Here are some thoughts about Russell Peters, who I presume needs no introduction; Sepia Mutiny has had many posts on him over the years, and you’ll find tons of his stuff up at YouTube. (Also, see Manish’s recent post on Peters’ show in Bombay from earlier this spring. I saw him last night in Philadelphia.)
At his best, Russell Peters airs out the intra-community dirty laundry. He plays with the mixture of embarrassment and pride that tends to circulate amongst members of various ethnic groups, especially immigrant ethnic groups. While many people might feel isolated within a particular ethnic niche, Russell Peters manages to draw people out, and create a certain amount of cross-ethnic solidarity.
Because he has a good deal of “insider” knowledge about Desis, the Chinese, Jamaicans, Arabs, and Persians, Peters can usually pull off humor that works with ethnic stereotypes. It also helps that he has a good ear for accents, and usually sets up his jokes with shout-outs to members of the audience: “You in the first row, are you Chinese? [Yes] What’s your name? [Tim] Tim, what’s your real name? Anyway, thanks for coming out tonight… You know, the thing about Chinese people is…”
Of course, all of that doesn’t quite work the same way when Peters makes deaf jokes, as he did for quite some time at his show last night in Philadelphia. There are, presumably, going to be very few (if any) deaf people in the audience at a show like this — so the sense of talking to people rather than just about them isn’t there. Also, in my view humor relating to a disability by someone who doesn’t have it doesn’t work the way ethnic humor works coming from a brown comic. Some of Peters’ deaf jokes were a bit corny and stupid (i.e., wouldn’t it be nice to be deaf, because then you wouldn’t have to listen to your girlfriend/wife nagging you), while others were flat-out mean.What was interesting about the end of Peters deaf-joke routine was the way he brought it back to ethnicity. He pointed out that in American Sign Language (ASL), the signs for people of different ethnic groups were, historically, based on pretty offensive caricatures. According to Peters (I haven’t been able to confirm this), the official sign for a Chinese person involved a pulled/flattened eye, and one sign for a Jewish person involved a big nose. Even today, the official ASL sign for a Jewish person involves making the shape of a long beard — though apparently the sign for “Chinese” has changed. Also, to sign “Indian” one makes a “dot” on the forehead with the thumb — like a bindi. It’s not really a “stereotype,” but it’s also not exactly a neutral or arbitrary symbol. (See The ASL browser for video representations of many ASL words.)
The point behind this being, presumably, that even deaf people are capable of ethnic stereotyping — it was even built into the fundamental structure of ASL as a language. Of course, if that’s what Russell Peters was saying with this whole routine, we could easily respond that the history of offensive signs in ASL (most of which have been replaced) doesn’t say anything about whether the people who used those signs believed in the caricatures.
With the new wave of self-consciously “offensive” comics (Sarah Silverman, George Lopez), it’s often said that can they get away with it because their audience doesn’t really believe, in a literal, non-ironic way, in the stereotypes that are being played with. But I sometimes wonder if the extensive reliance on these stereotypes — this is Russell Peters’ whole career, in a nutshell — really helps people understand each other better. Sometimes it feels more corrosive than cathartic.
At this point I have a bit of a bad feeling in my mouth about Russell Peters, though I do recognize that he’s a very talented comic, and I admire his earlier material. Who knows? Perhaps he’ll have a version of a Dave Chappelle moment, where he takes it as far as he can go, and then stops to rethink what he’s doing. Given what just happened to Don Imus after he said something not so different from Russell Peters’ comedic bread and butter, I would have to say that’s within the realm of possibility.
Hey amardeep,I missed the show last night in Philly. How was it overall???
i agree that his more recent material has been lacking in consistency–he seems to be overreaching now and grasping for “joke-with-the-subject” humor about groups in which he doesn’t have a lot invested.
It still doesn’t compare to Rich Vos going onto ComicView and making a variety of “black people do this jokes” that you’d only hear from a black comedian.
this group seems to expand and then contract in membership as you could have counted Paul Mooney as a member (and an archetypal confrontational humor writer for this generation)and also Dave Chapelle (though i’m not up on his recent material)but they seemed to have left the stable in giving up use of the N word and giving up an unbelievably powerful platform for expressing personal views.
