Why Does Elon Gold Use Mock Language

Elon Gold

Elon Gold is a white, American comedian, he has a comedy special called, Chosen & Taken, in which, he, like many other comedians has a few jokes that he tells in his act, of which are solely based on different accents and or dialects of English as well as a few other languages. Mock language is best described by the definition of mock “to laugh at or make fun of (someone or something) especially by copying an action or a way of behaving or speaking”(Mock). Mock language is the combination of mocking someone specifically in the act of using their language or dialect as an example. Throughout this paper I will be analyzing how comedians (examples by Elon Gold) use Mock Languages in acts and why we find this funny, and not as offensive

as in day to day life. Throughout Golds Special he performs three jokes that I will be specifically focusing on: Accents, Big Black Woman, and Languages. We will be using excerpts obtained by YouTube clips of these three specific acts of his special. In which he portrays, or better yet, parodies accents of French, Dialects of English such as, New York, British, Russian, Israeli, and African American vernacular English. In a later act he goes on to parody full languages such as the Japanese, Russian, and French, in a very stereotypical and rhetorical fashion. Now we shall dive into why this style of Mock languages has become such a common, widely used tool in a comedian’s so called comic arsenal and how it got there.
Many people, of all races, religions, and heritages, are sensitive about their accent or language, so how has it become so acceptable for comedians to use a sensitive subject, such as someone’s accent or dialect of English in standard run of the mill jokes? Even getting people of these cultures, possibly even with the very accents or languages they are joking about, to laugh. The answer to these questions is simply put as, stereotypes. More specifically, commonly known stereotypes, in Lippi-Green’s book, English with an accent, it states “We are uncomfortable with Asians unless they correspond to the stereotypes we have created for them” (Pg. 287, 2012). Comics know this, they make a living on playing on our emotions, and they know that the more relatable and generic they can make something, the more an audience will improve of this, thus making them more money. In Elon Gold’s special, Chosen & Taken, he does a very stereotypical and too many could be offensive parody of the Japanese language we will look at this in excerpt one.
Excerpt 1
1 E: (Talking to crowd) Japanese?... They say Japanese is uh, yah know, it’s a nice language. Is it? I don’t know, whenever I walk into a sushi restaurant they just start yelling at me!
2 E: (Parodying Japanese Language) ARIGOTO, SHIANSE, SUDON, URUEAHEY HETHAHE
3 E: (Talking to crowd) That’s not a nice language. That’s the noise my blender makes, when I put something in it that I shouldn’t of.
4 E: (Imitating a blender) SHUDONG, SHUZING, DDADAING, SITIAAA
5 E: (Talking to the crowd) Oh, I left my spoon in there. That’s the problem. I knew there was something weird.

Now this statement that would normally be very offensive if said in conversation or in the office more than likely did not offend anyone, or possibly did but they will more than likely not say anything. This is due to stereotypes that everyone has acquired over the years. This use of a very stereo typical and overly exaggerated Japanese speech used has social significance. I cannot count the amount of times that as I grew up I heard the phrase “Ching chong, bing bong”. Whether it was from a friend or from a television or radio show, we have, as Lippi-Green said, stereotypes for Asians. Elon Gold is just playing on the fact that in a large non-personal setting/group we can laugh at these stereotypes that we have all have come to know.
While mock languages has few uses in day to day life, in a comedic sense it is used commonly, mostly to appeal to the basic stereotypes that we have brought into existence ourselves. The use of these portrayals or parodies of different dialects or languages is for the comedian to break down and basically show us what everyone already believes, just does not act or say anything on. Such as a common British accent and how we inadvertently relate this to a sociolinguistic overt prestige for intellectual capital. Overall Elon Gold is just a speaking physical representation of what most people believe as standard stereotypes. Having a personality, charisma, and charm, allow him to say these things for which we may obtain comical relief from.
The next two topics I discuss from Elon’s work both go over mock languages as well but for the acts he has portrayed I believe it would be more proper to call it “Mock Dialects”. So thus forward that is how it shall be referred to as.
While Elon has many skits of mocking just full languages, he also relies heavily on mocking accents, the accents that a foreigner might have while maybe already knowing the English language or by chance learning it. One example of this is where Elon parodies himself speaking the English language with a British dialect.
Excerpt 2
1E: (talking to crowd) It’s exact opposite of the English accent, [speaking previously about New York accents] where everything sounds correct. Right? See that’s the probl in America we mistake accent with intellect, we think they’re all smart.
2E: (imitating British dialect) Because no matta what theyre talking about. They sound quite intelligent, righ? It doesn’t matta, they coud talk about anything. Be like. My Balls are quite itchy.
3E: (to crowd in typical American accent) And we’d be like. That dude, is smartt,,, Okay?
4E: (to crowd in normal voice) But theyre not all smart! They just sound smart! They look dumb. with the crooked teeth, and wacky hair.,,,,, Oh yeah, you go to England and some of those English men have that elephant man look about them, like.
5E: (Imitating Slurred British dialect while making strange face) I know I look a bit frightning. But,,, at least I SOUND INTELLEGENT, Righhttt.

