From the beginning of The White Boy Shuffle,
I’ve been laughing, but oftentimes I’d instantly look back and be like, “wait,
should I be laughing at that? I don’t think I should.” It’s undeniable that the
novel in general and Gunnar Kaufman are incredibly funny. But there’s something
that seems a little off with that conclusion - for one, Gunnar’s humor is quite
dark. For another, he doesn’t exactly want to be known for his comedic prowess.
From the very beginning of the novel, Gunnar has
us laughing. He references very dark people and events yet he still has us
cracking up. Even when he’s in the third grade, he’s hilarious. (It does help
that his teacher’s name is “Ms. Ceginy”.) Yet his comedy never ceases to be
quite dark, and it just gets darker as the novel progresses. In middle school,
when some kids beat him up, he refers to it as “getting his overbite fixed”,
and remarks that his doctor said “she couldn’t do a better job if she tried”.
As his own father, a police officer, is beating him brutally during the L.A.
riots, he says his father “transform[ed] into a Senegalese drummer beating a
surrender code on a hollow log”. By college, he’s internally poking fun at his
and Scoby’s depression, and we’re expecting these amazing one-liners and out
from his mouth spills, “let’s all kill ourselves,” or “America is Satan,” and
we’re all like, “heh heh hehhhh…?” We love a funny narrator. But by the end,
it’s like, should we have laughed in the first place?
During a basketball game in high school, Gunnar
dresses as a blackface minstrel character - white gloves, cold cream on his
lips, bent forward snapping and whistling “Old Gray Mare”. The whole gym is
rolling on the ground laughing. His coach is furious. We, meanwhile, are
cracking up, but inside unsure if we should really be laughing. Gunnar’s
performance is a pretty clever callout, but throughout his life, he’s been seen
as a performer rather than an actual human being. From the “funny, cool black
guy” to the “basketball star” to the “street poet messiah”, it’s never left
him. By the end of the book, it’s clear he’s through being the performer, but
can’t find a way for any of his to see him otherwise. By making us laugh, then
saying ‘ha! This is actually serious’, Paul Beatty is really making us think.
It’s crazy how much Beatty can make you question yourself using Gunnar’s jokes. I also had that weird experience where I was laughing as a read the chapter, but afterwards I was looking back and wondering if I should’ve been laughing at these subjects and feeling very uncomfortable about the fact that I did. It’s interesting to see this style of writing especially after reading Morrison. While Morrison hits you hard and fast, leaving you completely overwhelmed and horrified by what you’ve read, Beatty just slips it in. He introduces the dark parts through jokes, and the realization of how dark it actually is comes in later. And part of what makes it so intense is that along with realizing how serious the subjects are, you have the realization that you were laughing about it just a few minutes beforehand. Its two very different styles of writing, but both of them leave you with intense self-reflection.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that you say Gunnar makes jokes but at the same time does not want us to laugh. He's so different because usually comedians strive to make us laugh. It's almost like Gunnar is challenging us to laugh. Like, are you going to be the one who doesn't understand that the world is messed up and you're part of the problem? I always laughed at Gunnar's antics but now I kind of feel bad about it. Oh well I'm a follower.
ReplyDeleteI found Beatty's tone for the novel reflected the way that as a society America has decided to talk about race. At first we ignore it, just like they did in Gunnar's elementary school. At the same time we fixate on race. A person of color is onyl valued if they are entertaining (in some cases failing to succeed is entertaining). Think about the Koffman history, it seems that they have survived because they have played the white-man's game. Most of all we don't take race seriuosly, even as our world is morphed by racial issues we laugh because we don't know how to stop laughing.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, there's definitely a genre of offensive comedy that's gaining prevalence. I feel like Beatty plays into that a lot, however at certain points you definitely feel too uncomfortable to laugh.
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