The danger is that the less talented comedians who seek to ape this new wave of comics can only turn out even cruder, less nuanced material and it’s saturation like that which shapes the tastes of future generations who may think it quite natural to riff on ethnic slurs as a way to liven up the room.
Today, it’s still a long pause that one must take before delivering any kind of humor with an ethnic component in the company of other than those whom you know find such humor palatable. I would hate to see it degenerate to the level of my middle-school, (last to be integrated in the great state of VA), where “sand-nigger” was quite easily tossed around, like a football at a sunday picnic.
Related.
You are such a hyprocrite. People can make of Republicans and Bush, and you have no problem with that! Humor is humor and lets leave it like that!
As much as I enjoy Russell Peters’ material, there is a limit to joking (a la Michael Richards). I haven’t heard his deaf jokes so I can’t comment, but I don’t like the idea of talking about them rather than to them.
This isn’t a fair comparison. Someone’s politics is not the same thing as a physical or mental condition.
Checking the ASL link… looks like the sign for “white” is a giant grasping hand.
Surely it’s just coincidental. ^__^
PRIoccupied, well, I enjoyed it up to a point, though I can’t really justify the price — $50 a ticket. In Philadelphia, only high-class theatrical productions cost that much. I liked his new Indian material (he just visited India) as well as his Dubai and Singapore stuff; I wanted more. He’s been traveling a lot — it would be interesting if someone were to do a semi-serious documentary about his actual experiences traveling all over the world.
Muralimannered and Drenched — I think those are the right reference points to go to. Borat/Ali G/Sasha Baron Cohen is part of this picture too. Russell Peters is just a little shy from that level fame I think (and I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the next couple of years, he gets a major break into the TV/movie world).
Dash, I’m not sure if you’re referring to any specific incident where I said, “ok, go make fun of Republicans.” But in general, laughing at deaf people because they might talk funny or because (duh) they can’t hear, is hardly the same thing as mocking an extremely powerful person like George W. Bush.
I agree. Recently there appears to be an abundance of race based and/or shock humor. Most of it is lacking in originality and insight and underneath the humor is often the implication that the comic is bold enough to speak the truth. I often feel as if introspective comedy is gasping its last breath; comics with an intellectual edge are losing their visibility more than ever.
Yeah Amardeep you summed up how I feel about Russell Peters too. About 5 years ago he presented a show on BBC 2 for British Desis called Network East and I went to a recording of one of the shows and he was hilarious, very good ad libbing too. There is a cosy feeling to his playing with stereotypes, like an Asian is doing it with some kind of affection, but it cuts close sometimes. I think he should definitely try and make a movie would be good.
Glad to hear you wanted more of his recent stuff Amardeep. Two years ago, he was supposedly inking a deal with Warner Bros in LA for an Indian based sitcom. “”I just signed the deal with Warner Bros. this week. They want to build a show around me,” Peters says. “I’m working with the guys who produced The Cosby Show and In Living Colour, so it’s pretty cool. I guess I’ll be shopping for real estate in L.A.”
Insiders say it was later dropped because his material got stale (how many Indian curry/call center jokes can one make). I wonder his he’s pushing the boundaries in his humour. In LA, his show at Royce Hall (UCLA) hardly elicited laughs from the audience. So, I also wonder if his jokes are regionally preferred.
I have seen plenty of Russell Peters clips on Youtube, and I have seen some of his deaf-jokes. I didn’t find them very amusing, and now I find his routine a tad repetitive. Good to know that I didn’t miss much.
I was at the Russell Peters show last nite in Philly and I have to agree that I found his act in general to be a little stale. His strengths are his accents and his bits on Asian stereotypes/tendencies. I felt he was making a tad bit repetitive with the gross jokes. I especially didn’t enjoy when he mocked that Indian couple and their teenage children, going as far to talk about the 15-year-old’s erections. I didn’t think the show was worth $50. Also, I was sitting in the section that I think would die laughing over a knock-knock joke, so their over-laughing was quite annoying.
