Orientation
As you face this QR code, there is a side gallery on your left. In this room, a 10-minute video program titled What’s So Funny? is playing.
The door is immediately on your left, at a 90-degree angle to the wall you’re facing now. The handle is on the left side, and the door opens either way, in or outward. There are several low, moveable stools on the floor, so be careful going in, just in case one has been left in your path.
As you enter the room, you’ll be facing the front wall; the video program is projected here and on the walls to your left and right—projected images fill the walls from side to side and floor to ceiling. Shifting a couple of feet to your left will take you out of the doorway to roughly the center of the back wall.
The video program combines clips from movies, cartoons, and television to demonstrate how entertainment has long depicted non-white people in ways that reduce them to caricatures and stereotypes. It pulls provocative examples from stand-up comedy, sketch comedy, and sitcoms to explore how comedians of color have used humor to call out and push back against these stereotypes—these thoughtless slights, these profound hurts of history—and restore the fullness of their humanity.
At certain points during the program, cases embedded in the front and left walls light up to highlight objects within.
The program runs in a continuous loop, so you’ll likely be entering while it’s already in progress.
Visual Description
At the start of the program, all the walls are black. The sounds of an audience applauding, cheering, and whistling fill the room.
Text appears low on the right wall: This program remixes historical moments from movies, cartoons, and television with comedians’ social commentary to invite the question, What’s So Funny?
A scene from The Wizard of Oz, 1939, stretches across all three walls. In a sepia-toned Kansas, Judy Garland, as Dorothy, leans against a haystack, looks skyward, and, in close-up, sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
Raucous singing interrupts as a black and white clip of Judy Garland as Crazy Eyes from Everybody Sing, 1938, appears first on the left wall, then on the front and right walls. Garland, dressed in a gingham dress, wears blackface makeup with her hair in rag-tied twists. White grease paint around her mouth exaggerates her lips as she dances and sings a minstrel song.
All three walls go black and a case in the front wall holding Mr. Tambo, a tall minstrel show marionette, lights up. A man sings: “Oh, I had a dream the other night.”
Text in large letters appears near the top of the front wall: Entertainment has long traded in racist, dehumanizing stereotypes.
On both side walls, the singer appears: Al Jolson, a white man in blackface in a number from Swanee River, released in Technicolor in 1939. He wears a shiny gold coat, white gloves, and an oversized red bowtie with white polka dots.
As the side walls transition to show three banjo players in blackface from Swanee River, the lighted case goes dark. All three walls shift to scenes from the black-and-white movie Dragon Seed, 1944. Walter Huston and Katharine Hepburn, both white, are cast as Chinese characters. His makeup includes a stereotypical goatee and long, thin mustache; hers alters the shape of her eyes.
As music—“Turning Japanese”—plays, scenes from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961, show Mickey Rooney, a white man, portraying a Japanese character as someone who squints, wears round glasses, and has protruding teeth. Silent scenes from animated black-and-white cartoons play as the music continues: dogs with long braided queues iron laundry, and a bespectacled Japanese chef has exaggerated features and brandishes a knife.
On both side walls, a cartoon rooster (Panchito Pistoles) sings “We’re three happy chappies” as he dances with Donald Duck and a parrot (José Carioca), in an animated sequence from The Three Caballeros, 1945. All three are wearing big sombreros and serapes. Clips from black and white films play on the front wall showing men with mustaches wearing big hats.
As brass fanfare and drumbeats play, Navajo actors portraying Comanche warriors gallop on horseback past red stone mesas across all three walls in a scene from the Technicolor feature film, The Searchers, 1956. White actor Harry Brandon appears in redface makeup and a feathered headdress on the front wall.
On the side walls, a cartoon warrior has menacing, bear-like fangs and Popeye spars with a chief wearing feathers.
On the front wall, Neverland’s Indigenous people dance and play drums in a scene from the animated feature Peter Pan that mixes teepees and totem poles. On the left, Indigenous warriors menace a captive white couple. On the right, in a “Keep America Beautiful” television ad from 1970 titled “The Crying Indian,” a white man throws trash from a moving car. It lands on the side of the road at the feet of a white actor in redface, and a closeup shows a single tear trailing down his cheek.
