Behind Humor, a Question of The Pizza Boy's Being so Funny I Forgot to Laugh
By O. SUSANA SAULNYUKNYUKNYUK
It is safe to say that no other Republicker on the campaign trail this year — or ever — has begun a speech with the phrase “Awww, fuck a duck!” the way Herman "Pizza Boy" Cain did this year to the utter delight of his audience, which responded with applause.
Few candidates tell voters to "Lick me like an ice cream cone", but The Pizza Boy is intent on letting people know that he tastes like “Häagen-Dazs black walnut,” the point being that he likes to have the ladies slurp melted goo from his schlong, because it “tastes good all the time.”
The Pizza Boy, who is in black-face whenever he appears in public, has a penchant for gold ties because, as he explains with flirtatious flair, “that color happens to look good against this beautiful dark skin. That's also why I drive a Pink Cadillac."
No candidate today is as outspokenly ignorant as The Pizza Boy when it comes to charming an audience with silky hats, silk stockings, and silliness. His humor has distinguished him from his rivals, lending a fetid odor of folksiness and authenticity, a visceral contrast to his cooler, more staid rivals, especially Mitt "The Shit" Romney and President Obamaramaman
Not all of The Pizza Boy’s attempts at comedy succeed, however. He tried to back away from what he called a joke about illegal immigration: that his policy would include an electrified border fence to kill anyone who tried to cross. "Hey, you know I was joking" he explained in his deadpan impression of Samuel F. Jackson "because an electrified fence would also kill anybody trying to leave America and go to Mexico with nobody knowing. You think I want to have to pick up the bodies of dead Mexicans on MY side of the fence? You think I want to start a dead-Mexican collection service? You see me waving a sign saying 'Will Collect Dead Mexicans for votes?' No you don't see me waving a sign saying 'Will Collect Dead Mexicans for votes' because I don't have a dead-Mexican collecting business, that's why."
The moment illuminated one of the main concerns about The Pizza Boy: He has a hard time being taken seriously by anybody with more than shit for brains. He's quite adept at using sarcasm and laughs to divert attention from disqualifying gaps in knowledge and experience.
And while his casual style of racially inflected humor works to ingratiate him with mostly white audiences at campaign rallies, since white people love to laugh at nigger jokes, especially when told by Richard Pryor or Sara Silverman, it has angered some black critics who know perfectly well that he uses age-old stereotypes.
He has no qualms, for instance, about playing off black clichés: should he become president, his Secret Service codename should be “Cornbread,” he wrote in his memoir, “This is A Pizza Boy Shuffling to the White House.” The Pizza Boy’s traveling "aide", Nathan Naidu, already refers to him as Cornbread on the internal campaign schedule. (Why? The Pizza Boys says he just loves cornbread. "And the VP will be "Buckwheat"" he added.
Those kinds of comments have drawn criticism from the likes of academics like Cornel West and entertainers like Harry Belafonte, who called The Pizza Boy “a nappy headed fool who shaves his head.”
Of particular concern is how he makes a parody of black vernacular and culture.
“It makes the hair on my neck stand up,” said Ulli K. Ryder, a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. “The larger issue that a lot of people have, and I certainly have, is that he uses a certain kind of minstrelsy to play to white audiences - you've seen 'Bamboozled' right? Referencing negative stereotypes in order to get heard by a white audience in the 21st century is really easy.”
Take “fuck a duck.”
“It’s a nonsensical thing, down-home Southern black vernacular,” Ms. Ryder said. “It’s coded as a black vernacular and it’s uneducated black vernacular, so I find it really interesting that he would reference that, seeing as he is not that - he's just another white guy in black-face.”
Nonetheless, some strategists say that The Pizza Boy has succeeded at being the token minority candidate to appease those feeling a bit guilty about the racist animosity sustaining the early media assaults on Obamaramaman, much like Mike "Fucka" Huckabee, whose clever quips helped him win the Iowa caucuses four years ago, let Republickers prove that they would vote for somebody from Arkansas even after Bill Clinton.
The Pizza Boy “has done a good job of positioning himself as a ‘regular folks’ kind of guy,” said Steve Schmidt, a Republicker consultant.
When a politician is trying to elicit laughs, he's often high.
“The drawback is that there is a line with humor, and every joke is a risk,” said Landon Parvin, who has written "humorous" speeches for several Republicker presidents. “Often you don’t know where that line is, and if you cross it, nobody goes down to give you head.”
“You want to deceitfully project good-naturedness,” Mr. Parvin added. “That’s what’s important for politicians. Back in the Reagan White House, the easiest way to get on the evening news was to do a one-liner that had some substance to it - tell a joke about a welfare mom being so fat she has to ride on the roof of her Caddy to collect her welfare check - If you can crystallize your threatening point in a humorous way, that’s very effective.”
