Part of Mr. Rock's appeal is that he is a black comedian who is willing to criticize black culture. And since he routinely performs for largely white audiences, as he did on Wednesday, that puts him in a tricky position. He seems keen to keep his audience from getting too comfortable, but he seems unwilling to do it directly: he never singles people out, and he never steps out of character to acknowledge the relationship between comedian and fan.
Instead, he kept everyone off-balance by interrupting the laughs with a tendentious middle section devoted to politics and race. There was a startling riff on abortion, in which he compared murder rates in the ghetto to murder rates in the womb. He contended that African-Americans dominated sports because of the way slaves were bred. Then he added: "You know what they did to smart slaves? They killed 'em." He wisely declined to follow this line of thought to its logical conclusion.
Mainly, though, his performance was a marvel of balance and precision: he ranted but rarely scolded, and his indignation was generally unsullied by righteousness. After congratulating himself on the birth of his daughter, he suddenly switched direction to note that "even cockroaches have babies."
All comedians hedge their bets this way, but Mr. Rock can turn bet-hedging into something more complicated. His best lines evoked both the sudden excitement of uncovering a lie, and the slow, sick feeling of learning to live with it. "If you're black, America is like the uncle that paid your way through college," he said, and he sounded somehow triumphant as he delivered the punch line, "but molested you."
| That's how Kelefa Sanneh's New York Times comedy review "Wait Till You Hear What Makes Those Doughnuts So Good" ends
posted in articles on January 30, 2004 8:44 AM | t (0)
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