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Ntfs_encryption
Regular Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 29
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 11:41 pm: | 
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Well, one thing is for sure, you can never accuse Stanley Crouch of holding back and biting his words. The man has given the word controversial new meaning. This is his assessment of the career of Richard Pryor. Your thoughts?
Pryor's flawed legacy
Monday, December 12th, 2005
By Stanley Crouch
This past Saturday Richard Pryor left this life and bequeathed to our culture as much darkness as he did the light his extraordinary talent made possible.
When we look at the remarkable descent this culture has made into smut, contempt, vulgarity and the pornagraphic, those of us who are not willing to drink the Kool-Aid marked "all's well," will have to address the fact that it was the combination of confusion and comic genius that made Pryor a much more negative influence than a positive one.
I do not mean positive in the way Bill Cosby was when his television show redefined situation comedy by turning away from all of the stereotypes of disorder and incompetence that were then and still are the basic renditions of black American life in our mass media.
Richard Pryor was not that kind of a man. His was a different story.
Pryor was troubled and he had seen things that so haunted him that the comedian found it impossible to perform and ignore the lower-class shadow worlds he had known so well, filled with pimps, prostitutes, winos and abrasive types of one sort or another.
The vulgarity of his material, and the idea a "real" black person was a foul-mouthed type was his greatest influence. It was the result of seeing the breaking of "white" convention as a form of "authentic" definition.
Pryor reached for anything that would make white America uncomfortable and would prop up a smug belief among black Americans that they were always "more cool" and more ready to "face life" than the members of majority culture.
Along the way, Pryor made too many people feel that the N word was open currency and was more accurate than any other word used to describe or address a black person.
In the dung piles of pimp and gangster rap we hear from slime meisters like Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, the worst of Pryor's influence has been turned into an aspect of the new minstrelsy in which millions of dollars are made by "normalizing" demeaning imagery and misogyny.
What is so unfortunate is that the heaviest of Pryor's gifts was largely ignored by so many of those who praised the man when he was alive and are now in the middle of deifying him.
The pathos and the frailty of the human soul alone in the world or insecure or looking for something of meaning in a chaotic environment was a bit too deep for all of the simpleminded clowns like Andrew Dice Clay or those who thought that mere ethnicity was enough to define one as funny, like the painfully square work of Paul Rodriguez.
Of course, Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam is the ultimate coon show update of human cesspools, where "cutting edge" has come to mean traveling ever more downward in the sewer.
In essence, Pryor stunned with his timing, his rhythm, his ability to stand alone and fill the stage with three-dimensional characters through his remarkably imaginative gift for an epic sweep of mimicry.
That nuanced mimicry crossed ethnic lines, stretched from young to old, and gave poignancy to the comedian's revelations about the hurts and the terrors of life.
The idea of "laughing to keep from crying" was central to his work and has been diligently avoided by those who claim to owe so much to him.
As he revealed in his last performance films, Pryor understood the prison he had built for himself and the shallow definitions that smothered his audience's understanding of the humanity behind his work.
But, as they say, once the barn door has been opened, you cannot get all of the animals to return by whistling. So we need to understand the terrible mistakes this man of comic genius made and never settle for a standard that is less than what he did at his very best, which was as good as it has ever gotten.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3129
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 01:29 am: |
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As evidenced by my post on this subject, I am pretty much aligned with what Crouch has to say on this subject. And, like him, I am especially mystified at the way white America is now deifying Richard Pryor. They are doing the same thing with Muhammad Ali who in the prime of his career was demonized as being a draft dodger an egomaniac, and anti-semetic, even as he compared his black opponents to gorillas and monkeys and showed a definite preference for light-skinned woman. Now suddenly he has become a hero in the eyes of white America. Ironic. |
Emanuel
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 129
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 12:39 pm: |
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I disagree with Mr. Crouch.
First of all, I think his article is untimely, cowardly and tacky. To write negatively about a cherished icon like Richard Pryor is disrespectful to his family and friends who are still mourning his death. Did he ever address the comedian before his death instead of waiting until he was unable to defend himself?
