Judd Apatow's Lazily Written Black Characters

The BBQ Pit
1

“This is great so far - and best of all there are no black characters!” Those were my thoughts about halfway into Knocked Up. Right before the bouncer scene.

I loved Knocked Up. I loved “Freaks & Geeks”. I don’t remember much of “Undeclared” (it went quickly), but I probably would have liked it if it survived. Apatow’s got this gift of crafting these complete, realistic, familiar well-thought-out characters who are anything but a jumble of Hollywood cliches. Unless they’re black.

That’s what’s so insulting. A hack making hacky black characters is meaningless, but when someone this talented reveals his dismissive view of blacks so blatantly it’s such a slap in the face. I couldn’t enjoy 40-Year-Old Virgin because he chose to make a black person a featured member of the ensemble. Despite being a character who apparently had exclusively white friends, he was played unrealistically to type, and played the part of the casually misogynistic friend. And Apatow made it clear to us that this misogyny was not a unique aspect of this specific character’s personality. No - his warning to the 40-year-old virgin against “putting the pussy on a pedestal” is echoed by a completely unrelated black character later in the movie. Then there’s this middle-finger of a scene that’s thrown in there for no discernible reason, where apparently they’re running off some check list of insulting black stereotypes and seeing if they can exploit them all in under two minutes.

Why does all of his other characters get so much thought and care put into them, but for the black characters he thinks he can mash together a few played-out media conventions mixed with some overheard subway conversations and he’s done his job? Have the bouncer drop a few conjunctives and refer to two white women as “bitches” right in front of their faces (without them flinching because that’s just how black people talk, apparently) and bam, there’s your black character.

Pigeon-holers might assume by now that’s I’m some uptight, sensitive hypocrite that can’t take black’s being ridiculed for comic effect. Wrong - I can’t take lazy comedy, and it’s especially offensive (because it’s so common) when blacks are involved. As a person who considers himself a comedy afficiannado, I appreciate any well thought out gag, especially if that thought is expended on a black subject. I consider this scene to easily be the funniest scene in film within the last decade. Foxxy Love is my favorite character on “Drawn Together”. C-Bass is my favorite character on “Halfway Home” next to the hyper-violent Serenity.

Why? Because these scenes and characters aren’t just lazily regurgitating things that I’ve actually only ever witnessed in entertainment media. Evident is effort to reveal a clever perspective, or share spry insight on phenomena I actually find familiar. We all know the old cliche about the black person who talks to the screen during a horror movie. But having her respond exactly the same way to a romantic comedy, and pulling it off so that it’s believable? That’s genius. I’ve never seen anyone do the little hand motion that Brenda did when she told the audience member to get out of her face, but it looked exactly like something the girls in my high school would have come up with. The people behind that sequence knew what they were talking about.

All I’m saying is if he doesn’t want to get deep into the psyche his black characters like he does with all the other ones, what’s the problem with leaving them out instead of insulting a big chunk of his potential audience? The same rant goes for Kevin Smith, which is why my favorite KS movie is the black-free Clerks (well, that’s not the only reason why but it does help).

2

I can see where you’re coming from, but I’m not quite sure I get what makes the black character in 40-Year-Old Virgin less acceptable than the other characters you mention, who (IMO) are even more egregiously patterned on black stereotypes. (That guy seemed unrealistic to you, but you don’t have any problem with “Foxxy Love” or the “ghetto momma” character on “Halfway Home?”)

I think you have a legitimate point that Apatow’s strength is not in writing dialogue for black characters, but I think he’s in a kind of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation— my suspicion, at least, is that you may be an exception in your willingness to overlook a cast devoid of black actors, and that black audiences would consider that a greater insult than including one or two characters who may not be quite as three-dimensional as the rest of the cast.

(But what do I know? I’m white and I thought the Jay character from The 40-Y-O V was pretty funny, although I fully agree with you on the bouncer in Knocked Up— that was a pretty lame inclusion in an otherwise very good movie.)

