Product details:
| ISBN13: | 9781978838147 |
| ISBN10: | 197883814X |
| Binding: | Hardback |
| No. of pages: | 248 pages |
| Size: | 235x156 mm |
| Weight: | 454 g |
| Language: | English |
| Illustrations: | 30 B-W images |
| 700 |
Category:
The Black Pack
Comedy, Race, and Resistance
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Date of Publication: 17 June 2025
Number of Volumes: Hardback with laminated cover
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Short description:
This book tells the story of how five comedic pioneers—Eddie Murphy, Paul Mooney, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Robert Townsend, and Arsenio Hall—joined forces to revolutionize American popular culture. Known as Hollywood’s “Black Pack,” they shattered Hollywood norms, using sharp social satire to boldly critique America’s persistent racial inequalities.
Long description:
The Black Pack: Comedy, Race & Resistance is the first book to chronicle the untold history behind the iconic collaborations between a legendary group of comedians—Eddie Murphy, Paul Mooney, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Robert Townsend, and Arsenio Hall—who joined forces as the “Black Pack” in the late 1980s to create a series of socially-charged comedies that revolutionized popular culture and transformed American comedy.
Working together as writers, directors, producers, actors, and consultants, the Black Pack created some of the most provocative and enduring Black films and television shows of the twentieth century, including classic productions like In Living Color, Coming to America, Hollywood Shuffle, and The Arsenio Hall Show. The Black Pack collective was armed with a signature comedic style which combined politically-Black satire with edgy social humor that entertained millions, shattered box-office records, and slyly critiqued America’s racial condition. Amid escalating social tensions in the 1980s, the Black Pack’s comedic output transformed anger into art, wielding the cloak of humor as a rebellious tool to confront unjust business practices in Hollywood and challenge racial narratives embedded in American culture. Their work empowered unapologetically Black voices and expanded creative possibilities for Black artists in the entertainment industry.
In The Black Pack, Artel Great delivers the most comprehensive analysis of this groundbreaking comedy collective, uncovering how the group’s socially and politically-charged humor defied systemic barriers to achieve unprecedented commercial success and establish a cultural legacy that continues to inspire media creators today and across new generations.
"Through the strong analysis and details of production, financing, social, and cultural contexts, The Black Pack effectively brings together production studies, political economy, and cultural analysis of film and television. Artel Great provides readers an in-depth analysis and explores practices that produced revolutionary laughter, a Black gaze, and Black resistance cinema."
Working together as writers, directors, producers, actors, and consultants, the Black Pack created some of the most provocative and enduring Black films and television shows of the twentieth century, including classic productions like In Living Color, Coming to America, Hollywood Shuffle, and The Arsenio Hall Show. The Black Pack collective was armed with a signature comedic style which combined politically-Black satire with edgy social humor that entertained millions, shattered box-office records, and slyly critiqued America’s racial condition. Amid escalating social tensions in the 1980s, the Black Pack’s comedic output transformed anger into art, wielding the cloak of humor as a rebellious tool to confront unjust business practices in Hollywood and challenge racial narratives embedded in American culture. Their work empowered unapologetically Black voices and expanded creative possibilities for Black artists in the entertainment industry.
In The Black Pack, Artel Great delivers the most comprehensive analysis of this groundbreaking comedy collective, uncovering how the group’s socially and politically-charged humor defied systemic barriers to achieve unprecedented commercial success and establish a cultural legacy that continues to inspire media creators today and across new generations.
"Through the strong analysis and details of production, financing, social, and cultural contexts, The Black Pack effectively brings together production studies, political economy, and cultural analysis of film and television. Artel Great provides readers an in-depth analysis and explores practices that produced revolutionary laughter, a Black gaze, and Black resistance cinema."
Table of Contents:
Contents
Introduction: Black-American Humor and Rituals of Resistance
1 Planet Provocative: Paul Mooney, The Richard Pryor Show & Revolutionary Laughter
2 Black Star Power: The Economics of Eddie Murphy & the Rise of the Black Pack
3 The Mothership: Hollywood Shuffle & the Arrival of Robert Townsend
4 The Hipness Litmus: The Arsenio Hall Show, In Living Color & Black Pack TV
Coda: Black Resistance Humor into the Afro-Future
Acknowledgments
Notes
Appendix
Introduction: Black American Humor and Rituals of Resistance 1
1 Planet Provocative: Paul Mooney, The Richard Pryor Show, and
Revolutionary Laughter 31
2 Black Star Power: The Economics of Eddie Murphy and the
Rise of the Black Pack 69
3 The Mothership: Hollywood Shuffle and the Arrival of Robert
Townsend 109
4 The Hipness Litmus: The Arsenio Hall Show, In Living Color,
and Black Pack TV 145
Coda: Black Resistance Humor into the Afro-Future
183
Appendix: The Complete List of Black Pack Productions 207
Acknowledgments 211
Notes 215
Index 229
Introduction: Black-American Humor and Rituals of Resistance
1 Planet Provocative: Paul Mooney, The Richard Pryor Show & Revolutionary Laughter
2 Black Star Power: The Economics of Eddie Murphy & the Rise of the Black Pack
3 The Mothership: Hollywood Shuffle & the Arrival of Robert Townsend
4 The Hipness Litmus: The Arsenio Hall Show, In Living Color & Black Pack TV
Coda: Black Resistance Humor into the Afro-Future
Acknowledgments
Notes
Appendix
Introduction: Black American Humor and Rituals of Resistance 1
1 Planet Provocative: Paul Mooney, The Richard Pryor Show, and
Revolutionary Laughter 31
2 Black Star Power: The Economics of Eddie Murphy and the
Rise of the Black Pack 69
3 The Mothership: Hollywood Shuffle and the Arrival of Robert
Townsend 109
4 The Hipness Litmus: The Arsenio Hall Show, In Living Color,
and Black Pack TV 145
Coda: Black Resistance Humor into the Afro-Future
183
Appendix: The Complete List of Black Pack Productions 207
Acknowledgments 211
Notes 215
Index 229
