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MITCHELL'S TAKE
MITCHELL SHORT: On WWE and Ron Killings' New Stepin Fetchit Character, Pretty Ricky Jul 11, 2009 - 4:26:58 PM
Did you catch Ron 'The Truth" Killings' new character on Smackdown last night?
Pretty Ricky is a small part of a long line of degrading African American characters in our culture that go back at least as far as Stepin Fetchit, one of the most popular movie stars of the thirties, and Killing's participation is also part of that noxious tradition. Dumb, ugly characters like these play off racial stereotypes that trace back to slave days There was a famous CBS News documentary in the sixties, narrated by Bill Cosby, that delineated how characters like these damaged the self-image, and image, of African Americans. JJ Walker from Good Times in the seventies faced this criticism, including from John Amos and Esther Rolle, fellow stars on the show. Amos was fired because of it.
More recently, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, and Tyler Perry have faced criticism from some leaders in the black community for creating and profiting off these types of coarse characters. It's a subject of real controversy, because their creations are also very popular with other parts of the AA community. Their fans don't like hearing that these characters have a negative, degrading side either. These characters, for all their broad strokes, usually have another, more positive, ethic to them. I doubt Pretty Ricky will ever show anything like that.
That the Pretty Ricky character, in the end, comes from WWE, a white-run company with a long history of degrading black characters, and airs on Smackdown, where Michael Hayes is a powerful creative force, also speaks to what type of gimmick he is.
You'll notice that there was nothing negative, particularly for a pro wrestler, in the Fighting Irish stereotype gimmick we saw recently on ECW. I wonder why.
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