While last Thursday will be remembered by most as the day of the protest, this reporter will never forget it was the day that Larry Wilmore visited campus as the second guest in this year’s Union Speakers Forum series. Wilmore provided some much-needed comic relief in the evening to a sizeable crowd in the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center Concert Hall and dined with a select group of students beforehand, including yours truly.
At the dinner, Wilmore—who can be seen some nights on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as the Senior Black Correspondent—respectfully fielded students’ questions about his career and views on controversial issues such as racism. As he put it, “Some people are glass-shattered water going everywhere. I am glass full of vodka.” Rather than worrying about whether or not he will offend someone, Wilmore puts his time and energy into having fun and making people laugh. “I consider myself a success because I [am doing] what I love to do.”
Although, Wilmore admits, much of his recent fame stems from guest appearances on The Office and The Daily Show, the lecture gave some insight into the man behind the scenes of some of television’s most hilarious episodes. To name a few, Wilmore’s writing credits include The Office, In Living Color, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and The Bernie Mac Show, which he created around Bernie Mac’s family jokes after seeing him in The Original Kings of Comedy. After spending four-and-a-half weeks writing the same first three pages of the pilot script, “something just clicked, and it poured out of me.” Wilmore was able to create real human connections in the show, which went on to win several awards, including an Emmy.
Unfortunately, the broadcast world is “not about how good a show is, it’s [about] how many fights you can win.” Wilmore faced an uphill battle against network executives to maintain the integrity and intent of his work, and even had to fight to keep Camille Winbush (the eldest daughter on Bernie Mac) in the cast because she was deemed “too dark.” He also shared a disturbing story about Emmy night, when his friend overheard the network head say, “Well, I guess we can’t fire him now,” referring to Wilmore’s Emmy and future at the show. Although he overcame some battles with the network, he lost the war when he was let go from the program.
Wilmore eventually returned to his sketch comedy roots, and was asked by friend and developer of the U.S. version of The Office, Greg Daniels, to play the role of Mr. Brown. “I am not just a comedy writer. I am really passionate about what I do,” said Wilmore, who felt it was the right time to get back into performing. This success led to the opportunity to audition on air for The Daily Show, and although the “dress rehearsal was bombing,” the on-air segment was well received, thanks in part to some candid advice from Jon Stewart.
The focus for the end of the lecture was Wilmore’s recently published book, I’d Rather We Got Casinos: And Other Black Thoughts—“We make up for 400 years of oppression with 28 days of trivia … I’d rather have casinos.” Though the book’s speeches, radio shows, lost chapters, and letters to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People are all fictitious, Wilmore claims, “I’m not making this up … I am making this up, but it’s true … It’s not true, but it’s what I believe.” He shared some excerpts from the NAACP letters, which become more and more “pathetic” as he pleads with them to change “African-American” to “chocolate.” Wilmore also read from the chapter “The Search for Black Jesus,” which outlines key evidence that Jesus was not just dark; he was black. “There was a question of who the baby-daddy was from day one.”
From sick, political humor to black satire, Wilmore has the ability to wrap audience members up in his jokes and stories, causing them to step back from their notions of political correctness and just laugh, and laugh hard—just ask the trustees who were sitting directly behind me and laughing the entire time. Most “people just want to see themselves represented and not put on a pedestal,” and very few topics are off-limits in Wilmore’s humor realm. If you do not think something he says is funny, “So what? Move on.”
