The Gift of Laughter

The Gift of Laughter written by Jessie Fauset was a nice change of pace. This piece of writing focused on a different aspect of the African American’s life during the Harlem Renaissance than we have been reading about and discussing in class. While I was reading this essay I found myself wondering how this idea of the African American as a comedy figure emerged. It was no doubt a way for white people to mock African Americans or portray them in a theatrical role without having to take the African American’s feelings, struggles, and thoughts into consideration. In essence, it seems to me that this may have been a way to dehumanize the African American by making him look foolish and incompetent. This essay was not the first time that I have been exposed to the portrayal of African Americans in this manner. I have heard about the minstrel shows before but I had never really understood the significance of them until reading Fauset’s essay.

I found this essay to be very interesting because Fauset highlighted the progression of African American actors and their struggles to overcome the long-standing stereotype of their traditional comedic character. Fauset voiced the African American’s frustration at being categorized into such a frivolous role when the African American’s life has been filled with tragedy and oppressive circumstances. They have so much potential to portray dramatic and substantial roles but unfortunately many of these actors were stifled by stereotypical roles imposed by the white acting community and audiences. Fauset said it best when she stated, “To be by force of circumstances the most dramatic figure in a country; to be possessed of the wells of feeling, of the most spontaneous instinct for effective action and to be shunted no less always into the role of the ridiculous and funny- that is enough to create the quality of bitterness for which we are ever so often rebuked” (165).

I liked that Fauset wrote about the negative side of this early comedic character but she also ended the essay on a positive note. Fauset saw the African American actor as now using comedy as an “emotional salvation” (166). African Americans have taken a once mocking role and turned it into one that provides the African American people with a legitimate form of art and expression giving the African American people a sense of pride and entertainment.