library.uns.ac.id digilib.uns.ac.id CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Research Background Racism has been giving much dark memories to American multicultural society. There are always new kind of racial issues emerged in US from time to time. Since Black people is a race which has the strongest bound (slavery to be more specific) with US, thus tends to face the biggest racial issues compared to any other races such as Asian, Hispanic, Indian, and so on. Regarding the existences of Black racial stereotype and race relationship issues, it shows that US society is considered as treating white people better than Black people in almost every aspect of life. It can be in the workplace, public space, healthcare service, education, and so on. As time goes by, people start using the issues of Black racial stereotypes and race relationship as a material to mock one another. They use it as a joke in order to sound “funny” rather than to offense in public (Pérez, 2013). Facilitated by the emergence of standup comedy1which cannot be separated from the development of Minstrel Show2, the issue of Black racial stereotypes and race relationship used within racist jokes are eventually becoming widely spread in US. 1 Standup comedy describes an encounter between a single, standing performer behaving comically and/or talking funny things directly to an audience, unsupported by very much in the way of costume, prop, setting, or dramatic vehicle (Mintz, 1985). 2 It is also called Minstrelsy, it is an American theatrical form that using racial stereotypes to perform comic action. The performance is about a combination of singing, dancing, Negro dialect speaking, and instrumental music playedcommit on the banjo, to user violin, bone castanet, and tambourine (Koenig, 1994) acted by non-Black performers in Black face to represent Black person. 1 library.uns.ac.id digilib.uns.ac.id First of all, it all began with Minstrel Show extended itself by mocking abolition, suffrage, political corruption, city life, country life and westward expansion (Jefferson, 1993). These innovations was related to US society’s restlessness at that time: there were opposition between the industrial north with its wage labor and the agrarian south with its slave labor, economic fluctuation which sent women into workplace and jobless men back to the home, immigrants who were disturbed by longtime inhabitants considered themselves as the “real” Americans, and how woman fought their suffrage. Since the audiences were mostly working-class men, these comedic themes were intentionally chosen so that it is easy for them to relate the show to what happen in their daily life. Furthermore, the idea of Black people that Blackface performer was presented is based on Black people they watch in the plantation. Eric Lott (1993) in his book Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and American Working Class stated that Black performance exercised by Blackface performer was precisely “performative,” a cultural invention, it is not an authentic essence installed in Black bodies, and for better or worse it was often a product of self- commodification (1993). As Minstrel Show became popular, it spread through new media (radio, television airwaves, and theatre) in which an image of distorted features and cultures of Black people (looks, language, dance, and character) were presented (Blackface: The Birth of An American Stereotype, 2017). Moreover, Chinua Achebe3 explains that stereotype is considered as “to simplify,” the image of lazy, ignorant, superstitious, hypersexual, and likely to do thievery and commit to user 3 A Nigerian novelist 2 library.uns.ac.id digilib.uns.ac.id cowardice are generally labeled to Black people. Thus, Minstrel Show has a big part in pervasively shaping stereotypes of Black people which has big effects to US Society until today (Blackface: The Birth of An American Stereotype, 2017). As a result, one of those big effects is the use of Black racial stereotypes and race relationship in Standup Comedy. Meanwhile, Cramer (2015) has stated that a standup comedy has three conventions, those are: 1) warming up the crowd, 2) identify with the crowd, and 3) Make everything seems real. Warming up the crowd takes place at the beginning of the standup comedy. It usually involves interaction with the audience. Meanwhile, identifying with the crowd gives the audience a context to the audience about what the standup comedian4 would talk about. That particular context later on connects the comedian and the audience to have similar references in understanding the jokes, so basically that particular context helps the comedian when to throw the jokes and help the audience where to laugh at. Last, make everything seem real is the key in convincing the audience about the comedian’s materials. It is important to convince the audience that the jokes are real in order to help them feel the comedy. Relating to what American people did in Minstrel Show, those conventions function to ridicule the explorations of race and ethnicity, utterances of taboo languages, and confessions involving an unusually intimate relationship (Daube, 2009) of which happen to the working class audience’s everyday life. 4 This term later on will be shortened intocommit comedian to useri.e. person who performs standup comedy to make it more practical. 