Revolution Televised.pdf

What You See Is What You Get 71
stream America had grown accustomed to their presence. However,
it is also important to note that by 1970, the continuing efforts of
the Civil Rights movement and the rising Black Power movement
across the country mandated that America must eventually deal with
its black citizens.
Popular culture has consistently been a means through which
the United States has addressed and expressed its internal conflicts.
I Spy and Julia were examples of television’s early attempts in the
Civil Rights and Black Power era to address the integrating presence
of African Americans, at least within a middle-class discourse
of blackness. Flip Wilson brought a little more of the working class
and urban black with him.
Like Norman Mailer’s “white Negro,” 1970s white America could
experiment with blackness, hipness, and cool within the safe constraints
of television. 49 Flip Wilson became white America’s vehicle
for cultural catharsis, as he expressed a distinct black, urban vibe,
but unlike the so-called angry inner-city mobs, more critical black
comedians, and programs such as Black Journal, Wilson was contained,
clean, and uplifting. Bob Henry summed up the situation:
It just so happens that I was on The Nat “King” Cole Show in 1957
and what killed us was that black was not beautiful in those days
and Madison Avenue wouldn’t go out and sell us. . . . [Flip] comes
along at a time when black is in. . . . White people love Flip because
even though his early life was bittersweet, he seems to be able to
tone down the bitter and retain the sweet—unlike many other black
comedians. 50
The mainstream critics at the time echoed this sentiment: John Leonard,
a Life magazine critic, describes Flip’s work: “What Flip Wilson
has accomplished is almost incredible in a time of Black Panthers
and savage rhetoric. . . . He has taken the threat out of the fact of
blackness.” 51 A Time magazine writer supported this idea and took
it one step further in analyzing the U.S. political environment: “Mr.
Wilson is not just a black comedian, any more than Jack Benny is
just a Jewish comedian. . . . His humor is universal. He has the talent
to make blacks laugh without anger and whites laugh without
guilt.” 52 This was Wilson’s edge—his unthreatening appeal and his
ability to quell any white angst over the state of blackness. Here,
mainstream Americans could sit back and laugh with a black man
who had clearly made it. Indeed, Flip Wilson was used as a token