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https://blackgirlnerds.com/comedian-ziwe-fumudoh-takes-on-racial-identity-in-black-friend-essays/
Comedy’s most iconic voice Ziwe Fumudoh brings together humor, wit, and tenacity in her new book Black Friend Essays. Debuting as the #1 new release in the category of Discrimination and Racism on Amazon, Fumudoh’s Black Friend Essays brings together a compilation of personal essays by the comedic genius herself.
Throughout this book, Fumudoh combines her perspective, pop culture, and commentary with her misunderstandings around Black identity. In Black Friend Essays, Fumudoh lets readers see the social interactions of the average Black woman in today’s society. She takes readers through eye-opening situations she experiences as a Black woman and learning moments she hopes for non-Black individuals to absorb.
The Relatable Black Woman
Throughout her story, Fumudoh paints herself as a relatable young Black woman. The social issues she faces are issues many Black women are no strangers to. With the intent of showing readers the experiences many Black women share, Fumudoh recalls specific racial interactions that occur between her and her peers. She describes instances in which her peers would mispronounce her name or question her ethnicity based on the uniqueness of her name as a Nigerian American.
Although she is used to the mispronunciation of her name, Fumudoh hints that the occurrence does annoy her. Having issues pronouncing her name would often open up secondary conversations about Fumudoh’s cultural identity and heritage. It’s almost as if she’s expected to retell her whole life story with the introduction of her name.
She also recalls her experience of being in a white neighborhood and being in a private school versus a public school. She would often find herself alternating her vernacular based on those around her. These interactions demonstrate what navigating life is like for a young Black woman with an African cultural background.
Fumudoh reflects on experiences in her life in which she became subject to microaggressions and other uncomfortable situations she endured. Fumudoh, like many people of color, feels the need to code-switch or update her speech based on her surroundings to gain respect. It is the way she handles these situations that is truly amazing. Her use of comedy is significant to her story as an individual. She slowly introduces comedy as a coping mechanism.
The Topics of Race and Comedy Combined
With a growing number of books centered on race and the individual experience surrounding racism in America, what makes Fumudoh’s novel distinct?
For one, Fumudoh uses witty banter to capture her readers’ attention and poke fun at the racial complexities in her life. Although she uses humor, she doesn’t appear offensive to her Black audience. Instead, she amuses them. She amuses them by poking fun at racial situations she presumes other Black individuals experience. Her sense of humor is distinct. Fumudoh makes an awkward moment lighthearted. The way she deals with situations involving race is to incorporate light humor. She shows readers that she has a thick skin because she can counteract racism with humor.
This isn’t to be mistaken as saying Fumudoh accepts racism, which she pokes fun at in the introduction of her book. Instead, readers can say with certainty that she understands racism and relies on satire to poke fun at those who don’t. She not only focuses on the Black perspective but also shifts her focus to reference other minorities during her discussions on implicit racism.
If you are reading from the perspective of being Black, reading her book will speak to you. She uses comic relief to downplay high-intensity interactions where her race may be questioned. In doing so, she gets people to listen.
It may be challenging for white people to read a book about the racism Black individuals face; however, her humorous responses to non-Black individuals in her book ease any possibility of racial tension. Ultimately, her book promotes anti-racism because she draws attention to the issues Black individuals regularly face.
What Purpose Do These Interviews Serve?
One plan of action that Fumudoh excels in is her ability to make a name for herself. Her presence in the comedy world is thriving. Her emergence in pop culture began with her asking simple questions to notable stars like actors Alyssa Milano and Chet Hanks. She can get stars to comment on sensitive matters like race.
In her book, Fumudoh is shown interviewing celebrities for her Instagram livestreams. She is an expert in creating questions that fuel debates and getting stars to discuss sensitive subjects they might otherwise avoid altogether. The measures she takes to approach conversations about race are significant. She discusses race with influential figures who have a voice. In doing so, she publicizes Black issues and highlights disparities. Fumudoh is able to get her livestream guests to respond to uneasy questions. She is strategic with her approach in addressing how race affects people of color.