Now here Elon is using a very common opinion in American society.

Firstly he plays on the use of sociolinguistic capital. He states that due to the British accent that we unknowingly give people with this accent more intellectual capital than we would to others, for example before this skit he talked about New Yorkers dialect and how this made everything they said more ridiculous. Without knowing these people we assign them different intelligent levels, different amounts of capital that we do not know if they have or not, and most everyone does this. Although it happens almost unknowingly we judge these people, and most of this has to do with what we absorb through media and family as children. As Lippi-Green states on page 104 of her novel English with an Accent “Children are not passive vessels who sit in front of the television and let stories float by them. What they take in is processed and added to the store of data on how things –and people- are categorized”. Here she goes into discussion about Disney’s use of foreign accents, mainly for use in voices of bad guys in their animated films. Arguably the British accent has also gained sociolinguistic capital from many years of being the stereotypical “Sly, cunning, and brilliant” James

Bond.
Intentionally Elon uses this commonly accepted belief of British accented speakers having a higher intelligence, to have us make fun and laugh at ourselves. Elon portrays himself as a British accented speaker using Mock dialect. He does this to play on the fact that most people at least would be able to see that just because someone speaks differently does not mean that they are innately better than someone else. As Lippi-Green says on page 8 “All spoken languages are equally capable of conveying a full range of ideas and experiences, and of developing to meet new needs as they arrive.” Basically she says that all languages are equal. No one language is superior to another because they all work perfectly well in their own context. As for Elon getting past people who do believe that some languages are superior to others, he even goes on further in his joke to poke fun of the way that a British man stereotypically would look. Even making a funny face while doing the mock dialect to distract viewers/ audience members who might be offended by his statements; he tries to very clearly make it know that this is all part of an act, and that he may not even believe these statements.
Furthermore on the fact of not believing Elon’s statements, his next excerpt that will be discussed is how Elon’s super hero that he wishes he could be is a big black woman.
Excerpt 3
1E: (to crowd) Imagine,,(crowd laughing)hecc, but imagine,,, if at that very moment, the moment this guy shushed me, I could turn into my superhero with the snap of a finger,, Big black Woman. He shushed me I’d be like.
2E: (imitating AAVE Woman voice) OH YOU DID NOT jus shush me. OKaaayy,,,, EXCUuuSSE ME. EXCUuu
3E: (To crowd) By the way nobody does the slow blink better than a big black woman, NOBODY. Noo
4E: (to crowd in AAVE Woman voice while doing long slow blink) EXCUUUSE MEE?,,, Ok I don’t carr if you reedin, I don’t carr if you concentrattin, I don’t care if youu tryin to find out more about a topic youu iintreested in. Youu do not shush a sista in a stoe, OKayy?

In this excerpt Elon is using Mock A.A.V.E to portray his “superhero” Big Black Woman, this for many people could be very offensive as Laura Callahan Says throughout her book Speaking with (dis)respect: a study of reactions to Mock Spanish. Laura repeatedly states how many Spanish speakers are offended when people try to use mock Spanish in conversation with them or with others. She even goes on to talk about mock AAVE which she refers to as mock Ebonics here “The characterization of Mock Spanish as a form of racism3 is sometimes questioned, yet other mock languages are clearly recognized as such. For example, there is Mock Ebonics, which includes a-grammatical attempts to represent forms of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), as were seen in the mainstream US press during the 1997 controversy over a proposal concerning the use of AAVE in an Oakland, California school district.” While Elon is not a native AAVE speaker he is using it in a mock manner and being indirectly racist. So instead of focusing on the bad sides of racism that comes from mock AAVE he focusses on what I see as a covert prestige that is brought by the social stratification of African American females. Which is a known belief that African American woman are innately “SASSY”. While this could still be a racist remark (which it is) Elon spins it to be a positive view on AAVE speaking women. Basically saying that the stereotype, is a positive view and that he would be proud to have this as a super power.

In conclusion, Elon Gold is an effective comedian who uses what he knows is most likely a stereotype or belief in most of his audience’s minds.

While conversing with his audience about these touchy subjects he uses many different tactics to spin the viewpoint of these beliefs from a negative connotation into a more or somewhat more positive angle. If he cannot do this he changes the view from the touchy subject to something that is very ludicrous, or just plainly not related unless he tied it into the subject at hand; as he did in his use of mock Japanese, comparing it to a blender. Overall Elon and many other comedians use different types or styles of mock language/ dialects. Mainly to reach into the part of our brain which houses stereotypes and beliefs put into us throughout years of media and other

exposure.