I watched with profound sadness and no small degree if genuine discomfort the Michael Richards self destruction video. My brain has been tingling ever since. I have always loved stand-up comedy, and I especially love the brand of comedy that makes me wince. Michael O'Donoghue, Kauffman, Terry Southern, Bill Hicks, Paul Mooney, and Lizz Winstead are heroes to me. I am also from Birmingham, Alabama, so I have grown up with the politics of race all around me.
As I watched this think With Mike Richards, my first thought was that it was a Kauffman thing. I really wanted it to be guerrilla theater with fake hecklers. I wanted to continue to like Richards. I wanted it to be a holdover from his days on Fridays when he pulled that prank on the nation with Kauffman and staged a live tv meltdown. And as it played out and became obvious that this was not what it was, I sat there slackjawed.
So many thoughts in my head. Follow me.
My first thought (and I know that it is strange that this was first) was "who has to follow this act?" Talk about a tough room. "OK WHO'S READY TO LAUGH? YOU GUYS HAVING A GOOD TIME TONIGHT?" Then I rewound and watched again. He references lynching (and in a particularly nostalgic way). He Screams the word "nigger" over and over again. Then a puzzling thing happens. He paces around a bit--and as I watch him it is like I can just see him trying to work it out. Comedy brain in high gear looking for a punch line--looking for the exit. He settles on this hack version of an old Lenny bit--"look at the power of words--look how they shock us--look at what is lurking under the surface" It doesn't stick--ultimately because what he really says is Look at MY words; Look at how shocking I Am; look at what is lurking under the surface of ME. No one buys it. In the whole tirade, the forgiving members of the audience are with him for a couple of lines. They want to see where he is going with this. But then it becomes this spectacle. There is no joke and no thought provoking bit. There is just this seething anger and this ugliness. So it becomes this thing where the whole place is just watching their beloved Kramer careen out of control. And careen he does--after his his attempt to "Lenny it up" and turn it into some hack rehash of what was great social commentary, HE KEEPS GOING. It was like the end of Thelma and Louise. Was he trying to be so over the top that it became a character? Failed fix number two?
And standup comedy heckler management lesson number one is to get the audience on your side. That is where they want to be. Humiliate the heckler in a funny way that makes him feel like an ass for mouthing off. NEVER NEVER NEVER alienate the audience so that they are on the side of the heckler!!!
So in following the story and reading comments that ranged from the sublime to the profane I was drawn even further into this amazing bit of human drama. A number of the comments I read discussed the double standard of the use of the word Nigger and edgy race material. Many pointed out that if this is a black comic instead of a white comic, then it is a non story and the room laughs. One insightful commenter made a point that I had never really considered before--That a white guy could call a black man a nigger back in the day and get that black man lynched, but that if the black man called the white man a cracker, it is once again the black man who runs the risk of getting lynched. His point being that this comparison and supposed double standard is really apples and oranges--two completely different dynamics.
My feeling at the end of the day was that this was a career ender. No recovery possible. All apologies are useless because anyone who saw this video and feels the all too palpable vibe of that scene knows that he meant what he said.
So then I watch the apology. He came off as a very mixed up guy who was trying to be as open and vulnerable as possible. His spin was that it was rage not racism. It took the form of racist remarks but those remarks sprung from his own seething anger at hecklers and not from hatred of minorities--as if he just chose the sharpest, most hurtful weapons in his arsenal.
If nothing else--the whole thing is fascinating.
It brought to mind a personal story that also involved racism and stand up only in this case the roles were reversed.
I have never even tried to write about this before.
It was the early nineties I think, and Eddie Murphy was at one of the many peaks of his career. He had successful movies and had a long list of beloved SNL characters he had developed during his tenure there. He goes on tour in the US playing big rooms all over. He came to my town to do two back to back shows of his standup act. My brother got us third row tickets. Show starts pretty good, although this is a pretty raunchy side of Eddie--his RAW tour. My brother and I are enjoying the show, when this redneck yells from the balcony, "HEY DO BUCKWHEAT". Eddie is unflinched. Full speed ahead. Again "HEY DO BUCKWHEAT". Finally Eddie stops to put this guy in his place. "Look that is sketch comedy you have already seen, check out this new material--it's funny if you will just shut the f*** up."
Everyone feels better. Then the redneck yells "Get off the stage, Nigger!" I feel like shrinking down in my seat. I am embarrassed of my town. I turn around to see if people who feel as I do are taking care of this guy and since I am on the third row and the place is lit from the back, lights are shining at me and I can see nothing beyond a few rows back--and this is like a concert hall--big room. It is just the disembodied racist voice in the dark screaming his epithet. It was menacing and creepy--terrifying . . . and I am a white dude! I KNOW Eddie can't see a thing. There he is on a big, unadorned stage in Birmingham, Alabama--all the history, all the pictures of cops beating blacks, the dogs, the hoses going through his head, and he is in the dark, and there is that menacing voice. I was nauseous. Had I been Eddie, I would have walked off the stage, and out of that town forever.
Eddie Murphy steeled himself up and went into the rest of his act. I could not believe it. In the face of that hostility, in the face of that hatred, he was going to give us what we came for. I don't think anyone would have blamed him had he decided to drop that mic in the middle of the stage and walk. But this guy keeps going. Yes his timing was off. Yes, after that he seemed like an auctioneer doing his act at this breakneck speed. But in the face of that hatred and vitriol, Eddie Murphy told jokes, smiled, turned the room around and sent us home loving him and respecting him. We all were with him. We all hated the heckler. I tell you this--Eddie Murphy is a MAN.
AND he is a professional. THAT is how you deal with a heckler.
I still don't know what to make of Michael Richards.