ABSTRACT
This chapter forges into the messy limitations and potentials of racial critique in comedy as enacted through the white body—a central site of the comic controversy—tracing a range of postures, pitfalls, and possibilities through a handful of contemporary white comedians. The Fusco and Gomez-Pena collaboration is significant because it speaks to the power of the performance as a site of interrogation, self-reflexivity, and accountability for white bodies—the mundane and pervasive way racism is done through the body in daily acts and behaviors. An additional posture, while one perhaps least noticed, is outright avoidance of racial discussion—relegating the topic of race elsewhere beyond the unraced white comedian’s body. Few comedians, who occupy a white body and seek to trouble the meanings of that body, have made more concerted efforts than the continually controversial Sarah Silverman.
