I’m a Dick Gregory fan; I saw him at the Kansas City Improv just a few months ago. I avoided interrupting my queue of topics just for his death (or Jerry Lewis’), because the articles were mostly rehashing old anecdotes, jokes and anointing the comics for sainthood. However, in scanning this article by Elahe Izadi of the Washington Post (8/22/2017), I found the relevant issue (one that I still don’t think applies to Lewis): That Dick Gregory defended political stand-up, because it needed defending.
Stand-up’s role
In my discussion of the history of stand-up, I note that there are those, like Lawrence Mintz, who claim,
Stand-up comedy is arguably the oldest, most universal, basic, and deeply significant form of humorous expression (excluding perhaps truly spontaneous, informal social joking and teasing). It is the purest public comic communication, performing essentially the same social and cultural roles in practically every known society, past and present.
However others, like Gerald Nachman, argue that stand-up’s beginnings are distinctly American, and in America, it did not perform a political role – it didn’t attempt to critique or change power dynamics. Stand-up usually came with the conception that it’s best form meant short jokes (not developed stories), wisecracks and one-liners – and therefore no “messages” (political or social) or personality (Nachman).
This is the time into which came Gregory. As Kliph Nesteroff says,
[Other black entertainers] felt politics didn’t belong on the stage, that you could reach some semblance of acceptance or racial equality simply by doing quality work on stage, and white people would appreciate you that way.
So like Nachman, Nesteroff agrees that politics just wasn’t done… until it was. This is a critical shift, which had already happened with Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl, but still was not yet mainstream: Comics began to take themselves and their jokes seriously.
Politics have consequences
Comedy wasn’t a free space of play, in which one could speak truth to power… Until comics began to do so, and when they did they paid the consequences:
His approach wasn’t without blowback. Count Basie fired him from a gig because he didn’t like Gregory’s act. Other black entertainers balked, too.
…
Gregory’s activism meant he’d have to cancel gigs at the last minute because he was in jail. He was also spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on causes connected to the civil rights movement. Playboy asked him, “Can you afford to keep up this kind of outlay on the income from your irregular nightclub appearances?”
“Can’t afford not to,” Gregory responded in 1964. “If I’m willing to pay the price of dying for the cause, what I care about a few bucks more or less?”
While they are including in this his activism off-stage, which is significant, we shouldn’t dismiss the work he was doing on-stage. In an interview with Playboy in 1964, Gregory said,
Well, these critics who feel I’m destroying myself as an entertainer, all they know is show business. They’re concerned nightclub-wise, not news-wise. A political reporter would never say I’m taking myself too seriously. You see, there comes a time when you got to decide what you are and what you want. Way I see it now, I’m an individual first, an American second and a Negro third. But I’m a Negro before I’m an entertainer.
Summary
As I mentioned, Gregory was seen as a break-out star because there was something to break out of – the constraint that humor couldn’t have messages (especially not from a black comic). Comedy wasn’t a space free of rules; comics couldn’t act without repercussions.
Yes, Gregory was a great activist off-stage, but he also brought the fight to the stage, and that opened the door for others, like Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, and most recently Trevor Noah.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
