Reply #37: Thoughts on Richard Pryor.... [View All]

It's been a long time since I heard or saw any of Pryor's work, but I've been thinking this
morning, as memories surface, about what made him so good.

It's been mentioned in various eulogies that Pryor's humor contained elements of vulnerability.
Specifically, he often illuminated the fear that African Americans feel in everyday life in America.
That made him different that many Black comedians, who focus more on anger. With Pryor, the anger
was there, but it was often as a response to sheer terror at what might befall him as a Black man
at the mercy of unthinking whites. It gave his comedy a weight that others don't come anywhere near.

I remember an old routine he did about the movie The Exorcist, the point of which (if I may be so bold
as to define the point of a comedy routine) was that as a Black man, he couldn't understand why
white people would deliberately subject themselves to unpleasant experiences for thrills. Aren't there
enough unpleasant experiences in real life? The sub context was: There are for Black people.

Go to the light, Richard.