Dave Chappelle’s Sticks and Stones as Black Radical Tragic comedy

This essay argues that Dave Chappelle’s 2019 Netflix comedy special Sticks & Stones is a staging of the Black Radical Tragic in which Chappelle performs without resolving the tension between Black revolutionary leadership and the mass-based concerns necessary for collective mobilization. Chappelle maintains the tragic dialectic through two modes of performance: the inscription of Black men and ethopoeia, or impersonation, reserved for the Others. However, that dialectic fails in key points as Chappelle’s Others, particularly Black women, are simultaneously inscribed and impersonated, revealing the impossibility of inscribing Black men against threats to liberation

Art · Comedy · Dialectic · Impossibility · Inscribed figure · Literature · Political science · Theology · Cinema and Media Studies · Humor Studies and Applications · Law · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies

• The Year’s Work in American Humor Studies, 2022

  Jonathan P Rossing, Jonathan Rossing et al.•Studies in American Humor•2024

  Incluir item

• You dumb cracker b*tch

  Open Access•Aisha Powell, Dana Williams-Johnson•New Media & Society•2023

  Incluir item

• National identity through the prism of satire

  Erfan Fatehi, Juha Herkman et al.•Journal of Baltic Studies•2025

  Incluir item

• Disidentifications

  José Esteban Muñoz•Disidentifications•1999

  Incluir item

• In Search of Soul

  Open Access•Alejandro Nava•In search of soul•2017

  Incluir item

• The Black Radical Tragic

  Jeremy Matthew Glick•Black Radical Tragic•2016

  Incluir item

• The Black Jacobins

  C L R James, Caron James et al.•The Black Jacobins•1938

  Incluir item

• The Racial Mundane

  Ju Yon Kim•The Racial Mundane•2016

  Incluir item

• Repositioning Race

  Sandra L Barne, Zandria F Robinson et al.•Repositioning Race•2014

  Incluir item

• Decolonizing Native American Rhetoric

  Jordan Christiansen•Rhetoric and Public Affairs•2021

  Incluir item

• Epaulettes and leaf skirts, warriors and subversives

  Stephanie Leigh Batiste, Stephanie Batiste•Text and Performance Quarterly•2003

  Incluir item

• This spectacular visible body”

  Michael Bowman, Michael S Bowman et al.•Text and Performance Quarterly•1989

  Incluir item

• The eyes of the storm

  Angela C Pao, Angela Pao•Text and Performance Quarterly•1992

  Incluir item

• Performative neutrality and rape culture in Naomi Iizuka’s Good Kids

  Leland G Spencer•Text and Performance Quarterly•2020

  Incluir item

• Embodied ambivalence

  Naida Zukic•Text and Performance Quarterly•2002

  Incluir item

• Ironic Performativity

  Dustin Bradley Goltz•Text and Performance Quarterly•2015

  Incluir item

• What One Voice Can Do”

  Erin J Rand•Text and Performance Quarterly•2013

  Incluir item

• Teaching Rhetorical Performance in the Humanities

  Heidi Rose•Text and Performance Quarterly•2013

  Incluir item

• The 'Blackness of Blackness

  Henry Louis Gates, Henry Louis Gates Henry Louis Gates•Critical Inquiry•1983

  Incluir item