By  Kennedy Christine

My first year of college, I took a sociology class that introduced me to the term “master status,” which is an individual’s social role or description that supersedes all their other titles. Master status can refer to how a person identifies or how they’re identified by others. This label and its effects range from positive to negative, and are subject to change. Regardless of whether one has the luxury of choosing their own stamp, or having a label imposed unto them, the more identities one holds, the more rigid the pigeonhole.

Being a Black woman, I’ve personally found this to be true. The difference between being funny and having “funny” imposed as a master status on the body of Black women is that we are not afforded the humanity to experience emotions or insights beyond our ability to make others laugh.

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For me, the habitual demand that I perform as the go-to comedian can be extremely confining. Humor is oftentimes expected of me before I even meet a person, as someone has already shared with them what a funny person I am. Now, I do not mind being “the funny girl,” but it’s not all that I am, and it’s frustrating that my expectation is to always provide laughter to others. Recently, a friend called and requested that I “tell [her] a joke” as if I’m some slapstick vending machine before I’m a person. I felt uncomfortable and vexed.

Being Black, especially being a Black woman, only tightens this constriction of being expected to entertain. And I wonder to what extent does the master status of being a funny Black woman relate to our ability to enter white dominated spaces, and our expectations once we arrive there. Are we forever “the ghetto and/or goofy sidekick,” or the “wisecracking Black friend with sass?” These toxic expectations are especially imposed on dark-skinned Black women, as hilarity is not needed for light-skinned Black women as entrance into these spaces.  

In media, light-skinned Black women are usually depicted as sexually desirable without having any expectation for humor. Dark-skinned Black women, however, are expected to be this caricature of comedy using humor that is often self-deprecating and/or sex-obsessed, forever-wanting-but-not-getting-a-man, stereotypical outlandishness.

The most popular  example of this light-skinned, dark-skinned dynamic is seen with best friends Pam and Gina on Martin. Gina is light-skinned. She’s the focus, she’s the protagonist. And though she is silly, it’s Pam’s abrasive attitude, her back and forth with Martin, and the constant jabs about her looks that make viewers laugh.

Another example are Sam and Joelle of Dear White People. Sam is the light-skinned “problematic fave” who calls on dark-skinned Joelle when she’s stressed and needs a laugh. While Joelle has a bit more agency and story surrounding her, her issues and feelings are often set aside for the issues and feelings of Sam.

In children’s shows, we see the pair Penny Proud and Dijonay Jones of The Proud Family holding up this narrative as well. The show further exploits these trope characters in the marriage of Trudy and Oscar Proud. Trudy is professional and refined. She’s nurturing, smart (a doctor!), and she’s very light. Her husband is dark-skinned, he loves his family just as his wife does, but he’s made to be the family screw-up. He can’t get his business off the ground, he’s considered a loser who lacks the respect of his mother. These characteristics are portrayed comically.

And I get it – stories need comic relief – but it does not and should not have to be at the expense of the darkest person on the screen. This issue also touches on the implications that the more attractive a woman is perceived to be, the less funny she is; but that’s a different monster to tackle entirely.

In white media, colorism definitely plays its role, but when it comes to the “funny, Black sidekick” trope, usually any Black person will do, existing only to bounce off of the white protagonist making them seem funnier and cooler than they actually are. There are many cinematic examples that highlight this point; Sam Wilson aka Falcon, sidekick to Captain America; Gerald, sidekick to Arnold of Hey Arnold!; Nebula, sidekick to Zenon in the Zenon film series, and on and on. It’s especially clear the Black friend is only there for a laugh, because they either have no love interests or their love interests are not long-lasting, unlike their white friend. Tucker Foley for example, of Danny Phantom, is a prime example of this.

The entertainment industry today may be on course to correct these racist comedic tropes. With shows like Insecure and How to Get Away with Murder starring actresses Issa Rae and Viola Davis, Black women, especially darker skinned Black women, are depicting characters beyond the restrictive categorization of “comic relief.” They are seen and portrayed as containing the spectrum of human emotions and capabilities from strength to weakness to vulnerability to manipulation to adoration and more.

But while these shows are diversifying our expectations of Black women, the emergent class of popular Black woman comedians offers either a return to the status quo, or a delicate and complicated look into the future of entertainment when central figures exist to make audiences laugh. For example, when Leslie Jones and Tiffany Haddish perform as themselves (not characters), they are rightfully (and lovingly) deemed “extra.” And therein exists a question on how much of their performances and appearances is actually their own doing and to what extent they are delivering on their expectations of them.

Finally, how do we relate to Black women comedians when they stop being “funny” and start demanding their worth?

Here, we can center Mo’Nique and how the entertainment industry is currently lowballing her, only to further be met with scorn and ridicule from us as consumers when she boldly spoke out. As she forcefully questions the system of unequal pay, she has been met with disrespect from the likes of The Breakfast Club, The View, and other popular platforms that thrive off contention.

Humor is a valuable necessity in human interaction. But, like all things, our relationship to who and what we consider “humorous” is marred by anti-Black racism, and is easily twisted to invalidate the humanity of Black people, particularly dark-skinned Black women.  

Kennedy Christine is a deadpan humorist who enjoys scary movies and side-eyeing people based off their birth charts. Her favorite quote is, “Being brown, you have the wisdom of a thousand white women.” – Schmidt to Cece, New Girl.

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