A Must Read
With Black Friend Essays, get ready to challenge your preconceived notions regarding racial relations. Fumudoh is talented with her words and strategic with her comedy.
If you are already familiar with Fumudoh as a comedian, then you know the work she is capable of delivering. She uses the right amount of humor at the right time. Her sense of comic relief turns an awkward situation into a learning experience for many.
Fumudoh may be writing about her life as a Black woman, but her novel is an encouraging read for all who desire to educate themselves on racial perception and what it means to be Black in America. Fumudoh’s book is a must read. Her words, humor, and wit allow readers to reflect on her everyday life as a Black woman. This is a read for anyone willing to learn, take in, and understand the Black experience.
Black Friend Essays is available wherever books are sold.
Comedy’s most iconic voice Ziwe Fumudoh brings together humor, wit, and tenacity in her new book Black Friend Essays. Debuting as the #1 new release in the category of Discrimination and Racism on Amazon, Fumudoh’s Black Friend Essays brings together a compilation of personal essays by the comedic genius herself.
Throughout this book, Fumudoh combines her perspective, pop culture, and commentary with her misunderstandings around Black identity. In Black Friend Essays, Fumudoh lets readers see the social interactions of the average Black woman in today’s society. She takes readers through eye-opening situations she experiences as a Black woman and learning moments she hopes for non-Black individuals to absorb.
The Relatable Black Woman
Throughout her story, Fumudoh paints herself as a relatable young Black woman. The social issues she faces are issues many Black women are no strangers to. With the intent of showing readers the experiences many Black women share, Fumudoh recalls specific racial interactions that occur between her and her peers. She describes instances in which her peers would mispronounce her name or question her ethnicity based on the uniqueness of her name as a Nigerian American.
Although she is used to the mispronunciation of her name, Fumudoh hints that the occurrence does annoy her. Having issues pronouncing her name would often open up secondary conversations about Fumudoh’s cultural identity and heritage. It’s almost as if she’s expected to retell her whole life story with the introduction of her name.
She also recalls her experience of being in a white neighborhood and being in a private school versus a public school. She would often find herself alternating her vernacular based on those around her. These interactions demonstrate what navigating life is like for a young Black woman with an African cultural background.
Fumudoh reflects on experiences in her life in which she became subject to microaggressions and other uncomfortable situations she endured. Fumudoh, like many people of color, feels the need to code-switch or update her speech based on her surroundings to gain respect. It is the way she handles these situations that is truly amazing. Her use of comedy is significant to her story as an individual. She slowly introduces comedy as a coping mechanism.
The Topics of Race and Comedy Combined
With a growing number of books centered on race and the individual experience surrounding racism in America, what makes Fumudoh’s novel distinct?
For one, Fumudoh uses witty banter to capture her readers’ attention and poke fun at the racial complexities in her life. Although she uses humor, she doesn’t appear offensive to her Black audience. Instead, she amuses them. She amuses them by poking fun at racial situations she presumes other Black individuals experience. Her sense of humor is distinct. Fumudoh makes an awkward moment lighthearted. The way she deals with situations involving race is to incorporate light humor. She shows readers that she has a thick skin because she can counteract racism with humor.
This isn’t to be mistaken as saying Fumudoh accepts racism, which she pokes fun at in the introduction of her book. Instead, readers can say with certainty that she understands racism and relies on satire to poke fun at those who don’t. She not only focuses on the Black perspective but also shifts her focus to reference other minorities during her discussions on implicit racism.
If you are reading from the perspective of being Black, reading her book will speak to you. She uses comic relief to downplay high-intensity interactions where her race may be questioned. In doing so, she gets people to listen.