My brother is deaf, so I admit when he started making the deaf jokes, I tensed up a bit and had to question whether I was being sensitive because I have a deaf brother or because the joking was in poor taste. In the end, I decided that he wasnt’ trying to be mean or put deaf people down, but was just exercising the brand of offensive humor he seems to have as of late. I have to say though, the ASL signs for different ethnic groups is correct, he didnt’ just make that up. Also, my sister and I felt like, as with all his impersonations, his deaf ‘accent’ was right on. He also incredibly right on about deaf people having superhuman strength. Certain of his insights were based on the fact that he went to a school with deaf people, so he had a certain amount of fair observations.
Overall, I just didn’t think he was as funny as he was in some of his older shows.
Scorps, thanks for your perspective — it’s really helpful to hear from someone who has personal experience with someone who is deaf (I don’t, I must admit).
These people make money by making people laugh. I think if you’re humorless or too invested in being politically correct, meta-bigotry can look suspiciously like actual bigotry. Russell Peters, Sara Silverman, etc. don’t make racist jokes, they make jokes about racism. I think Sara Silverman is quite possibly the funniest woman alive. Like she says, “[Her humor] is ignorance coupled with arrogance, and I see that reflected in our country.”
Sorry Amardeep, no offense intended; I didn’t mean to call anyone humorless.
I’m sorta over Russell Peters.
That was my family when we attended the show in Minneapolis last year, which was quite embarrassing when he was talking about my parents having sex. (god forbid). This is not why I am over him, though.
All of that being said, I’m always hesitant to say one joke is funny while another is offensive. I think that Peters’ material needs to be polished a bit more to be really good and he has it in him but its a bit rough…
I think you make a valid point about deaf jokes being laughing against a group of people instead of with (and they really weren’t that funny), but who is to say that someone isn’t offended by the Chinese people as being cheap stereotype, right? I’m even nervous to say this that offensiveness is subjective because it may give leeway to people who say racial jokes are okay…
I keep going back and forth, don’t I.
Carlos Mencia is another one in the group. And he does do desi imitations occassionally. But , still, its all about broad stereotypes, gets old soon. There is something special about guys like Chris Rock. They hit it just right.
Goodness Gracious Me is much better desi humour than Russell Peters. Peters relies to heavily on making fun of chinese stereotypes. And a side note about Carlos Mencia, hes making more and more political rants in his stand-up than actual comedy. Starting to get a bit sick of him.
Here’s a link to GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDCKsxt1FNg
What is worrying about ethnic comics not doing it right is the possibility that we will be caught in the vicous cycle of arguments like – “Well, every black comic uses the N-word. Why shouldn’t I?”
For example, it irks me that this Immus mess is being constantly encapsulated in the argument that rappers-set-the-bar-we-need-to-fix-that-first. I think Imus’s bigotry has roots elsewhere. Let’s talk about that.
Ugh, I find Carlos Mencia totally unfunny, and I think his desi stereotypes are horribly offensive.
I’m a bit tired of Russell Peters as well. He definitely toes the line when it comes to “ethnic humor,” but I feel the way other posters mentioned – this gets old, stale, repetitive, and also just unfunny. I feel like a comic has to be able to rock his/her jokes solidly before moving onto ethnic (or in this case disability) based humor. I also have never seen a comic pull off a convincing joke about someone being differently abled, either mentally or physically. Oftentimes it’s just flat out offensive.
Well from that perspective, “homosexual” jokes are wrong too? I’m not saying they were ever right, but they’re pretty common so I’m guessing it’s been ok-ed, just like racist jokes. :-/ Racial jokes are also weird to “allow”, because generally an African American comedian making fun of Caucasians are better tolerated than the other way around. Most comedians use humour at the expense of someone else, and unless it’s obvious pure hate, the audience has to try and be more open-minded.
