Chronicle Editor
Mbulelo Mpofu, Showbiz Reporter
FUNNY MAN Carl Joshua Ncube does not find impersonating women to coerce laughter funny. What a paradox! This comes after a recent post by meme king, Certified Toxic Boy aka Shadaya Knight sent by John M. Phiri blew the lid on male comedians who impersonate women to be funny.
John M. Phiri, on his Facebook account posted: “A good male comedian sticks to his gender. If you wear a weave and a dress to be funny, you’re not funny.”
This statement seemed to throw shade at male comedians such as Shatrisha and Mai Vayi who impersonate women to look and sound funny.
In response to the post, Carl concurred with Shadaya and even added that whoever argued with “the truth” should “Go argue with your ancestors.”
This sired a debate between Carl Joshua and other Facebook users who accused Shadaya of attacking “Zimbos on TikTok”.
A back-and-forth argument between Carl Joshua and one identified as Gugu Tshucksberry showed how deep Shadaya’s post had gotten.
The main issue was on Shadaya’s “logic” and Brian Willis said this is an attack on Zimbos on TikTok” before mentioning a character by the name of Astra.
Chronicle Showbiz caught up with Carl Joshua to better understand his sentiments on the issue raised by Shadaya and he gave a lengthy explanation.
“The Shadaya post showed how ignorant people are when it comes to comedy in general. The idea was that male comics stay in their gender lane because when they dress up as females, then it means that they are not funny.
I tend to agree with that line of thought because I think good comedy is all about being able to express your perspective, not necessarily changing what you are in order to fit the comedy, which is why it doesn’t really work.
“I think there are many amazing female comics who just highlight femininity from a comedy perspective. When a man dresses up as a woman in order to do comedy, it’s like a white person dressing up as a black person to do comedy.
It’s a shallow interpretation of the art form and even from the examples given, the major movie stables are usually inclined to impersonate the worst stereotypes of a woman and it’s like a misrepresentation of women,” he said. Carl Joshua continued to back his case up, citing a few examples of what he called exaggeration.
“If you look at you Big Mommas’, Madea, Mama Jack, it’s an exaggerated form of what a woman is. I think they could have used a Black woman in those aforementioned roles. I find that type of casting rather shallow and silly. For example, let’s look at Madea and that storyline.
“Madea is probably one of the worst things to happen from a comedic aspect because what it does is that it takes the low-hanging foot of a stereotype of women of which one cannot even quantify its existence.
This is the very reason why there is what I call a marmite response where people either agree or disagree with this. I don’t think dressing up as a woman means funny, scripting is.”
Carl added that such kinds of movies and stand-up comedy amount to…well, the euphemistic word that I’m looking for is “rubbish comedy”.
Though some think that it has been a success for Western comedians like Martin Lawrence, Tyler Perry and Kelvin Hart, and Zimbabwe has failed, local comedy acts who impersonate women have enjoyed considerable viewership on YouTube.
Take, for instance, Australian-based Taffy TheMan who has more than 100 000 views on YouTube and the likes of Shatrisha as well.
In the spirit of fairness, should it be a thing in the comedy industry to portray one as a cross-gender comedian? Shadaya’s post has opened up a can of worms as some people are now interested in the nitty-gritties of the semantics used on the post.
The consensus is that comedy is measured by how much people laugh and if people do laugh, then, it will be a good day at the office for whoever will be doing the comedy. Some people showed their discontentment at Carl and Shadaya’s sentiments.
One Pamela Run’anga said, “Then what’s the definition of comedian? He or she is someone who has no limits to make people laugh.”
At the end of the day, according to Shadaya’s post, does it mean, an impersonator is one who dresses up like the opposite gender only?
What becomes of the likes of South African comedian Trevor Noah who doesn’t dress up, but impersonates female vocals? Are such comedians sticking to their gender? – @eMKlass_49
Online Reporter