Racial Issues in American Stand-up Comedy

Abstract

The phenomenon known as stand-up comedy emerged in the late 1970s when the first
live shows of this type were introduced to the public. This type of humour, which relies
on ingenuity, contains a variety of topics used by comedians, such as their everyday life,
religion, politics or racism. These are just a few of the topics usually employed in order
to create comedy. It is curious how a serious matter such as racism, for example, can be
used to trigger laughter. Eddie Griffin, an African American stand-up comedian, uses
this type of topics in almost all of his shows. More than one question come to mind:
Why should comedians use racism in this type of discourse? Can it be funny? Are there
any special techniques applied when dealing with such a sensitive subject? Can the
humour be preserved if the written version of such a show is translated? The present
paper aims at finding some answers to these questions and, to this end, looks for textual
evidence in Eddie Griffin’s 2011 comedy show You Can Tell ‘Em I Said It.