Furiously Funny: Comic Rage from Ralph Ellison to Chris Rock

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In Furiously Funny, Tucker finds that comic rage developed from black oral tradition and first shows up in literature by George Schuyler and Ralph Ellison shortly after World War II. He examines its role in novels and plays, following the growth of the expression to comics and stand-up comedy and film, where Richard Pryor, Spike Lee, Whoopi Goldberg, and Chris Rock have all used the technique.

Connecting through humor to what is familiar in both mainstream and African American culture, works of comic rage are at the center of American racial dialogue. The simultaneous expression of comedy and militancy enables artists to reject white stereotypes of blackness and also to confront white audiences with America’s legacy of racial oppression. Tucker shows how this important art form continues to expand in new ways in the twenty-first century.