3 library.uns.ac.id digilib.uns.ac.id Nowadays, there are many comedians who have particular comedic themes— inherited from the tradition of Minstrel Show—use the issues of Black racial stereotype and race relationship in their performance. Chris Rock, who is an influential African American comedian, is no exception. Christopher Julius Rock th III, or known as Chris Rock, was born on February 17 , 1965 in Andrews, South Carolina. Chris Rock has been doing standup comedy for many times, including Bring the Pain in 1996, Bigger & Blacker in 1999, Never Scared in 2004, and Kill the Messenger in 2008. Since he was experiencing racism when he was still a kid, most of his standup comedies are about observation on racism and black racial stereotypes. In addition, Chris Rock also played on several TV shows and movies such as In Living Color (1993), The Chris Rock Show (1997), Everybody Hates Chris (2005), Madagascar 1, Escape 2 Africa, and 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (205, 2008, & 2012). Chris Rock has obtained many awards during his appearance as a comedian, actor, and producer such as three Grammy Awards as Best Comedy Album in 1997, 1999, and 2005, two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music Program in 1997 and 1999. With respect to Chris Rock’s biography, this research chooses the transcript of Chris Rock’s standup comedy entitled Never Scared as source of data. In Never Scared, Chris Rock explores the gap between social groups in making profit in US. Moreover, he also discusses about how slavery has happened long time ago still has effects on US daily life. Regarding the title of his standup comedy, Chris Rock puts Never Scared to signify that Black people are ready to commit to user 4 library.uns.ac.id digilib.uns.ac.id fight back racism by mentioning racial issues he has encountered in his daily activity. Regarding the issue of Black racial stereotypes and race relationship used in comedy, this research finds some previous researches on this topic. Those previous researches are categorized into two categories, pros in using race-related jokes and cons in using race-related jokes. Pro race-related jokes researches discuss how the genre of comedy privileges a reading of racial stereotypes as harmless, despite the potential negative consequences of such representations (Park, Nadine, & Ariel, 2006). They find that race can be used to entertain people when it is mixed with comedy and movie making. Agree or not, Bowes (1990) and King (2002) have mutual statement that stereotypes are important in comedy because not only do they help to maintain quick recognizable character types but such character uniqueness and stereotype-based jokes also constitute a source of humor (cited in Park et al., 2006). As it is clearly explained, one advantage of race-related jokes is that it can be positive for entertainment purposes such as in movies, TV shows, talk shows, and so on. Moreover, Stereotyping, as the main point of race-related jokes, emerges in various contexts to serve particular functions necessitated by those contexts (Hilton & von Hipel, 1996). For instance, there is a research conducted by Ji Hoon Park, Nadine G. Gabbadon & Ariel R. Chernin (2006) about how the ideological implications of racial stereotypes in comedy through a textual and audience analysis of the movie entitled Rush Hour 2. Involving focus group interviews with Black, White, and commit to user 5 library.uns.ac.id digilib.uns.ac.id Asian participants, the research analyzes whether or not the participants are offended through the movie. As a result, the majority of focus group participants did not get offended of the racial humor mentioned in the movie since it is in the form of comedy which should not be taken seriously. However, considering how humor could easily be absorbed in people’s mind due to its nuance of entertainment played gradually in the media, it is unfortunate that the use Black racial stereotype and race relationship issues in comedy might also influence people’s mind as well through standup comedy. On the other hand, Cons race-related jokes researchers state that the links between humor and hatred is a topic which is often ignored by researchers of prejudice (Billig, 2001). They find that there is connection between hatred and humor by using race-related jokes as disguise. In addition, Sartre (1948) has added cons in using race-related jokes by suggesting in Portrait of the Anti-Semite that bigots take pleasure in “the joy of hating” as it is found in the standup comedy (cited in Billig, 2001).