YouTube Video- Frye, Rothenberg

Media type: YouTube Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBgDC2mYsUg

Concept Source: Frye, Rothenberg

Although the Saturday Night Live comedy sketch clip is meant to be a funny joke, it’s an abstract look at our current gender and race oppressions. Titled “Thirsty Cops,” two female black cops are sexually objectifying a white male. They pulled him over for a traffic incident, and are harassing him on the side of the road. Because it is two females doing this to a male, it’s funny, but if the roles were reversed, it would be terrifying. Comedians have always had a ‘hall pass’ for making commentary on almost untouchable issues in society. The SNL show takes full advantage of this ability.  

If the roles in this sketch had been reversed, no one would have dreamed of airing it. The treatment of women in America has been under relentless criticism. Frye points out the importance and difficulty of recognizing oppression. She describes the importance of seeing the structure as a whole “...without seeing or being able to understand that one is looking at a cage and that there are people there who are caged, whose motion and mobility are restricted, whose lines are shaped and reduced,” (pg. 132). Comedy allows people to examine the societal problems they live with. This sketch forces both male and female, black and white audiences to re-evaluate their positions within an oppressive structure.

Frye, Marilyn. "Oppression." Race, Class, and Gender in the United States, compiled by Paula S.

   Rothenberg, 10th ed., Worth Publishers, 2016, pp. 130-33.

"Traffic Stop." YouTube, 13 Sept. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBgDC2mYsUg. Accessed 10 Nov. 2018.