A&E Set to Debut Two Part Black Comedy History Doc “Right to Offend: The Black Comedy Revolution”
Undeniably, there is a wave of documentaries examining the history of comedy from every possible angle and at every degree. From covering individuals such as Dick Gregory, George Carlin, and even Bill Cosby to focusing on such changing attitudes in the form through the lens of 9/11 with Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11, there is an ever growing fascination of the inner workings of inciting laughter.
A&E is putting their hat in the ring here with Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat & Time Studios’ Right to Offend: The Black Comedy Revolution, a two-part doc series that will trace the lineage of black comedians that defied racial barriers and sought to skewer the absurd inequalities that were just taken for granted, especially the ones based off the amount of melanin you had in your skin.
The likes of Tiffany Haddish, W. Kamau Bell, Michael Che, Steve Harvey, Sherri Shepherd, Wayne Brady, Aisha Tyler, DL Hughley, Amber Ruffin, and Katt Williams amongst other comics and historians will weigh in on the oft-overlooked milestones of black comedy (just compare Mike Binder’s The Comedy Store to Phat Tuesdays: The Hip Hop Era of Comedy).
Take a gander at what’s to come with this teaser for Right to Offend here, then look for its premiere on A&E on Jun. 29th & 30th at 9PM (then presumably streaming on aetv.com afterwards).