–my thoughts i wanted to throw out there, only because the imus incident was mentioned and because i work under the rutgers area’s mainstream newspaper–
can we please not compare the imus incident to snoop dogg, or in this case russell peters? snoop saying hoes is different from imus. he was talking on live public airwaves. even rap on hot 97.1 fm (the region’s main rap station) has rules about language regulation they must abide by. songs get bleeped during the part of the lyrics that say hoes and bitches. you would have to purchase the CD to listen to that kind of language.
universal grammar, my foot! these deaf folks are as inherently racist as the russians are built for communism.
I think this is an important distinction. Also – are we including sexist jokes in this discussion?
Here’s a link to the “ignorance coupled with arrogance” comment Sarah Silverman made about her work on Nightline.
Could you tap dance? Thank you.
Chomskyn, I’m not 100% sure I follow your comment, but just to be clear, I’m not saying anything along the lines of “deaf people are racist because sign language has a politically incorrect past.”
At the end of the post above, all I’m doing is following out Russell Peters’ train of thought — and suggesting a linguistics-based response: just because a language has bad words, doesn’t make the people who use the language (in general) a party to them.
I saw the deaf act in NYC last year. One of my friends was utterly shocked. The other could not stop laughing. “Hey, the deaf can’t hear that I’m making fun of them, right?”
…
I found the whole thing a bit uncomfortable. I definitely repsect that he has the guts to take a disability and treat it as viciously as he has treated racial and other stereotypes. I think the free and widely circulated Russell Peters taping from Canada, one of the greatest stand up acts I have ever seen, has created an impossibly high standard in our minds for what Russell Peters is capable of. There is no way he will ever live up to that, ever again. I feel like he’s just crossing boundaries, using his real strength, anecdotal humor and impressions, because he is struggling to find new ways to make us laugh.
So, I can’t knock him for going down this path because I see why. But definitely not comfortable humor.
I have an indian friend who is hearing impaired who was at the show last night with his sister. Apparently, she yelled out that it was “f-d up” that he was making fun of deaf people and he said “I can’t hear you…It’s not f-d up…you know its true…plus, who cares because if i was deaf i couldn’t hear you.”
It makes me sad because my friend is really amazing. He’s smart and just started business school at Wharton. And for some bizarre reason his hearing has been going up and down from month to month. Sometimes his hearing is great and sometimes is so bad that he can’t hear anything.
This is what he had to say about it — excerpts from our IM conversation:
I think my friend has a point. Where do you draw the line with comedy? I for one tend to not even go to comedy shows because at some point during the show… I’m always uncomfortable that the audience is laughing at something I don’t find funny.
I’m not sure I can agree with you there, Amardeep. Your conclusion may be true if the people using the distasteful language don’t know that those particular words are distasteful. However, if they do know the implications and meanings of their words, surely there are alternative words (or signs) that they can use to express themselves. Note that I am not familiar with sign language, although I would find it extremely hard to believe that synonyms don’t exist in the realm of signing.
Earned disablities? All Mixed Up, I agree with not being comfortable with hearing jokes about disabilities that affect our friends & family. I have a cousin who has a similiar problem with her hearing, except she was smacked around by her ex-husband, which caused the loss in her left ear ( a la Halle Berry syndrome). It’s too fine a line to draw between humour and sensitivity.
I think if we look at any language, we will find many many words that may have dubious origins, or meant one thing at a certain time, and evolved into something else later. For example, in English.. the word romance… (where was I just reading this?) originally just meant something out of Rome.. also
—Synonyms 1. story, fiction. 4. falsehood, fable. 6. allure, fascination, exoticism.
I highly doubt that when an American says “That movie was romantic” that they either mean it seemed Roman.
Additionally, ASL is a visual language, hence some of the signs may unusual to people as they often mimic or pick up charactistics or historical bits about the thing they have created a word for. For example, the word for coca cola is the index finger in the crock of the arm, like someone shooting up… presumable because it used to have cocaine in it.. or maybe because its like a shot of caffeine? Don’t know. Either way, when someone makes that sign, it means coca cola, regardless of its origins.
…And, if in ASL, (I don’t know if it is true) the sign for chinese is changing or refering to eyeshape, does that necessarily have to have a negative connotation? Maybe it is simply a descriptive word.
oops, I meant to say
“that they neither meant to say that it’s from rome or a lie” …typo!