It may be challenging for white people to read a book about the racism Black individuals face; however, her humorous responses to non-Black individuals in her book ease any possibility of racial tension. Ultimately, her book promotes anti-racism because she draws attention to the issues Black individuals regularly face.
What Purpose Do These Interviews Serve?
One plan of action that Fumudoh excels in is her ability to make a name for herself. Her presence in the comedy world is thriving. Her emergence in pop culture began with her asking simple questions to notable stars like actors Alyssa Milano and Chet Hanks. She can get stars to comment on sensitive matters like race.
In her book, Fumudoh is shown interviewing celebrities for her Instagram livestreams. She is an expert in creating questions that fuel debates and getting stars to discuss sensitive subjects they might otherwise avoid altogether. The measures she takes to approach conversations about race are significant. She discusses race with influential figures who have a voice. In doing so, she publicizes Black issues and highlights disparities. Fumudoh is able to get her livestream guests to respond to uneasy questions. She is strategic with her approach in addressing how race affects people of color.
A Must Read
With Black Friend Essays, get ready to challenge your preconceived notions regarding racial relations. Fumudoh is talented with her words and strategic with her comedy.
If you are already familiar with Fumudoh as a comedian, then you know the work she is capable of delivering. She uses the right amount of humor at the right time. Her sense of comic relief turns an awkward situation into a learning experience for many.
Fumudoh may be writing about her life as a Black woman, but her novel is an encouraging read for all who desire to educate themselves on racial perception and what it means to be Black in America. Fumudoh’s book is a must read. Her words, humor, and wit allow readers to reflect on her everyday life as a Black woman. This is a read for anyone willing to learn, take in, and understand the Black experience.
Black Friend Essays is available wherever books are sold.
From Western cartoons to anime to computer animated to claymation. In one form or another, animation has been around for damn near two centuries at this point. It’s given rise to the mouse empire, breathed life into our wildest imaginations, and has touched our hearts in ways live action never could. When we look at the different eras of animation, we can see just how much it has changed and evolved over the years. While Disney tends to be the backbone when separating its history into eras, many different companies and properties contribute to the vast history of the media. You have your high highs in the Golden Age and Renaissance Age, and your low lows like the Dark Age. The medium is always evolving and learning to reinvent itself. And recently, I feel this has kicked into overdrive. So, sit back dear reader as I, Professor G (not a real professor), take you through a brief history of animation.
The Beginnings of Animation
For those unfamiliar, the ages of animation tend to follow the same guidelines as the history of the Earth. Starting from the beginning and changing with major upheavals within the industry. The beginning of the timeline consists of longer ages whereas the more recent ones are shorter with the quicker advancement of technology. There isn’t a universal agreement on all the ages but there’s a general consensus that I’ll use for our history class.
The Early Animation Age which covers pretty much everything before 1907. This gave us the invention of the phénakistoscope, or stroboscopic, (seen above) and film. Leading into the Silent Era from the late 1900s to the late 1920s, we have the popularization of stop motion and the start of hand drawn animation on film and cel animation. We then enter the Golden Era in 1928 with the release of Steamboat Willie. The first and arguably the highest peak of the animation mountain lasted until the 1950s with the rise of Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry and so many more characters that are still going strong to this day. But with high highs comes a huge fall. In the post war era, the changing cost of animation and television becoming a major medium began a shift in the perception of what animation was and who it was for. This was the Dark Age, and it lasted from the late 1950s until the 1980s.
Peaks and Valleys
The Dark Age was led by Hanna-Barbera and the Saturday Morning Cartoon timeslot. Now, this isn’t to say that this era was full of crap with nothing of worth. Far from it, but the money constraints the studios had to deal with, or implemented themselves, meant that corners were cut and animation was CHEAP. And the prevailing attitude that “Cartoons are for kids” rather than for everyone meant narratives were watered downed and repetitive. So not only was the animation cheap but so were the stories. Even Disney, who pretty much rode its Golden Age until the death of Walt Disney, hit a major slump. There were some bright spots like the Rankin Bass stop motion Christmas tales and A Charlie Brown Christmas. And arguably Hanna-Barbera gave us some beloved characters, but times were tough. It wasn’t until the late 80s that we finally entered The Renaissance Age.
