 충돌을 표현한 것이다. 이들은 과장된 전형적 형태 대 세심하게 중재된 인종주의, 뒤바뀐 인종적 전형과대 전통적 스테레오타입들, 그리고 진지한 담론대 진지하지 않은 담론들이다. 충돌들에 의해 창출된 불일치는 근원적 담론들을 불안정하게 하는데, 인종과 인종적 차별의 문화적 정의에 의문을 던지는 수사학적 공간을 열였다고 할 수 있다. 인종적 스테레오 형태들, 인종적 경구들, 차별, 그리고 백인특권주의에 관한 이슈들 사이를 돌아다니는 갈등담론들의 내연은 인종적 스테레오타입의 언어적 구조를 확대하고, 인종적 표시자들의 언어학적 유대를 도모하며코미디일반 제한을 부드럽게추진하는데, 그렇게 함으로써 다양한 시청자들에게 진지한 이슈들을 더욱 유연하게 만들수있다. 논문을 통하여, 나는 다의적 스캐폴드의 사례를 만들었는데, 이는텍스트, 저자, 그리고 시청자들과 사이의 상호작용을 당연한 것으로 받아들이는 것으로서 다의어를 위치하는 방법이다. 이 논문은 다의어적 비판을 착수하는 것 뿐 아니라 다의어가 기초하는 담론적인 스캐폴드를 발견하는 것의 중요성을 강조하고 있다.

Copyright of Communication, Culture & Critique is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be

copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written

permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

Polysemic Scaffolding: Explicating Discursive Clashes in Chappelle's Show

Documents

Transcript of Polysemic Scaffolding: Explicating Discursive Clashes in Chappelle's Show