Russell Peters is a very talented comic, his accents are dead-on and he will continue to pack ’em in, but he will never be a “great” comic in my book, never reach the status of a Bill Cosby or Jerry Seinfeld, mainly because he resorts too often to cheap humor. He’s certainly capable of intelligent humor — about 10 percent of his routine consists of this — but he just can’t let go of the crass and sometimes offensive stuff. Perhaps that’s just his style. It has worked for him to a large degree, but I have a feeling he won’t be the biggest desi comic for long. Guys like Hari Kondabolu will be looking at him in the rear view mirror. And let’s not forget the soon-to-be-great Mallu comic Paul Varghese.
To Linzi @ #31:
300…That movie was so romantic.
Couldn’t resist.
OT.
So was that made-for-TV movie “Rome”
hahaha. bleah. 😛
I too am very uncomfortable when people laugh at a comedian’s jokes that ridicule a group of people who can’t do anything about the way they are. It’s not the same as ridiculing a pompous person, an arrogant person, a stingy one, an overly cautious one etc.
It doesn’t bother me much when a comedian says it… people sucking at their jobs is OK with me. If people don’t laugh, it’s over and we can move on. I get mad at the jackasses who unthinkingly keep laughing.
i wouldn’t ever be caught in any of this guy’s shows. for reasons here. imo, his going after deaf people is exactly what he has been doing all the way till now—he was lucky people thought his rehash of silly jokes floating around abt ethnicity was mistaken for talent. now he is just doing the same with a different topic.
but like kurma says, it is ok for him to suck at his job. let us just not prop up this idiot and be the ones who bother kurma :).
Hmm… Let market decide whether “deaf jokes” are good or bad.
Also, just wondering, will it be okay if a deaf person makes a “deaf joke” ?
If your answer is yes, then IMO, it is okay for Russell also to make the same joke 🙂
Exactly, that’s why the Special Olympics jokes from the 2nd comedian in the opening act worked (I don’t remember his name but he had cerebral palsy).
Godless capitalist, this blog is the free market at work: I’m providing information and a perspective that might help possible Russell Peters ticket buyers decide whether or not to spend their $50. Nowhere have I suggested censoring this guy.
All Mixed Up (#28), I think your comment #28 completely reaffirms the point of my post. In this case, there was a hearing-impaired person in the audience — and he definitely didn’t find it funny. I heard the person who yelled “This is f***ed up!” once he started in on the deaf jokes, and I wondered what the deal was. Now I know; thanks.
Richards wasn’t joking when he repeatedly yelled the N-word. He was out of character, I’d even cut Richards some slack if his usage of the word was in part of some character or bit. But pointing to him and saying to everyone else, “He’s a n*gger!” isn’t the payoff to any set up or premise.
As for RP, He’s been pretty “kosher” thus far, although I haven’t heard his deaf joke. As a rule in comedy is, you shouldn’t make fun of anyone who you have a general “leg up” on. The theory is you may get a laugh, but in the log run, you lose your audience. They see you as a bully. Able bodied people making fun of handicapped people outright would surely qualify.
But it really depends on context and delivery. Chris Rock made a joke about blind people that he caught a little flack for, “All blind people should get a midget, just a guy to walk in front of you and say, ‘yo man make a left'” he made it in the context of helping blind people, not putting down little people.
That’s actually one of my favorite Chris Rock bits. He also prefaced it with something to the effect of “have you noticed the medical community just gave up on trying to find a cure for blindness…?”
I think what turns many people off about his routine is that he fails to bring that unifying element of humanity to his routines. Merely making the statement “Man, we’re all the same at the end of the day” doesn’t exactly achieve the same result as other successful mainstream comedians who are able to put a more creative, dignified spin on their jokes.
Isnt that like more of a diss to midgets than to blind people?