The 70s created shows meant to give a vehicle for live action shows and stars to reach more children. The Jackson 5, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, Star Trek, and The New Scooby-Doo Movies which brought in celebrities and live-action characters in cartoon form to, again, reach the kid audience. This gave way to the idea in the 80s that cartoons can just be glorified toy commercials. G.I. Joe, Transformers, Gem and the Holograms, etc. as long as there was some kind of “moral message” at the end they had free reign to peddle their wares to the kids of America. And to be honest, these were some awesome wares. But at the end of the decade there was a shift, and artist began to take back their creativity and saw an eruption of creative freedom.
Disney started to bounce back with their Disney Afternoon shows, and its banger after banger silver screen hits from Aladdin, to Lion King, to The Little Mermaid, and so on. Warner Bros (WB) got freakin’ Steven Spielberg to produce some grade-A cartoons like Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, and Pinky and the Brain. (They’ve all been revived recently but ehhhh….that’s a whole other article right there.) Superhero shows were made with love and respect, and Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network had a stranglehold on many childhoods. And let’s not forget adult animation stepping back into the spotlight and being deeper than just blood and boobs, though there was plenty of blood and boobs. And with the emerging CG technology, Pixar led the way in giving us good computer animated properties. It was just a great time to love animation.
A New Age
Now, here’s where things start to get tricky. The Renaissance Age started in the late 80s, but some say it ended in the late 90s and some say the early 2000s. And there is no real consensus on what the next age is. Some call it The Millennium Age, some call it the CG Age, but I like to call it The New Age. I’d argue it lasted until the early 2010s. This age is a bit of a mixed bag. Television cartoons lost a little bit of that 90s edge, taming down some of the more “grotesque” eccentric art style and adult humor, yet became even better about not talking down to kids. Adult Swim and MTV gave places for new adult-oriented shows, and there was an understanding that teenagers can handle more serious themes and a bit of violence. Even shows for younger kids knew that you didn’t need to talk down to them. Phineas and Ferb is a great example of that. We were also beginning to see strong influences and corporation between Western animation and Japanese anime, like Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Boondocks. Yet some of that 80s corporate cynicism started to creep back in.
Properties were being cancelled because corporate didn’t think it was making them enough money, no matter the actual quality. The first time Young Justice got cancelled off Cartoon Network wasn’t because it was bad and not because viewership was low. It was because no one was buying the cheaply made toys. Oh, and because the main viewership happened to be young girls who “Don’t buy action figures.” … Yup, it’s dumb. The 2011 ThunderCats got cancelled for similar reasons. And the big 3 cartoon channels, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network, began moving away from cartoons and more into live action. Why? Because money. It was cheaper to make live audience sitcoms then it was to produce high-quality cartoons. You know how off putting it was to turn to CARTOON Network and not see ANY cartoons? Same as it was when Music Television (MTV) stopped playing music (Yes, I’m still salty).
Heavy is the Head
As far as the movie industry went, CG took the crown. Disney’s hand drawn animated movies weren’t hitting like they used to while Pixar was dominating with hit after hit after hit. DreamWorks went all in on the CG movies like Shrek, Kung-Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon. And while not thought of in the same vein as traditional animation, photo realistic CG was really coming into play. Gollum from Lord of the Rings, Avatar, that’s still animation. The ever-improving technology and the money pinching attitude really shifted the landscape of animation. And in the 2010s, it felt like there was a consolidation of art styles, ideas, and tones, for better or worse.
