Research Paper On Richard Pryor

606 Words2 Pages

“Painful punchlines of a flawed funny man; Richard Pryor was recognised as a groundbreaking comedian whose profanely personal insights into race relations and modern life made him one of Hollywood's biggest stars.” Richard Pryor: widely known as that foul-mouthed comedian, but too many others he was known as a hilarious comic who attracted large crowds of people from all ethnicities. Richard Pryor was one of the few comedians who influenced/promoted freedom of speech in stand-up comedy by saying things on stage that no one had dared before (Williams para.2). His style of comedy broke down many barriers in American stand-up comedy (Williams para.1). A lot of controversies began to rise over what many people believe was Pryor’s excessive use of the N-word. Pryor thought that is was only right that people spoke their mind. When Richard Pryor would perform on stage, he was always confident and humor- ous when discussing topics such as racism/race relation, drug use, politics, etc.(Richard Pryor, A Comedy Pioneer). His everyday life heavily influenced the jokes he told on …show more content…

The words he used started to become sensitive in the aspects of who were allowed to say the N-word but Mr.Pryor believed that people were allowed to say anything they wanted too. Instead of using the word nigger he uses the slang version, nigga. He considers the original N-word created by white slave owners in the 1800s to be dead. As for the slang version, he used it not assuming it had a racist connotation behind it. In paragraph 6, Juan Williams records a quote from Richard Pryor: “Mr. PRYOR: I think that people should say what they feel. I mean, you know, I don't give a (censored) if it's racism or whatever ism it is. I mean, whatever, man. Just to be yourself is such a nice thing. I like to be accepted.” “He refused to tiptoe around controversy, preferring to dive head first into the previously uncharted waters of racial commentary”(Collier

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