When speaking of entertainment families and comedy powerhouses, it is virtually impossible not to mention the Wayans family. While each of the ten siblings in the first generation of Wayans is or was active in the entertainment industry, the most famous among them are: Keenen, Damon, Sr., Kim, Shawn, and Marlon. Although the subjects of race and sexuality were as sensitive in the 90s as ever, In Living Color managed to tackle these topics by way of humor while simultaneously making fun of and challenging prescribed ideas about black masculinity, all while attaining the adoration of television watchers. Beginning in 1990, In Living Color would be the start of the Wayans family’s dominance on both the big screen and the small screen, but they brought far more than just laughs to American viewers—they paved the way for some of television’s most well-known comics.
In 1988, Keenen Ivory Wayans wrote, directed, and starred in the blaxpoitation parody I’m Gonna Git You Sucka. Following the film’s success, The Fox Broadcasting Company gave Wayans the opportunity to create his dream show, and thus, In Living Color was born.1 Anyone familiar with In Living Color is likely to have a favorite character or sketch, but a few characters who appear on nearly any favorites list are Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather, hyper-feminine, gay men who share their opinions on various topics; Oswald Bates, the stereotypical, enlightened, black prison inmate; and Wanda Wayne, an outspoken, sexually charged, black woman played by Jamie Foxx in drag. Speaking on hypermasculinity among black men, Byron Hurt, director of the indie film Hip-Hop: Beyond the Beats and Rhymes, notes:
We’re in this box…in order to be in that box, you have to be strong, you have to be tough, you have to have a lot of girls, you gotta have money, you have to be a player or a pimp, know you gotta to be in control, you have to dominate other men, other people, you know if you are not any of those things, then you know people call you soft or weak or a pussy or a chump or a faggot and nobody wants to be any of those things. So everybody stays inside the box.2
Each of the aforementioned characters challenges the notion of a tough, womanizing, controlling, dominant black male. In Living Color brought the very real issue of black male identity into the average American’s home while making it palatable through comedy. Perhaps it is this willingly to transcend the boundaries of the “box” that allowed the show to become one of the greatest sketch comedies in American television history.
While In Living Color ended in 1994, much sooner than some had expected, it was only the first of many credits that would be added to the Wayans family filmography. In 1994, Keenen would go on to write, direct, and star in A Low Down Dirty Shame; Marlon and Shawn would write and star in Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood—another parody foregrounding black stereotypes (1996); Damon would write and star in Blankman (1994) which would become a cult classic despite receiving lackluster critical reception; and Kim acted in several of the Wayans family projects including The Wayans Brothers (1995), a show which featured Marlon and Shawn in a family sitcom alongside John Witherspoon. In an interview with Ebony that opens a conversation with the second generation of talented Wayans, Damien Wayans stated, “My family was my college. I got the best training through my uncles as professors…We pride ourselves on being multihyphenated. If it weren’t for the fact that we wrote, produced, directed and starred in cur own material, I don’t think people would have seen as much of the Wayans family throughout the years.3 —Mara Johnson
- Herbert, Solomon J. “The Living Colors Of Keenen Ivory Wayans.” Black Collegian 21.1 (1990): 98. HTML File. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
- “The Issues: Masculinity.” PBS. PBS. Web. 2 Dec. 2015. <http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop/masculinity.htm>.
- Christian, Margena A. “The First Family of Comedy.” Ebony 66.6 (2011): 90-91. PDF File.