Secondly, to tie the acceptance of his use of questionable language to gansta hip hop is a bit of a stretch. While Pryor’s routine often used the word “nigger,” he never promoted violence and was concerned about how the races would get along better.
Finally, I’d like to say that not everyone subscribes to what Mr. Crouch considers morally corrupt behavior. It’s amazing how we get so upset over the usage of words. What is that based on anyway? What about those who do not believe in the same values? Does Mr. Crouch believe everyone subscribes to his belief system?
I was personally saddened by the news of Mr. Pryor’s death. His brand of comedy made me laugh for hours at a time and made me think about racial issues in America. Though he may have used some questionable language in his routine, he should be applauded for making us think, and above all, making us laugh out loud.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3135
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 02:48 pm: |
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I find all of the opposition to criticism of Richard Pryor to be grounded in emotionalism. No one wants to see their hero exposed with warts and all. Pryor was a tortured person who turned to humor to assuage his pain. His sordid lifestyle was anything but inspiring and he did introduce the word "nigga" to a snickering white America. He was also in the vangard of black males calling females bitches and hos. But nobody is perfect or is anybody obligated to be so. Pryor was was a comic genius. Nuff said. Does he belong on a pedestal? Not in my book. |
Steve_s
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 209
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 03:58 pm: |
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Stanley Crouch a coward? I don't think so. He had the balls to call out Philip Roth, one of America's greatest novelists and his friend as well, over what he perceived as Mr. Roth's "historical sin," as I believe Mr. Crouch put it in his contrarian review of Roth's highly-regarded novel, "The Plot Against America." That's not cowardice, my friend, because I'm sure he values highly and even cherishes any relationship he might have with Mr. Roth, which might have been placed in jeopardy over that.
http://www.vqronline.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/8317
I just want to comment that I think the Muhammad Ali analogy is a bad one. Who could believe that the same "white American" baby boomers who now supposedly view Ali as "heroic," once, as hippies during the summer of luuuv in '67, "demonized" him for dodging the draft? I don't think so (but I do love you). |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3138
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 04:19 pm: |
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Well, Steve, remember the hippies were considered the counter culture. There were the preppies who were in the mainstream, kids who are also still around to make-up today's aging baby boomer generation. The preppies may not have condemned draft dodgers but they steered clear of the blue-eyed-devil-hating Black Muslims that Ali embraced. Also I have heard a lot of rumbling over how Ali's image has been sanitized over the years. I'm not complaining but I do find it curious. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 792
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 06:56 pm: |
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I think in both Ali's and Pryor's case, at least part of the public reaction has to do with most people's discomfort with disability and serious disease. Same with the sanitation--even among his foes--of Reagan in his later years. It is unseemly to some to kick someone when they are already down. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3139
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 07:12 pm: |
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That makes perfectly good sense, Yvette. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 793
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 07:33 pm: |
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Yes, Cynique. And Mr. C. should watch the stones he throws considering his own disability: Being born with a vagina on his face... |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3141
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 08:32 pm: |
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ROTFLMAO. I still like ol Stanley because he's a risk taker and a free thinker. And just when you think you've got him pegged, he comes out of another bag. More and more I've started to appreciate people who take unpopular stands because I've had it with political correctness. |
Soul_sister
Regular Poster
Username: Soul_sister
Post Number: 42
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 11:26 am: |
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Hey All,
What a thread - I too have to agree with Crouch and now will have to go back and finish -- his newess work artificle (sp) white man -- anywho - I have to agree with cynique and believe that there are human foibles and yes, all of our heroes have them from Malcolm to King to Douglass to Pryor. And like them all they in the finite space of their humanity were given divine rights to turn their situations around.
