Stand-up Comedy
After civil rights and voting rights legislation was passed in 1964 and 1965, the move of blacks into full political participation began. Portrayals of blacks as president began to appear in comedians' routines. In the early years of his career in the 1960s, comedian Bill Cosby frequently told jokes along racial lines, including one about an imaginary first black president. He stopped when he decided to reach a wider audience.
In 1983 at age 22, Eddie Murphy (who was born the same year as Obama) enacted a parody of a black president in one of his stand-up routines, Eddie Murphy Delirious, filmed in Washington, D.C..
Read more about this topic: Black President In Popular Culture (United States)
Famous quotes containing the word comedy:
“It is comedy which typifies, where it is tragedy which individualizes; where tragedy observes the nice distinctions between man and man, comedy stresses those broad resemblances which make it difficult to tell people apart.”
—Harry Levin (b. 1912)