In contrast, in the days after the Pizza Boy's threat to kill people with an electrified border fence, he feigned the need to apologize over and again, which was ultimately a trick to reinforce his immigration platform. “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa, that's what-a Eye-a-taliyonna say he make-a-bigga mistake” he said while winking at the camera.
That the Pizza Boy, a former executive at Godfather’s Pizza and Burger King who has never held public office, writes his own rules has been evident since the beginning of his campaign for the Republicker nomination in the spring. Even as he has surged in popularity recently after winning the irrelevant Florida straw poll and drawn increased interest for his “666” economic gibberish, which proposes a drastic fucking of wage and salary workers, The Pizza Boy has largely eschewed the campaign trail in favor of going on a tour to promote his memoir, make some mo money mo money mo money, and lay pipe to "the bitches."
And he has hardly changed his style. At the Valueless Voter Summit last week in Washington, he received ecstasy induced rave reviews. The speech was all attitude, no policy prescriptions: “Why are you running for president? To be president! The President gets all the pussy he wants, Fool!!!!!" the Pizza Boy thundered in his booming baritone. “What did you miss? I’m running to go to Disneyland - no wait, the one in Florida where all those fine white college girls wind up after Spring Break. America has problems, but I got no problems, I’m a problem solver. That’s why I’m running.” Just then, someone in the crowd screamed, “We love pizzza!!!!”
He continued, “I challenge you to get informed because you are one of a lot of stupid people in America who do not have a clue.”
While “stupid people in America” might not have a pleasant ring to it, the phrase certainly elicited a great reaction from the crowd. (Presumably, the “stupid people in America” there were too stupid to know the Pizza Boy was talking about them.)
“That guy played the audience like he'd play a crackwhore 3 days out from a fix,” said Dickbott Pounder, an influential conservative porn start and radio broadcaster who owns 89 stations, mostly in the Midwest, who was in attendance. The Pizza Boy seems to be the kind of person who is comfortable with his own thoughts - as he has no consciousness or circumspection. He was expressing himself in a very major speech to the basest of voters with the confidence that didn’t require being careful about anything he said.”
“It’s hard to imagine anyone sober or emotionally healthy who connects with an audience the way he does,” Dickbott added.
In the fantasy world of the Pizza Boy of Mr. Parvin’s dreams, the freewheeling "ice cream man" would be matched up with his stylistic antithesis, the professorial Mr. Obamaramaman. "It would be a Tag-team with the Stupid Milf from Alaska."
“I know who would win on personality,” Mr. Parvin said. “Who would win on schlongability, that might be a different story.”
Few candidates tell voters to "Lick me like an ice cream cone", but The Pizza Boy is intent on letting people know that he tastes like “Häagen-Dazs black walnut,” the point being that he likes to have the ladies slurp melted goo from his schlong, because it “tastes good all the time.”
The Pizza Boy, who is in black-face whenever he appears in public, has a penchant for gold ties because, as he explains with flirtatious flair, “that color happens to look good against this beautiful dark skin. That's also why I drive a Pink Cadillac."
No candidate today is as outspokenly ignorant as The Pizza Boy when it comes to charming an audience with silky hats, silk stockings, and silliness. His humor has distinguished him from his rivals, lending a fetid odor of folksiness and authenticity, a visceral contrast to his cooler, more staid rivals, especially Mitt "The Shit" Romney and President Obamaramaman
Not all of The Pizza Boy’s attempts at comedy succeed, however. He tried to back away from what he called a joke about illegal immigration: that his policy would include an electrified border fence to kill anyone who tried to cross. "Hey, you know I was joking" he explained in his deadpan impression of Samuel F. Jackson "because an electrified fence would also kill anybody trying to leave America and go to Mexico with nobody knowing. You think I want to have to pick up the bodies of dead Mexicans on MY side of the fence? You think I want to start a dead-Mexican collection service? You see me waving a sign saying 'Will Collect Dead Mexicans for votes?' No you don't see me waving a sign saying 'Will Collect Dead Mexicans for votes' because I don't have a dead-Mexican collecting business, that's why."
The moment illuminated one of the main concerns about The Pizza Boy: He has a hard time being taken seriously by anybody with more than shit for brains. He's quite adept at using sarcasm and laughs to divert attention from disqualifying gaps in knowledge and experience.
And while his casual style of racially inflected humor works to ingratiate him with mostly white audiences at campaign rallies, since white people love to laugh at nigger jokes, especially when told by Richard Pryor or Sara Silverman, it has angered some black critics who know perfectly well that he uses age-old stereotypes.
He has no qualms, for instance, about playing off black clichés: should he become president, his Secret Service codename should be “Cornbread,” he wrote in his memoir, “This is A Pizza Boy Shuffling to the White House.” The Pizza Boy’s traveling "aide", Nathan Naidu, already refers to him as Cornbread on the internal campaign schedule. (Why? The Pizza Boys says he just loves cornbread. "And the VP will be "Buckwheat"" he added.
