I watched a 1976 Pryor stand-up in 2020 and I couldn’t laugh at all. The country was reeling over the murder of George Floyd and Pryor’s jokes were all about police officers murdering black people. That’s when it finally hit me that despite all the outward progress we’ve made, the exact same problems are plaguing BPOC still, 47 years later. Like what in the actual fuck? I guess his audience laughed because of the shock value of it, nobody before him had the courage to outright say the things he was saying, but watching it 47 years later while the exact same problems are happening wasn’t funny, it was depressing and infuriating.
I had that exact awakening during the same timeframe.
Like holy shit - I have been laughing at Chapelle, and Rock, and Pryor, and others, thinking these were just jokes. No, they were never just jokes.
I felt ridiculous that I’d grown up in such a bubble that my reaction had been to think these were solved problems that were being made fun of just because they were sort of part of the zeitgeist a that point.
So much respect for these guys putting it out there, but I feel a little ashamed of how long it took me to start realizing these were NOT solved problems.
I watched a 1976 Pryor stand-up in 2020 and I couldn’t laugh at all. The country was reeling over the murder of George Floyd and Pryor’s jokes were all about police officers murdering black people. That’s when it finally hit me that despite all the outward progress we’ve made, the exact same problems are plaguing BPOC still, 47 years later. Like what in the actual fuck? I guess his audience laughed because of the shock value of it, nobody before him had the courage to outright say the things he was saying, but watching it 47 years later while the exact same problems are happening wasn’t funny, it was depressing and infuriating.
I had that exact awakening during the same timeframe.
Like holy shit - I have been laughing at Chapelle, and Rock, and Pryor, and others, thinking these were just jokes. No, they were never just jokes.
I felt ridiculous that I’d grown up in such a bubble that my reaction had been to think these were solved problems that were being made fun of just because they were sort of part of the zeitgeist a that point.
So much respect for these guys putting it out there, but I feel a little ashamed of how long it took me to start realizing these were NOT solved problems.