Posted on 12/12/2005 8:49:58 AM PST by .cnI redruM
Richard Pryor's world was filled with prostitutes, pimps, winos and those others of undesirable ilk.
This past Saturday Richard Pryor left this life and bequeathed to our culture as much darkness as he did the light his extraordinary talent made possible. When we look at the remarkable descent this culture has made into smut, contempt, vulgarity and the pornagraphic, those of us who are not willing to drink the Kool-Aid marked "all's well," will have to address the fact that it was the combination of confusion and comic genius that made Pryor a much more negative influence than a positive one.
I do not mean positive in the way Bill Cosby was when his television show redefined situation comedy by turning away from all of the stereotypes of disorder and incompetence that were then and still are the basic renditions of black American life in our mass media.
Richard Pryor was not that kind of a man. His was a different story.
Pryor was troubled and he had seen things that so haunted him that the comedian found it impossible to perform and ignore the lower-class shadow worlds he had known so well, filled with pimps, prostitutes, winos and abrasive types of one sort or another.
The vulgarity of his material, and the idea a "real" black person was a foul-mouthed type was his greatest influence. It was the result of seeing the breaking of "white" convention as a form of "authentic" definition.
Pryor reached for anything that would make white America uncomfortable and would prop up a smug belief among black Americans that they were always "more cool" and more ready to "face life" than the members of majority culture.
Along the way, Pryor made too many people feel that the N word was open currency and was more accurate than any other word used to describe or address a black person.
In the dung piles of pimp and gangster rap we hear from slime meisters like Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, the worst of Pryor's influence has been turned into an aspect of the new minstrelsy in which millions of dollars are made by "normalizing" demeaning imagery and misogyny.
What is so unfortunate is that the heaviest of Pryor's gifts was largely ignored by so many of those who praised the man when he was alive and are now in the middle of deifying him.
The pathos and the frailty of the human soul alone in the world or insecure or looking for something of meaning in a chaotic environment was a bit too deep for all of the simpleminded clowns like Andrew Dice Clay or those who thought that mere ethnicity was enough to define one as funny, like the painfully square work of Paul Rodriguez.
Of course, Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam is the ultimate coon show update of human cesspools, where "cutting edge" has come to mean traveling ever more downward in the sewer.
In essence, Pryor stunned with his timing, his rhythm, his ability to stand alone and fill the stage with three-dimensional characters through his remarkably imaginative gift for an epic sweep of mimicry.
That nuanced mimicry crossed ethnic lines, stretched from young to old, and gave poignancy to the comedian's revelations about the hurts and the terrors of life.
The idea of "laughing to keep from crying" was central to his work and has been diligently avoided by those who claim to owe so much to him.
As he revealed in his last performance films, Pryor understood the prison he had built for himself and the shallow definitions that smothered his audience's understanding of the humanity behind his work.
But, as they say, once the barn door has been opened, you cannot get all of the animals to return by whistling. So we need to understand the terrible mistakes this man of comic genius made and never settle for a standard that is less than what he did at his very best, which was as good as it has ever gotten.
This reminds of a time I saw him on the Tonight Show, or some such interview program. He had just finished working on Stir Crazy, which takes place in a prison. During the interview, he mentioned how he had gone to a real prison to get a feel for what it was really like, and after getting to meet some of the residents, he said, "Thank God, they got penitentiaries!"
I'm not so sure I'd agree with Stanley Crouch that Pryor begat so much of the vulgar culture that exists today. There has been ample opportunity for denouncements, and there are far too few. Bill Cosby is one who speaks out, and I wonder what Pryor might have done if not for his health. In Richard Pryor:Live From The Sunset Strip, he pretty much disavows much of his past language and bitterness. But that doesn't draw too many headlines.
You have your head in your litter box, as usual.
You and I are both WAY too smart to behave like the bozos we see on tv. I wonder how copycat killings ever take place.
Maybe you should educate the rest of us prudes by posting verbatim, uncensored some of this so-called comedian's routines on this forum. Crude, vulgar, mostly unfunny. Burlesque and vaudeville go mainstream. Pity.
He's a pretty controversial guy and is well-hated by the professional victim outfit. He's also the guy who writes all those crazy liner notes for Wynton Marsalis.
So you're not talking about long-term behavior, just what takes place during the viewing? OK then, I didn't know that was what he meant.
He eludes to it, but doesn't say the words...
Excellent Entertainer...
See post 46.
Today, ask copycat Eddie Murphy how many gigs he has lined up. Funny at first....Old at last.
If you saw a trainwreck every day on your way into work, after a while you'd wouldn't even slow down to watch.
Ask Eddie Murphy.
This role model BS is just more liberal racism. When a black is sucessful, and doesn't 'know his place' then they're all over him for not being a 'role model'. I've seen this far too often. Liberals have pre-conceived, stereotypical ideas about how black people should behave - when they stray from this 'plantation', the Libs subject them to a literal whipping.
Pryor tried to make white America uncomfortable? Gosh then I guess he wasn't nearly as good as I thought, being in white America and having enjoyed Pryor for as long as I can remember and never having felt uncomfortable because of his humor if that was his goal then he was a miserable failure. I always thought that what made Pryor so great was that he managed to be so popular in white America while remaining a truly black comedian (as opposed to somebody like Cosby whose comedy is basically neutral).
Crouch was also prominently featured in the Ken Burn's Jazz program as a commentator.
The Liberals of the day defended Lenny Bruce BECAUSE of his profanity. He was white, of course...
I am not familiar with the Koloshov Effect.
In other words, he was "keeping it real."
A role model tells people that the right way to act is the way he acts, and Pryor's message was that being "authentic" like himself trumped being good or responsible.
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