3

Two big reasons - 1. their respective show and films are self-consciously over-the-top while Apatow’s comedies are meant to be subtle, realistic character-driven ensembles. 2. They’re immediately contrasted with normal, non-type blacks who appear in the same productions while every single black Apatow character who speaks is an offensive stereotype. In addition are the things that I mentioned, that their stereotypical idiosyncrasies seem familiar (which is why they’re stereotypes) and that they aren’t usually the gags in of themselves but vehicles for more thoughtful jokes.

Not really, since the third, obvious option is, if he doesn’t know why to convincingly write black characters to type, is to not think of them as black characters. Talk with whoever’s producing “My Name is Earl”, which has had plenty of funny, speaking black characters with none being “types” yet - including Darnell, who despite being a criminal, an adulterer and on the surface somewhat dull, is still not performed to type.

Plenty might think that way, I’m sure, but I don’t think I’m such a unique exception. I’d guess that people simpleminded enough to think that way wouldn’t be interested in character studies like that in the first place, so their opinion doesn’t matter.

4

Missed the edit window but I wanted to slip in:
“Not really, since the third, obvious option is, if he doesn’t know why to convincingly write black characters to type, is to not think of them as black characters. He didn’t have to figure out how the hilariously jerky Asian doctor’s Asianess figured into his character, or what Paul Rudd’s ex’s Indianess had to do with her. Why should it be so hard to do the same for black characters? Talk with whoever’s producing “My Name is Earl”…etc.”

5

Kevin Smith? I can see complaining about Smith’s female characters but his black characters?

His two main black characters were Hooper X in Chasing Amy and Rufus in Dogma. Three, if you add Becky from Clerks II (depending on if you consider Rosario Dawson black or hispanic). I don’t see any of them as being a typical black character or as being the same type of character.

Other black characters like Earthquake and Wanda Sykes in Clerks II, Tracy Morgan and Chris Rock in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, or Dwight Ewell in Dogma were more limited characters but they were all minor characters who only appeared in single scenes. They were one-joke characters but they were only there for one joke.

6

I haven’t seen Knocked up, but amen about Jay in 40 YOV. I tried to not bristle at how patently stereotypical that character was played and almost succeeded at it, until I got to the scene you mentioned. That was a big WTF? moment if there ever was one. And (unless I missed something) it had nothing to do with the plot, it advanced the storyline not one bit, and it brought nothing in terms of comedic value. It was a waste of two minutes in an otherwise funny movie.

You should rethink your suspicion. I myself started a thread way back about Charlie’s Angels 2 in which I bitched about how the I-from-the-hood black Bosley character made my eyes roll into the back of my head. I would much prefer writers to stick to white characters, if they can’t write a black character to be anything but a mishmash of lame, played-out stereotypes.

7

Where he was able to fit both the militant, angry black man and the super queeny gay black guy into the same character. That’s advanced level offensive stereotyping.

Okay, I don’t really remember being annoyed by Chris Rock’s character in Dogma, but then that was so long ago, so I can’t immediately recall whether it fits with Smith’s pattern.

I skipped Clerks II (and black and Hispanic aren’t mutually exclusive).

That doesn’t excuse them - they were tired, played-out jokes.

8

What problem could you possibly have with the bouncer character in Knocked Up?

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True, but its not like Kevin Smiths white characters are well written either.

10

No kidding. The bouncer wasn’t a black character. That was Craig Robinson from The Office, playing a bit part like several other The Office members in the movie were. Craig just happens to be black.

11

Really? So no one would flinch at a white character referring to two women as “bitches” right in front of their faces either, as he was supposed to be giving a heartfelt monologue? It wasn’t an obvious, big-deal situation but in the end he was the only black character that spoke during the movie and he was a type unlike all the other real people in the movie.