Drumbeats intensify as a montage of stereotypical images of people of color gradually fills both side walls, the front wall shows a white actress whooping in a dance number from On the Town, 1945, that blends stereotypical African and Pacific Islander tropes.
With a metallic clang, all three walls go black.
As a laugh track plays, text appears high on the front wall: But some comedians used their craft to push back against these stereotypes.
Nick Yemana, 1977. While the walls are still black, the plucked strings of a bass instrument resonate. A case in the left wall lights up, revealing props used by the Japanese American actor in the role of detective Jack Soo on television’s Barney Miller. The objects displayed are his shield-shaped police badge, a coffee cup with his name, and the nameplate from his desk.
In a scene from the sitcom that is repeated on all three walls, a middle-aged white man—a fellow detective, Arthur Dietrich—speaks to Jack and thoughtlessly assumes he was born in Japan, eliciting a deadpan reply.
A laughing crowd applauds on the side walls, as text appears low on the right: Entertainment has long traded in dehumanizing stereotypes, but some comedians have used their craft to push back.
Wanda Sykes, 2019. On the front wall, the Black comedian declares, “You need a Black friend” at the start of a sarcastic comedy routine. Animated cartoons play on the side walls—a cannibal with a bone in his nose on the left and on the right, a Black woman adding onions to a large cooking pot that holds a man with dog-like features in a suit and straw boater hat.
In a transition, a cartoon of Bugs Bunny as a blue-uniformed U.S. soldier during the Indian Wars is repeated on all three walls. He fires over the pointed stockade of a frontier fort while counting “one little, two little….” The front and right walls transition to Indigenous stand-up comedian Charlie Hill (Oneida) on the stage, counting white members of his audience.
Text appears low on the right wall: This program remixes historical moments from movies, cartoons, and television with comedians’ social commentary to invite the question, What’s So Funny?
Felipe Esparza, 2017. The Mexican American comedian in a blue ruffled shirt begins: “I was watching the news.” He jokes about people wanting to stop immigration from Mexico while on the side walls, footage from a Hollywood movie, Born in East L.A., shows a rush of migrants racing toward border control officers.
James Baskett, a Black actor, appears on the front wall. Inserted into a cartoon world in Song of the South, 1946, he sings “Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah” as he strolls along a lane lined with pink magnolias. Images of African American people picking cotton play on the left wall, while on the right, scenes from Gone with the Wind show hoop-skirted white women.
Text appears low on the right wall: Entertainment has long traded in racist, dehumanizing stereotypes.
Hollywood Shuffle, 1987. Actor Robert Townsend says “And cut” at the start of a satirical comedy sequence in which he plays Robert Taylor promoting a “Black Acting School” which teaches Black actors how to talk and walk to conform to racist stereotypes. The walls fill with clips from films showing racist tropes; these transition to a clip of a white actor in blackface dancing in a minstrel show revue and singing the song “Jump Jim Crow.”
Richard Pryor, 1965. The side walls fade to black, and on the front wall, the stand-up comic parodies the racist image of a submissive, dancing Black man. One of the cases on the left wall lights up, revealing Pryor’s comedy album titled, Is It Something I Said?
The front wall transitions to Pryor on the Dick Cavett Show ten years later—in 1975. Seated in front of a velvety curtain, Cavett begins their conversation by asking: “Can white writers write for you?”
Margaret Cho, 2000. The South Korean-born comic is on stage in front of a red curtain, speaking into a wireless microphone: “When I was growing up, I never saw Asian people on television. Oh, except on M*A*S*H.” Clips from the television sitcom show Asian actors in incidental roles, then clips from television’s Kung Fu point to the fact that white actors portrayed Chinese characters.
Text appears low on the right wall: This program remixes historical moments from movies, cartoons, and television with comedians’ social commentary to invite the question, What’s So Funny?
