Revolution Televised.pdf

78 What You See Is What You Get
he admits, “I thought I could talk, but I met my match.” She persuades
Ali to speak to Killer on a phone in her purse and then
makes fun of him for believing that there were actually such things
as “pocketbook telephones.” In a day before cell phones, the joke
works quite well.
When Ali discusses his upcoming fight with Joe Frazier, Geraldine
pulls him aside and says, “Come over here; I don’t want them
to hear this, is between me and you.” Geraldine encourages Ali to
win his fight but says, “Don’t hurt him, because he is one of us.”
Geraldine reiterates the point several times by repeating the line
“He is one of us” (emphasis added). Through Geraldine, Wilson
was allowed to acknowledge the importance of black unity within
an African American community at that historical moment, a black
community that was separate from the wider U.S. community that
he entertained on a weekly basis.
Outside of character interpretations, Wilson also presented readings
of key moments in history from a black perspective. The following
is a sketch with Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella.
columbus: If I don’t discover America, there’s not gonna be a
Benjamin Franklin, or a “Star-Spangled Banner,” or a land of
the free, or a home of the brave—and no Ray Charles.
queen isabella: (Responds screaming) Chris, go on! Find Ray
Charles! He goin’ to America on that boat. What you say!
Wilson’s endeavors to bring these aspects of black life to the small
screen caused some embarrassment to the black middle-class sensibilities
of a segment of the audience. However, this was familiar
imagery to an African American audience, raised on the comedy of
vaudeville and the Chitlin’ Circuit. 66
Flip Wilson presented a contradictory figure, especially as it
pertained to African American notions of uplift. On the one hand,
the characters that Wilson presented caused concern; some African
American critics viewed these as demeaning and minstrelesque.
On the other hand, as host of a popular network variety show, he
was a symbol of African American success, middle- and upper-class
respectability, and the tenets of integration and uplift. He performed
as effortlessly with such African American celebrities as Bill Cosby,
Ray Charles, Jim Brown, Aretha Franklin, Sammy Davis Jr., Ella
Fitzgerald, and Lena Horne as he did with his many famous white
guests, who included John Wayne, Cher, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby,