Comments on: Black men in dresses

By: DAB

DAB — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 07:02:03 +0000

Hasn’t every guy on Saturday Night Live done the drag thing? Including the guest hosts? And most of them were white.

Will Ferell did Janet Reno, Adam Sandler did the Gap Girl, Seth Meyers impersonated Nicolette Sheridan, etc.

It’s also interesting to note when Chapelle was talking about this on Oprah, he mentioned Milton Berle and Brokeback Mountain. Well last time I checked those were white people.

I don’t know if there’s a “conspiracy” but getting a guy to do drag is just an easy way to get laughs.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 18:49:11 +0000

Oh yes, Eddie Murphy. And Wesley Snipes. But let’s not forget that Murphy’s gag involved him playing every member of the family, and Snipes co-starred with two other cross dressers in a movie about cross dressing.

I still don’t see any data to support the broad claim that black comedians are asked to be in drag more often than non-black comedians. This claim is even broader in this post (all Black actors) and broader still in the original article (all Black men in entertainment).

By: justin

justin — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 16:42:04 +0000

This relates to another post. There is a famous Maori cross dresser named Mika in my country. A giant photograph of him is in the public art gallery. He is naked, well hung and his penis is at eye level.

By: Nina

Nina — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 16:18:47 +0000

Don’t forget Eddie Murphy as that dirty grandma in the Nutty Professor movies.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 01:45:12 +0000

Hold up.

It’s a plausible theory, especially if you want to believe hollywood is racist, but the data just don’t back it up.

James cites a grand total of four (living) actors: one of them is Jamie Foxx, who played a woman on In Living Color 15 years ago; another is Dave Chappelle, who doesn’t seem to have actually ended up actually wearing a dress. That leaves only two relevant to his “trend” argument: Tyler Perry and Martin Lawrence.

I’m open-minded. I’m proud of my black heritage. I’m willing to believe that Hollywood creates stereotypes of people as they want them to be, regardless of who they really are. But James leaps to an inappropriately strong conclusion from scant data, paying mere lip service to a mountain of countervailing evidence.

Then he spends the rest of the column haughtily scolding “blind-minded” black people for enjoying unsophisticated comedy and rap music. Yawn!

By: Merq

Merq — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 01:38:08 +0000

This is definitely a deep-seeded trend in Hollywood. At the risk of this coming off as a shameless plug, I touched on it in a web-documentary I made last spring (as always, my screen name’s the link).
So I was overjoyed when I heard Chappelle say this (on a show with as wide an audience as Oprah’s, no less), because it’s something that seldom gets brought up in public.
Still, if anyone’s interested, check the MEDIA section of the documentary (I believe the specific segment is called “Af. Americans in the Media” …you’ll understand when you get there).
I was fortunate enough to sit in on a writing session for a new comedy in development for Spike TV. Though the guys all have TV writing in common, some are also actors, and one’s an entertainment lawyer/screenwriter/bestselling author.
Also commenting on this is Karen Hunter, who’s won a Pulitzer and has written 6 bestsellers in her career as a journalist/writer/talk radio host.

So, yeah, Danni… black men apparently are at risk.

By: ML

ML — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 00:08:57 +0000

I don’t know if you saw Kenan Thompson’s bit on SNL this past Saturday, but it was covering this subject.

By: Bryce

Bryce — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 23:51:08 +0000

This is an interesting post since recently here in the Bay Area (actually, this took place in Arizona) there was a lot of coverage of Barry Bonds dressing in drag as a spoof on American Idol’s Paula Abdul. It purported to be a part of a Giants fundraiser (side note: Rob Schneider was said to have matched fan contributions) and team bonding experience (no pun intended) - but most suspect Barry’s real motivation was to provide footage for his upcoming reality show produced by ESPN’s entertainment division.

Still, if there was such a thing as a comedy textbook I think there should be a section devoted to “Men in Drag = Funny”, mentioning such acts as Monty Python and Kids in the Hall to John Leguizamo. It is absurd and de-sexualizing by nature, that’s what makes it funny. Also, Box Office Mojo is pointing out the emergence of the “fat-suit” comedy sub-genre as being a consistent earner, citing Ms. Doubtfire, Nutty Professor, Shallow Hal…to name but a few not currently occupying the box office top 10. So expect more Big Momma and Madea in the future!

By: Danni

Danni — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 22:06:03 +0000

Am I missing something? Are black men at risk of effeminization?