Those kinds of comments have drawn criticism from the likes of academics like Cornel West and entertainers like Harry Belafonte, who called The Pizza Boy “a nappy headed fool who shaves his head.”
Of particular concern is how he makes a parody of black vernacular and culture.
“It makes the hair on my neck stand up,” said Ulli K. Ryder, a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. “The larger issue that a lot of people have, and I certainly have, is that he uses a certain kind of minstrelsy to play to white audiences - you've seen 'Bamboozled' right? Referencing negative stereotypes in order to get heard by a white audience in the 21st century is really easy.”
Take “fuck a duck.”
“It’s a nonsensical thing, down-home Southern black vernacular,” Ms. Ryder said. “It’s coded as a black vernacular and it’s uneducated black vernacular, so I find it really interesting that he would reference that, seeing as he is not that - he's just another white guy in black-face.”
Nonetheless, some strategists say that The Pizza Boy has succeeded at being the token minority candidate to appease those feeling a bit guilty about the racist animosity sustaining the early media assaults on Obamaramaman, much like Mike "Fucka" Huckabee, whose clever quips helped him win the Iowa caucuses four years ago, let Republickers prove that they would vote for somebody from Arkansas even after Bill Clinton.
The Pizza Boy “has done a good job of positioning himself as a ‘regular folks’ kind of guy,” said Steve Schmidt, a Republicker consultant.
When a politician is trying to elicit laughs, he's often high.
“The drawback is that there is a line with humor, and every joke is a risk,” said Landon Parvin, who has written "humorous" speeches for several Republicker presidents. “Often you don’t know where that line is, and if you cross it, nobody goes down to give you head.”
“You want to deceitfully project good-naturedness,” Mr. Parvin added. “That’s what’s important for politicians. Back in the Reagan White House, the easiest way to get on the evening news was to do a one-liner that had some substance to it - tell a joke about a welfare mom being so fat she has to ride on the roof of her Caddy to collect her welfare check - If you can crystallize your threatening point in a humorous way, that’s very effective.”
In contrast, in the days after the Pizza Boy's threat to kill people with an electrified border fence, he feigned the need to apologize over and again, which was ultimately a trick to reinforce his immigration platform. “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa, that's what-a Eye-a-taliyonna say he make-a-bigga mistake” he said while winking at the camera.
That the Pizza Boy, a former executive at Godfather’s Pizza and Burger King who has never held public office, writes his own rules has been evident since the beginning of his campaign for the Republicker nomination in the spring. Even as he has surged in popularity recently after winning the irrelevant Florida straw poll and drawn increased interest for his “666” economic gibberish, which proposes a drastic fucking of wage and salary workers, The Pizza Boy has largely eschewed the campaign trail in favor of going on a tour to promote his memoir, make some mo money mo money mo money, and lay pipe to "the bitches."
And he has hardly changed his style. At the Valueless Voter Summit last week in Washington, he received ecstasy induced rave reviews. The speech was all attitude, no policy prescriptions: “Why are you running for president? To be president! The President gets all the pussy he wants, Fool!!!!!" the Pizza Boy thundered in his booming baritone. “What did you miss? I’m running to go to Disneyland - no wait, the one in Florida where all those fine white college girls wind up after Spring Break. America has problems, but I got no problems, I’m a problem solver. That’s why I’m running.” Just then, someone in the crowd screamed, “We love pizzza!!!!”
He continued, “I challenge you to get informed because you are one of a lot of stupid people in America who do not have a clue.”
While “stupid people in America” might not have a pleasant ring to it, the phrase certainly elicited a great reaction from the crowd. (Presumably, the “stupid people in America” there were too stupid to know the Pizza Boy was talking about them.)
“That guy played the audience like he'd play a crackwhore 3 days out from a fix,” said Dickbott Pounder, an influential conservative porn start and radio broadcaster who owns 89 stations, mostly in the Midwest, who was in attendance. The Pizza Boy seems to be the kind of person who is comfortable with his own thoughts - as he has no consciousness or circumspection. He was expressing himself in a very major speech to the basest of voters with the confidence that didn’t require being careful about anything he said.”
“It’s hard to imagine anyone sober or emotionally healthy who connects with an audience the way he does,” Dickbott added.
In the fantasy world of the Pizza Boy of Mr. Parvin’s dreams, the freewheeling "ice cream man" would be matched up with his stylistic antithesis, the professorial Mr. Obamaramaman. "It would be a Tag-team with the Stupid Milf from Alaska."
“I know who would win on personality,” Mr. Parvin said. “Who would win on schlongability, that might be a different story.”
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