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Post-Soul Satire: Black Identity After Civil Rights

2017; Penn State University Press; Volume: 3; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/studamerhumor.3.2.0239

2333-9934

Debarati Byabartta,

Race, History, and American Society

Post-Soul Satire is a well-chosen assortment of essays that discusses African American issues in various media within the cultural context of the United States and in terms of the phenomenon of post-soul. From literature and art to films and television shows, everything discussed in this collection demonstrates a subversive nature, and traditional ideas about blackness are again and again confronted by a new black aesthetic. The antiquated aversion to irony and humor is sharply questioned by a new generation, with satire the crux of this cogent publication. The volume situates the origins of post-soul in the post–civil rights era when black identity became significantly more diverse and offbeat self-introspection became a popular trait of artistic productions.For some readers, the term post-soul may be confusing, but it is lucidly explained by Derek C. Maus in his introduction to the volume. For Maus, post-soul is a contemporary black aesthetic most prominently associated with the black entertainment industry. Satire is of utmost importance in these non-print and literary productions because it annuls existing ideas of black authenticity and sometimes even adds a grotesque twist to customary definitions of it.Several diagnostic accounts that focus on Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks are pivotal in understanding post-soul in this volume and so deserve first mention. These essays include Derek C. Maus's introduction, Terrence T. Tucker's “Blackness We Can Believe In: Authentic Blackness and the Evolution of Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks,” and Cameron Leader-Picone's “Pilgrims in an Unholy Land: Satire and the Challenge of African American Leadership in The Boondocks and The White Boy Shuffle.” Both McGruder's original comic strip of The Boondocks (1996–2006) and the popular animated television series based on it (The Boondocks, Cartoon Network, 2004–2014) draw on the concept of comic rage. As Maus describes these essays in his introduction, Tucker finds comic rage of The Boondocks a unique technique that undermines “existing notions of race in American culture, especially the idea of a monolithic and authentic blackness” (xx), whereas Leader-Picone, for his part, compares the television series with Paul Beatty's novel The White Boy Shuffle (1996) and argues that both works “satirically undermine the notion that the contemporary African American community is diminished by a seeming lack of heroic leaders in the mold of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” (xxi).Other concepts and approaches drive other essays. The deconstruction of age-old ideas of supposedly authentic blackness is also undertaken by Kinohi Nishikawa in “The Lower Frequencies: Hip-Hop Satire in the New Millennium.” Nishikawa considers the new generation of hip-hop satirists who defy traditional norms in an attempt to supersede antiquated yet socially conscious rappers. In one of two examinations of Touré, Bertram D. Ashe examines Touré's fiction and compares it with his nonfictional works. As he compares The Portable Promised Land (2002) and Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? (2012) in “Who's Afraid of Post-Soul Satire? Touré's ‘Black Widow’ Trilogy in The Portable Promised Land,” Ashe argues that the satirical tension between traditional and nontraditional blackness can be felt imperatively in the first work but loses that intensity in the second work; a similar diminishment is also evident in Touré's critique of black essentialism. On the other hand, Linda Furgerson Selzer brings to light the satirical tension that constitutes the essence of Touré's works in “Touré, Ecstatic Consumption, and Soul City: Satire and the Problem of Monoculture.” Selzer treats Touré's novel Soul City (2009) as a curious combination of satirical criticism and celebration of an “ecstatic consumption” of hip-hop culture, a blend that actively contributes to the creation and maintenance of black communal identity.Intersectionality also figures in the collection. In “‘I Felt Like I Was Part of the Troop’: Satire, Feminist Narratology, and Community,” Brandon Manning examines the masculine-dominated disposition of post-soul satires such as Percival Everett's Erasure (2001) and Trey Ellis's Platitude (1988), but turns to the narratological lens of black feminism to analyze “Brownies,” a short story by ZZ Packer. Derek Conrad Murray's treatment of visual arts, “Post-Black Art and the Resurrection of African American Satire,” likewise draws on black feminism.The work of the best-known post-soul satirist, Dave Chappelle, is the subject of James J. Donahue's “Charlie Murphy: American Storyteller,” Marvin McAllister's “Embodied and Disembodied Black Satire: From Chappelle and Crockett to Key & Peele,” and Sam Vásquez's “Television Satire in the Black Americas: Transnational Border Crossings in Chappelle's Show and The Ity and Fancy Cat Show.” Donahue's captivating article considers the picaresque form of satire that targets the African American community. Charlie Murphy's character, featured on Chappelle's Show (Comedy Central, 2003–2006), embodies the black pícaro, a rogue who “functions as a contemporary teller of tall tales, those stories often deemed too fantastic to be true, yet also operating to define American cultural values” (229).The swan-song chapter is an afterword by Darryl Dickson-Carr, whom Maus deems one of the godparents of the critical study of African American satire. Dickson-Carr describes the current condition of African American satire and forecasts some possible future directions. “If the satirist habitually stands outside any era's prescribed norm and is at heart an iconoclast,” he writes, “then we may speculate that the iconoclastic genius will remain the dominant trope” (279).Overall, Post-Soul Satire is an interesting and intelligent publication with a good mix of in-depth writings that explore new ideas about modern-day blackness within the United States. It is an important contribution to American humor studies, given its sustained focus on satire, humor, and irony. Moreover, the volume's broad coverage of literary and popular culture makes it relevant to scholars of communication, film and media studies, African American studies, popular culture, and literary studies. It is also beneficial for sociologists, especially those interested in race and ethnicity studies. Scholars of women and gender studies will find interesting food for thought as well. Ample citations, notes, and bibliography lend a high degree of credibility to the publication, and it will undoubtedly stimulate further research.