The question no longer becomes - what of Pryor's legacy and how will he be remembered - he will not feel the pain of the stinging words or bask in the accolades -- its our time now - to make an impresssion and take a stand -- be it good bad or ugly and Crouch is doing just that taking a stand -- and throwin' it down - -peace
ps -- I too am sick of the p/c thing - that is a trick bag that lets crap become art and neo-facist right wingers - patriots |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1060
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 06:40 pm: |
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I don't see Crouch's comments as incorrect...I, however, think the time is problematic. I believe in some respect for the dead.
Crouch's characterizations "vulgarity" and that "the idea a "real" black person was a foul-mouthed type was his greatest influence," may be correct, at least as it regards popular culture.
To call it vulgar is to admit to and accept bourgeois standards...this is not unusual. Most of us practice this...it is what we call class, regardless of one's economic station.
Otherwise, he is talkin less about the man, and more about how he has been interpreted...and that is the difficult part about this notion we call "influence," for you don't have control of that...I can appreciate, on the other hand, Pryor's humanity...to describe and find humor in poverty and in the informal economy is the type of embrace of life that many of us can not appreciate. Does this mean that prostitution, drug abuse, etc....is right? Hell no, but to elevate oneself as if they are perfect and better than others is problematic...this is what Cosby has done. Also, I think there is something to NOT feeling the need to fit a bourgeois mold. This, I believe, is to embrace, as Crouch says, a three dimensionality and humanity in a basic way...to me, as I see it, Cosby's attempt to reconstruct the image of black people is reactionary, since it desires whites to view blacks in another closed stereotype...the "bourgeois negro."
This too is problematic...if whites can be drug dealers and pimps and the job is not attached to their race, then why can black people include the range of humanity...this is why Pryor is special! |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 988
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 06:51 pm: |
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I would ask all human beings...to stop what they're doing and PLEASE care about this man's plight:
http://www.thumperscorner.com/discus/messages/2152/8616.html?1134690058
This deserves our attention.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3150
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 06:57 pm: |
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What you say is true Yukio, but I still snag on the disrespect Pryor showed women. He did set the low standard in that area for all the black male comics who came after him. And his abuse carried over into his personal life. Like I said nobody is perfect, but there are some area where he shouldn't be let off the hook. BTW, he also wasn't a very good father to all of the kids he fathered. |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1062
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 08:59 pm: |
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Well, I was commenting on his comedy, not his personal life. My point was that his comedy represented the range of people's lives. In this sense, he embraced humanity and he was a rebel, because he neither apologized for his upbringing nor others. In other words, just because Cosby and others recreated black life that contradicted stereotypes, their behavior, as I believe he would have argued, made them no more better or worse...this is the humanity, the three dimensionality that we embrace in fiction but not real life...how ironic!
Finally, your characterization of him "setting the low standard," as the phrase suggests is predicated, whether we like it or not, on a faux construction of reality, which normalizes what they used to call "respectability."
To simplify, since this is your preference, I am calling your remark, as respectful as I can, bourgeoie (though, I dare say, is too my prose....lmao!). |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3151
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 10:46 pm: |
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Well, Yukio, you attacked Cosby's character with thinly-diguised contempt, so as a woman I consider Richard and his mysogynistic tendencies fair game. It is actually hard to separate Richard from his comedy. Your resentment toward Cosby's bourgeois credentials doesn't exactly make your opinion of him objective. heh-heh. |
Snakegirl
Veteran Poster
Username: Snakegirl
Post Number: 51
Registered: 05-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 11:18 pm: |
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Richard Pryor was a genius and was one of the most gifted and important comics of the 20th century...only Charlie Chaplin, Lenny Bruce, Mae West, Marie Dressler and Jerry Lewis (and maybe Bob Hope) can compare to the LANDMARK precedent that Pryor set in comedy.
(I liked Buster Keaton myself, but hey.)
No black comedian is his peer. Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock are prototypes; Bill Cosby is a prototype of Bob Newhart and Johnny Carson. Nipsey Russell was UNIQUE, but he didn't achieve the status that Pryor did. Dick Gregory (my sweet friend) was another unique one--but he also failed to make enough of a dent.