12

One slang term, more or less identified as a “black” slang term, from a rather sympathetic bit character? You’re actually upset about that? It was a joke, and good one, and it wouldn’t have been nearly as funny without the “bitches.” Besides, the character is a bouncer – of course he’s supposed to use slang. If anything, it’s the rest of the monologue that’s unrealistic.

13

:rolleyes: God damn it, I give an example and it because the only reason. Look, read the entire monologue:

Is it not obvious, now, that this guy was a big, fat freaking stereotype in the middle of a movie filled with non-stereotypes?

14

And you misspelled “slur”. That’s like me saying “coon” is a white slang term, and then having a white bouncer in my movie saying “we can’t have a bunch of short, overweight coons running around in the club” to a couple of unflinching black characters during what’s supposed to be a heartfelt monologue, and expecting everyone to believe that scene because that’s how white people are.

15

Meh, I guess I can see where you’re coming from, but I think it’s a remarkably small deal in this case – at worst, I think it’s a matter of Apatow being bad at writing black characters. Also, it’s genuinely funny, and funny goes a long way.

There were other stereotypes: the catty career-woman, the crazy stoners. Probably a few others that I’m forgetting.

16

Well that’s what the crap I’m talking about! But to be clear, I don’t think Apatow actually wrote his lines, or Jay’s more obnoxious ones. Supposedly many of these lines are ad libbed. But as the autuer those characterizations are ultimately his responsibility. It’s not a coincidence that all the black characters just happen to be that way in his films, even if he didn’t start out writing them that way before hand.

The closest I could give you is crazy stoners. There was no character who could be completely summed up as “catty career-woman”. And “crazy stoners” is a lot more specific than “black guy”.

17

Oh, and to repeat myself, the big deal comes from the fact that this guy is otherwise talented. Which means his characterizations of blacks reveal an insulting level of dismissiveness that’s at best merely lazy and at worst intentionally malicious.

18

I think he was referring to the SNL girl in the scenes with Alan Tudyk.

I guess I can’t really agree with you. I thought the bouncer acted and talked how I’d expect a bouncer at a popular city club would act and talk, regardless of skin colour. Would you have felt better if one of the four stoners was black? They could have had the exact same lines, and then you’d be accusing him of portraying the guy as the stereotypical, oversexualized, drug-obsessed, poor black man.

19

Oh. Well, who cares? Also, thanks for making a good point for me: yeah, there’s a very good chance that that dialogue was created by the actor portraying the bouncer. What’s Apatow supposed to do, tell him that he has to come up with something else because he doesn’t think it’s something a black person would actually say?

Yes there was. Whenever Katherine Heigl (sp?) went to talk to her boss in his office, she was sitting next to an older woman who’s sole reason for being in the film was to utter subtle put-downs about the younger, prettier woman by whom she felt threatened.

20

Well, I haven’t seen Knocked Up, but I’m a huge fan of 40-Year-Old Virgin so I’ll address that.

Look, that movie was filled with stereotypes and cartoonish characters – the vomiting blonde club slut (played by Apatow’s wife, I believe), the foul-mouthed, thick-accented East Asian clerk at the store, the other blonde slutty chick from the bookstore, the “Jew-fro” nebbishy kid at the health clinic, and even Carell’s character Andy – who’s not just a virgin, but a miniature-model-painting, video-game-playing, action-figure-collecting virgin.

What Apatow excels in is taking these caricatures and showing sympathy and affection for them by using behaviors we recognize in ourselves. I believed Jay’s genuine feelings towards his fiancee in the tear-filled, remorseful scene with Andy. Plus he’s funny as hell. Jay’s my second favorite character in the film, aside from Andy.

From the monologue I’m reading above, it sounds like a bouncer using normal language for a bouncer. He sounds sympathetic to the ‘old’ women here, and as if he’s using the term ‘pregnant bitches’ as how others would see them. But I could be wrong. Just doesn’t ping my outrageometer, FWIW.