Anyone can tell jokes & share amusing anecdotes. At it’s highest level, comedy isn’t about trying to be funny. It’s not done to generate laughs. It’s about delving into real life. Finding lightness & humility in the mundane & status quo. It tackles controversy, pain & hot buttons topics. It’s a powerful creative’s tool that can bring the darkest, most taboo issues to light in a public forum so that anyone willing to listen may understand, see it anew & even cope with it. funny is just the side effect of the observations made comedic.
That’s also the art of it.
Life is filled with comical moments & situations. Particularly in hindsight or when the situation isn’t our own to have to deal with. What we laugh at is the ridiculousness of those situations. Great comics are the sharpest, most observant people you’ll encounter. The legends combine an uncannily discerning eye & keen sense of awareness with a sharp wit to talk about the truths of our world they witness & experience. The rare air is found when they open up about things that matter. When the deepest pain of others is brought to light.
Paul Mooney was that rare air.
Paul Mooney made (some) people uncomfortable. He talked about the realest shit: What it was like to be Black in America. A topic, you would think, the majority of the American demographic wouldn’t ideally want to be present for. What was scarier was he did it from a place of power. & most unsettling for some, he was completely unapologetic.
& very funny.
I was uncomfortable watching Mr. Mooney the first time I saw his act. At least I thought it was discomfort. At the time, I only ever felt that way watching Richard Pryor (who as it turned out would be Mooney’s greatest creative partner). But later, after seeing performers like Chris Rock & Dave Chappelle, I came to realize it wasn’t discomfort I was feeling. It was exhilaration. Exhilaration at hearing someone speak so frankly, so cleverly, so humorously yet truthfully of things I would never expect to hear out loud from anyone other than my closest circle of Black friends & certainly not on a public platform. This is what Paul Mooney really gave to Blacks in America: the realization that owning & loving ourselves –despite how the world was shaped & treated us –was all that mattered. Paul Mooney was an educator. Not just for Blacks living in our post-colonial world, but also for Whites who may not have completely understood the often subtle or subversive realities of a system meant to oppress others to their own advantage.
Mr. Mooney died last week of a heart attack at age 79. He is missed already. His influence on every comic, the industry & especially African Americans is beyond encapsulation. He will be remembered, modeled & revived in spirit in the works of the other comics, writers & leaders he has helped create though who he was, what he did & how he did it.
I hope to be one of them too.