Dancing for laughs: signifyin(g) bodies and the Black American sitcom

ABSTRACT

This work examines the presence and impact of dance in Black sitcoms from kinetic, historical, and cultural perspectives. In a sitcom, the role of dance is one where actors can communicate with their bodies what they cannot verbalize. Signifying, or the use of mockery, repeated motifs, riddles, and other such devices as an embodied practice means that actors dancing in sitcoms are asserting their agency as performers and their legitimacy as human beings in a world that does not share this sentiment. The practice of signifyin(g) harkens back to minstrelsy, a realm of the performing arts from which sitcoms are a direct descendant. By looking at sitcoms from each of the designated sitcom eras as expressed by media scholar Robin R. Means Coleman, this article connects dance and comedy forms dating back to the mid-1800s and contemporary constructions of these forms in the bodies of actors like Will Smith, Alfonso Ribeiro, and Janet Hubert of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. As the fields of dance, screendance, and media studies ignore the importance of the moving body in Black sitcoms, the fields miss out on through lines between minstrelsy and present-day performing arts where dance is not a stand-alone genre. Dance has never been a stand-alone practice in the context of the Black body. In sum, Black dance in sitcoms offers viewers a welcome break from the trauma stories often depicted on screen, while still honouring the complexities of Black experiences and most notably, compelling us to settle into our own groove from the comfort of our living rooms.

KEYWORDS:

• Television
• minstrelsy
• dance
• racism
• sexism
• actors

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 John B. Quick’s Minstrels, 1920.

2 Minstrel ad in Darkest America.

3 Original New Orleans Minstrels, 1876.

4 John B. Quick’s Minstrels, 1920.

5 Amos ‘n’ Andy would change formats from a nightly program to a weekly program, then to a disc jockey program.

6 Jenny Craig Weight Loss, 1995.

7 Dexatrim Diet Pills, 1990.

8 Slimfast, 1999.

9 Special K, 1990.