I think John Legieuzamo could have been a genius, but he got cold.
Eddie Rochester was a hybrid of White Men's creations going back to what Bert Williams achieved, none of which was "pure". PRYOR was purely created by black rage/black power.
In Richard Pryor's autobiography, he writes that one of the loves of his life was a beautiful black "transvestite"....and that he had a very long, loving relationship with...that person.
I don't know how much real-er or courageous one can get than to write openly about something like that.
I, for one, was shocked, because there is NO REASON he would have to reveal something like that (and in so much detail).
It shows immense character and integrity.
And later in life....even as an assholey bastard, he owned up to it, and I just LOVE IT.
Sad, though, that he went his whole life claiming that his mother was Puerto Rican, when she was BLACK. And now that the singer PRINCE's "black" mother has come forward (she looks like a big yellow version of OPRAH)---I detest him for claiming his mother was white all those years.
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1065
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 11:43 pm: |
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No contempt. Just disgreement...and objective? Huh! There's no such thing, my dear! |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3154
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 16, 2005 - 09:21 am: |
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I don't recall in reading Prince's biography that he claimed his mother was white. That was only the case in the movie "Purple Rain." And Eddie "Rochester" Anderson who was Jack Benny's sidekick was not really comparable to Bert Williams. In fact, Jack Benny was always the foil and straight man to Rochester's subtle insinuations.
Yes, Richard Pryor was as genius, but like many genuises he was totally dysfunctional.
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Schakspir
First Time Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 1
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 17, 2005 - 12:03 am: |
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"In Richard Pryor's autobiography, he writes that one of the loves of his life was a beautiful black "transvestite"....and that he had a very long, loving relationship with...that person."
Actually, that very long, loving relationship lasted about a couple weeks.
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1072
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 17, 2005 - 04:02 am: |
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Schakspir:
Whats does this information have to do with his legacy? |
Schakspir
Newbie Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 2
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 17, 2005 - 03:30 pm: |
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A better question should be, what does his supposed long-term relationship with a transsexual have to do with his legacy?
Better yet, who cares? |
Snakegirl
Veteran Poster
Username: Snakegirl
Post Number: 52
Registered: 05-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 17, 2005 - 03:56 pm: |
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You both obviously didn't read my post.
And in fact, you took it out of context.
I found it COURAGEOUS of Pryor to publicly talk about something that 0.1% of the other men in this society could never have the balls to own up to---despite the fact (as Richard says) that so many of them are getting blow jobs and hit 'n run "boy pussy" from these ___________ (?).
It also spoke volumes about his character and integrity to "humanize" this IT, this thing as far as society is concerned...when none of us would have ever found out or known his secret. He himself revealed and explored it.
It's not what people do in the light, but what they do in the dark that truly tells us who they are.
He was a brave man who felt unloved and was desperate for acceptance.
The TRANSVESTITE episode...explains his comedy, to me.
And as a black woman artist--it made Pryor into a whole deeper entity to my mind. I found it impossible to "dislike" him after I read the vigorous honesty in that autobiography. I could feel his desperation to find acceptance.
I tried to do the same with my own memoirs. To be raw and imperfect and unattractive.
Don't you two see the significance now?
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Deebaby
Veteran Poster
Username: Deebaby
Post Number: 60
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 06, 2006 - 06:25 am: |
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Stanley Crouch is a disrespectufl fool
Richard Pryor is a comic genius who made me laugh my ass off (and everybody else I know).
Bill Cosby used to be funny, a long time ago when he used to tell jokes. Once he started perceiving himself as a scholar, he just became a big, ugly, doofy, retarded looking muh fucker who talks slow and long and don't be saying shit.
Plus, any negro who publicly refers to Black children as dirty laundry and makes fun of their names (amongst other things) gets my boonky to kiss.
And one more thing,
Chris Rock is the greatest and funniest and most adorable comedian alive.
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