Talk to Me - Amanda Palazzo
Dewey, after successfully getting stand-up comedy gigs and a television show for Petey, manages to book him on the Tonight Show, but while Dewey is excited, having had Johnny Carson as one of his idols, Petey is less than thrilled. Petey, who has always considered himself nothing more than “a con,� is the voice of the disenfranchised (black) people of Washington D.C., and cannot identify with the mostly white audience of the Tonight Show and knows they, conversely, cannot identify with him. His regular (mostly black) audience would laugh at and could relate to his racially charged jokes, but Petey knew this would not be the case for the Tonight Show audience. He states, during the diatribe that was supposed to be his stand-up routine, that they (the audience) have come to see a black guy tell some jokes so they can laugh at him, (not with him, as his regular audience would) and then states, “I have nothing to say to you people.�
While this is an issue of race, it is also an issue of power. As Gerstle states, “the American civil rights movement was part of this worldwide revolt against ‘Western’ domination and its associated ideologies of white supremacy.� Petey, who has been campaigning for “black power� is, by agreeing to perform on the Tonight Show, submitting to “whitey.� He is essentially, condescending to the white populace and asking for approval, a notion that he does not agree with, hence his reluctance.
While Petey did “keep it real� during his speech to the audience of the Tonight Show, in no uncertain terms letting them know that he was not going to be a part of this charade, he was also trying to regain the life he had before Dewey set out on taking him “straight to the top.� Petey even states, before his Tonight Show appearance, that he “missed that little radio station.� By sabotaging his performance, Petey was trying to get back to being “for the people,� instead of the puppet of “the man.�
It seems reasonable to surmise that Petey would have less trepidation in appearing on the Tonight Show were it hosted by an African American or catered to an audience of such. Had this been the circumstance, Petey would probably have given the routine that would be typical of his stand-up gigs in Washington D.C. and spoke as he would have on his radio show. This audience would appreciate and connect to what Petey was saying, where a white audience would not.
Though it might seem that Petey’s actions and reasons make him a racist, with his haranguing the audience of the Tonight Show and with comments he made during broadcasts on WOL, there are a handful of examples from the film that show that while he has some prejudices, he is not racist. During the rioting following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Petey assists a white man who was being chased down by a crowd of African Americans. In addition, during one of his comedy routines, Petey jokes with some of the white members of his audience, not in a derisive manner, but similar in the way he jokes with members of his own race. Overall, Petey’s purpose was not to tear down one race in order to build up another, but to get them on equal standing. As Gerstle states, “the civil rights revolution depended on a mass movement,� and though Petey is not a widely recognized figure in the civil rights movement the way Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was, he still played an important role for those in his jurisdiction. While his methods may have been deemed a bit harsh, perhaps racist by some, this type of brashness was necessary to combat injustice.