The early 2010s to the mid to late 2010s saw a convergence of styles on a few different fronts. This is why I would actually call this The Convergence Age of animation. I also feel this is a better name then what some have proclaimed as The Cal Arts Age. Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, Adventure Time, everyone remembers the explosion of shows with similar art styles and comedy. A surreal weird comedic tone that turned into surprisingly deep narratives once they found their footing. This style was spreading like wildfire with some of the creators graduating together and working on each other’s shows. But this wasn’t the only style inspiring new properties.
On the more adult oriented side, Bob’s Burgers cultivated a big fanbase (even with its contemporaries taking shots at “how bad and lazy” the show was) and birthed a few shows in its own particular style. For movies, DreamWorks hadn’t really deviated from too much from its own style, and Disney, now fully moved from traditional animation to CG, solidified the new Disney style that was very similar to Pixar. Yes, Pixar is owned by Disney but for the longest there was a clear difference. You always knew which was which and in the middle of the 2010s people would actually confuse one for the other at times. I would hardly call this era bad by any means, it was just that once we discovered what worked we just stuck with it. Mainly because audiences loved it.
There were loud dissenting voices online cursing “Why does everything all of a sudden looked the same!?” But loud does not equal many. And the fans of the shows were many, and they LOVED them. It wasn’t until a certain superhero broke through the monotony and swung us into a new dimension of animation. I’m talking Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse, and it was the herald of the new era we are currently experiencing. A time of 2D and 3D cohesion, one that I have dubbed: The New Renaissance Age.
A New Trend Setter
Like all time periods, there’s a bit of leeway in terms of the start of it. The New Renaissance Age began in 2018 with Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse wall crawling its way into theaters, spider climbed its way into the hearts of audiences world-wide, and stuck to the ceiling of the box office (ok, no more spider-puns). People were blown away by this new art style that blended CGI with hand drawn overlays and different rendering techniques. What we got was a masterclass in animation, so much so that other companies both emulated the style and put their own spin on it. The Mitchells vs. the Machines, The Bad Guys, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and most recently Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem added upon and elevated the style so that they are very different looking films. Into the Spider-Verse was like a comic book coming to life while Mutant Mayhem almost looked like claymation. And not to rest on their laurels, the sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, got to experiment with even more styles: from an actual Ben Day dots style to a watercolor art style that changed with the moods of the characters.
But one style can’t carry an age alone. Luckily, more companies were willing to allow creatives to try new things. Preceding my given timeline a bit, Blue Sky’s The Peanuts Movie found a way to translate the tradition Peanuts style faithfully and lovingly into 3D. Apple TV’s Wolfwalkers looking more like an unfinished hand drawn style that lent itself to the story and worked surprisingly well. On your television side, we were gifted with Harley Quinn, Arcane, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Stacked side by side, these shows have wildly differentiating art styles and tones. Rise of the TMNT at face value has a somewhat overly comedic presentation, which makes sense since it leaned more into comedy in this iteration. Yet when the action kicked off, it amped up into over the-top bombastic fluid fight scenes on par with some of the best anime fights out there. And I know this article has focused mainly on western animation, but anime is most definitely a part of The New Renaissance. With studios like MAPPA and Ufotable to name a few, we have been spoiled with luscious scenery, food drawn so beautifully you want to reach through the screen and take a bite, and of course, mind shattering fight scenes. And with it easier than ever to watch anime now, if you aren’t diving into this medium, you’re missing out.
Lesson Over
Animation has such a rich history. From its humble beginnings, no one could have imagined the juggernaut it has grown into. And it’s still going strong. Technology and storytelling continue to develop at an incredible rate. What will come next? Will AI become a major player for better or worse? Can new techniques of drawing and CG change the medium even further? No one can say, but understanding where we have come from can help us launch into a brighter future. In this New Renaissance Age, we are spoiled. So eat up while the food is hot!
I hope you enjoyed this trip through history with Professor G. Class dismissed.
Cover image via CareerAddict
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The post You Gon Learn Today: A Brief History of Animation appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.