It's comedy's turn to contend with its role in perpetuating systemic racism

Salon.com

The racial reckoning over cop shows has shifted to comedy, with Tina Fey, The Good Place's Megan Amram and Jimmy Kimmel among those apologizing for past offenses over the past week. The comedy reckoning comes a month after Jimmy Fallon's apology for his past use of blackface. "But this conversation was bound to come to comedy's door for the simple idea of how the culture that yielded The Man Show and made Fallon's blackface impersonation of Chris Rock acceptable shaped the comedy world we have today," says Melanie McFarland. "The political correctness revolution of the early to mid-'90s led to the late '90s backlash that resulted in comedy that was and is decidedly and proudly un-P.C. Comics engaged in the language of equal opportunity offense, and the boundaries kept moving further away from what was once considered to be the center. The rules of this arena and the location of its goalposts were and always have been determined by white men, leaving the rest of us to decide whether we wanted to play along or be labeled humorless prigs who just don't get it. It strikes me that as the dialogue around this chapter of Black Lives Matter's journey evolves, the comedy wing of the entertainment industry is one of many intersectional spaces where its aims larger bisect with that of #MeToo in terms of Hollywood's role in mainstreaming that cause. Women who work in comedy and spoke up about the widespread culture of misogyny and harassment have been making this argument since one of comedy's giants was felled in 2017 – tossed out the window, but far from cancelled. Why? Because at the end of the day, lots of people like the guy."