Tess Paras, 2013. To drumbeats and snapping fingers, the Filipina actress sings “You know what girls, this is our lucky day” as she appears with two Black actresses and a white actress in a comedy short, Typecast. Set in the bookcase-lined waiting room of a casting director, the sketch calls out how stereotyping limits the roles available for actors of color.
All three walls go black as drumbeats and snapping continue. A case embedded in the front wall lights up, revealing a pair of tap shoes worn by the African American dancing sensation Jeni LeGon.
Text in large letters appears near the top of the left wall: Stereotypes have denied people of color the chance to express the fullness of their humanity.
On the right wall, LeGon tap dances in a scene from the black and white film Ali Baba Goes to Town, 1937. She is costumed exotically in pheasant feathers and cowrie shells. On the front wall, she appears in the Technicolor movie Somebody Loves Me, 1952. She is dressed as an aproned maid and taps in a white woman’s dressing room.
Text appears on the right wall: Performers of color had to play to expected stereotypes.
Jay Silverheels, 1969. The Mohawk actor appears as Tonto in a clip from the 1950s television show The Lone Ranger. In small rectangles on the side walls, Silverheels—in character as Tonto—appears on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson 12 years after the series ended. They mine for laughs the facts that Tonto hated being a sidekick and has no middle or last name.
Wilmer Valderrama, 2002. In a scene in a high school hallway from That 70s Show, Valderrama plays a Latino foreign exchange student newly arrived at an all-white school. He introduces himself to a white student, who is baffled by his multiple names.
Tien Tran, 2020. The Vietnamese American comic appears first on the front wall, then fills all three. On stage in front of a glittering purple curtain and holding a microphone, she relates the story of a white teacher who mangled the pronunciation of her name in roll call.
Keegan-Michael Key, 2012. A clip from the sketch comedy show Key and Peele, is repeated on all three walls. In the piece, which parodies cultural conventions of pronunciation, the Black comic plays a teacher calling roll in an all-white classroom: “Is there a D-nice?”
Hari Kondabolu, 2010. The Indian American comic appears on all three walls in a clip from a stand-up comedy routine. He stands on stage in front of a blue backdrop and speaks about people who don’t believe he is from Queens and ask, “Where are you really from?”
Joel Kim Booster, 2020. An excerpt from the Korean American comic’s stand-up special appears on the front wall, flanked by shots of a laughing audience. Almost immediately, the clip of him is repeated on all three walls as he talks about people asking, “What kind are you?”
Ian Lara, 2019. The comic stands on a darkened stage with purple up-lights. He begins his routine about people who don’t believe he is Hispanic by saying, “Both my parents are actually immigrants from the Dominican Republic.”
Cristela Alonzo, 2019. The stand-up comic—who begins her bit by saying, “I’m Latino”—speaks about how stereotypes limit what she is comfortable doing. As she describes how a white man she once dated asked her to go apple picking, images of Latino farmworkers harvesting crops play on the side walls.
Charlie Hill, 2009. On the front wall, the Indigenous comedian appears on stage, talking about a white man who once told him to go back where he came from. He jokes about turning the tables by camping in the white man’s backyard. Images on the side walls show teepees set up within sight of the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol.
In a scene from the 1998 film Smoke Signals, Adam Beach and Evan Adams—as Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire—are sitting next to each other on a bus discussing the stereotypical expectations Indigenous peoples face. “You gotta look like a warrior,” Beach says.
At the same time, the side walls show scenes from the 2011 Indigenous sketch-comedy piece, Hunting. Dallas Goldtooth, having promised to show Ryan Red Corn the secrets of the hunt, is racing with Red Corn through the woods; both are shirtless and wearing towels as loincloths. They end up in a fast-food restaurant where they order burgers. The projection on the front wall transitions to an audience of Indigenous women laughing and applauding.
As the laughter and applause continue, the side walls go black. The front wall shows clips of some of the comic artists featured earlier, as if they are taking bows or basking in the applause.
Text in large letters appears near the top of the left wall: There’s more to all of us than a stereotype meant for someone else’s amusement.
The end title appears high on the front wall: What’s so Funny?