Right, he was talking about the general medical community only working for medicines, and not cures, because there ain’t no money in the cure. Then he went to blindness, and said, “Stevie Wonder, one of the richest people in the world, doesnt know if he has hundreds or ones. can’t we just get him a peek?…”
Which is why he got a little flack for it, but the set up wasn’t “anti midget”
“i was hurting pretty bad. i had tears welled up in my eyes. i’m no sissy but i hate this problem [his hearing problem which has plagued him for years]. i hate it so much … i supposed he makes fun of a lot of ppl. what can i do? i couldn’t hear half his jokes too much echo [because his hearing aids don’t work in large places]…you know, i laugh at all other stuff but making fun of disabilities is really low-end and i don’t care if it’s deafness or blindness or whatnot but it’s just so cutting and unfair because the disabled suffer a lot and are made to go through life like children…there’s no inherent suffering in being arab or indian. i was really upset… the way we are felt sorry for…he made fun of the way our voice erodes…the way girls don’t respect us as men…the way they just say ‘awww’…he doesn’t give a shit…he took apart the deaf, blind, autistic, quadriplegics…”
All Mixed Up – thanks for this perspective. I’m not deaf, nor do I listen to Russel Peters so I’m not sure I’d find it funny. I have read an enthnography on deaf culture, and as I understood it, many deaf people (particularly those that were born with deafness) do not see it as a disability but a distinct part of their culture and they do not seek to get their hearing back; many who are deaf and could get a hearing aid to help their hearing often decide not to. I think many people who view deaf culture like this, would liken it to your friend’s perspective that “there’s no inherent suffering in being arab or indian ” except they would include deafness.
Your friend would probably have a different cultural take on deafness, different from the ethnography I read, b/c he wasn’t born deaf, he uses a hearing aid, etc. but I wonder if he was part of the deaf community that was born deaf, would he be able to laugh at RP’s jokes. Like I said I don’t listen to RP, but I know some deaf people do not view their deafness as a disability but as part of their culture, and that may make it easier to laugh at RP’s jokes.
Ellen Degeneres also does a tasteful joke about disabilities, where she makes fun of people buying frames with glass (non corrective) lenses, just to look “sophisticated” and she says, “what other disabilities will become cool? Maybe deafness. People’ll start going ‘huh? what’d you say? Cool.’ “
It all depends on who’s the target of the joke, and whether they’re deserving of being a target by the comedian.
When I was doing stand up, I did a joke about sign language. How at one point every one of us used it to some level, and how each of us should be able to contribute a sign. For obvious reasons, I didn’t last as a stand up comedian very long.
I’m always curious how people can get offended at a comedy show. The worst case for me is “sorry, that’s not funny.” That should be the kiss of death for a comic.
The only way this all ends is when people learn to laugh at themselves for their foibles. We’re a ridiculous species. The whole “were you offended?” question kind of irks me, too. I understand exactly where you’re coming from, but I don’t think the problem is that we need to have thinner skin. Collectively, we need to be a little tougher.
And I’m not saying “we” as a South Asian. I mean “we” as people, as human beings, because I’m also getting really sick of the endless Balkanization of the human race (stupid people from the Balkans…they started this crap) into the narrowest of slivers, until you have clades of four people holding each other’s hand and reaching for a gun anytime anyone makes a feint in their direction. Why do we CARE if someone’s deaf? Or black? Or South Asian? Or a lesbian? Or short? Or fat?
There’s only one reason: we’re animals, we’re largely unable to de-program or reprogram ourselves, and we’re not very nice.
THAT should be where the humor is pointed: our collective neuroses, not our collective disabilities. You can’t do much about being deaf or Asian or cancer-ridden or whatever. You CAN do a lot about your crappy sex life, or your attitude towards women, or your inability to have a conversation with strangers, or your rough relationship with your family.
Er, that is…to make it one reason, and not three: “we’re not-very-nice animals who are largely unable or unwilling to de-program or reprogram ourselves.”
🙂
ta-da!
Poking fun at disabilities is downright rude and offensive – I am partially deaf and have been through years of hell getting people to understand this. After years of struggle I now have hearing aids – it’s made my life a lot better – but even then my hearing is not perfect. So to have a popular comedian make a serious issue into something trivial may undermine someone’s chances to make their hearing problem understood!