Brother, Can You Spare Some Class: Black Men in the Media
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com
On October 15th, Comedy Central is slated to premier a “satirical fake news show” called, Chocolate News. David Alan Grier, most famous for his many characters in the ‘90s hit sketch comedy series In Living Color, will be the host. The show is reported to be a cultural spin-off of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, but judging from the released trailers, Comedy Central is aiming for a much different objective. The scene is an all too familiar one. The trailers feature Grier, like past Black comics before him, dressed up in feminine outfits, yelling at the top of his voice, acting erratically, and operating in an incoherent shuffle. It is as though this long national nightmare, of which President Ford spoke, is far from over.
In early 2005, Chappelle’s Show, Comedy Central’s most popular series at the time, received a set-back from production because Dave Chappelle, star of the show, had come to a sobering conclusion that he did not wish for his soul to be purchased at the price of corporate America’s offer. As the legend tells itself, Dave Chappelle turned down $50 million – the allotted price for the third season – and escaped to South Africa for a “spiritual retreat.” Comedy Central, uneasy about the kind of message being sent to Black boys and girls across the globe, initially spun Chappelle’s departure into a battle with the flu, but subsequently reoriented it to suggest a meltdown of insanity and eccentricity.
Dave Chappelle, upon a return to The States, informed TV icon Oprah Winfrey, that he was motivated to halt production of his ultra successful show because it had grown increasingly “socially irresponsible.” In response to the growing concern from within the Black Community, vis-à-vis his many overtly stereotypical sketches, Chappelle remarked that he didn’t want “black people to be disappointed in me for putting that [message] out there. … It’s a complete moral dilemma.” What an unusual and unprecedented act of solidarity and candor…
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