"Minny don’t burn chicken": humour, hauntology, and fried chicken stereotype

A jubilant International Women's Day post by Sheng-Hsiang Lance Peng

In the 2011 period drama film, The Help, there is a memorable scene where Celia and Minny share a meal at the same table. This scene marks the beginning of their budding friendship, as Minny teaches Celia how to cook. However, there is a humorous twist when Celia, who hired Minny as help without her husband’s knowledge (though he was actually aware), jokingly suggests that she might overcook the chicken. Minny, in a somber manner, responds with, "Minny don’t burn chicken". This engaging and witty exchange serves as a captivating starting point to explore the historical significance of fried chicken through the lens of hauntology (Derrida, 1994), looking into the persistence of past cultural phenomena in the present and uncovering hidden layers of meaning within its history.

The first widely accepted printed recipe for fried chicken in the US appeared in 1824 in Mary Randolph’s cookbook "The Virginia House-Wife". Slave cooks, primarily from West Africa, added their own techniques to enhance flavour, making it appealing to white palates. Laws exempting chickens from livestock restrictions led many slaves to engage in poultry trade. Fried chicken became a staple in their diets due to its energy-providing qualities amid strenuous work. Negative stereotypes surrounding fried chicken were perpetuated in the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation. Despite President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, racial segregation persisted, prompting a mass migration of black people in the 1960s who often carried fried chicken for sustenance due to segregation policies. This tradition, known as "soul food", reflects resourcefulness amid scarcity, with Southern African American communities terming their cuisine as such due to perpetual ingredient shortages compensated for by soulful culinary skills (Spears & Walsh, 1998). Returning to the portrayal of fried chicken in The Help and other popular media, it functions as a humorous metaphor used to address and playfully engage with themes of race and stereotype. Moreover, it serves as a catalyst for deeper contemplation on these complex societal issues. The remark concerning fried chicken serves as a poignant entry point into hauntological perspectives, resonating with Derrida’s explorations of spectrality and the uncanny within language and culture. Within this framework, this metaphor operates as what could be termed a "hauntological joke", drawing parallels with Norrick’s concept of conversational joking (2000) while exploring the spectral dimensions of humour.

Informed by Derrida’s notion of the hauntological condition, the metaphor transcends mere comedic banter, embodying a spectral presence that haunts the social fabric. Like the spectre, it occupies a liminal space, neither fully present nor absent, disrupting conventional modes of communication and perception. Oring’s observations (2010) on the innate complexity and ambiguity of jokes find resonance here, as the metaphor’s spectral nature imbues it with layers of meaning and significance. The laughter it elicits functions not merely as a release of tension, but as a manifestation of the uncanny, unsettling the boundaries between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the humorous and the disturbing. Freud’s notion (2014) of humour as a mechanism for expressing repressed aggression finds new resonance within this hauntological framework, as the metaphor serves as a conduit for the articulation of entrenched racial prejudices and anxieties. Furthermore, the metaphor serves to reaffirm and perpetuate dominant power structures, echoing Derrida’s critique of the metaphysics of presence. By reinforcing stereotypes and asserting superiority over the Other, the white group seeks to stabilise their own identity while relegating the black Other to a position of perpetual alterity. In this sense, this metaphor becomes a site of spectral haunting, perpetuating and reifying the spectres of racism and colonialism that continue to haunt contemporary society. Ultimately, the laughter that follows the metaphor functions as a spectral echo, reverberating through the collective unconscious and perpetuating the spectral presence of racialised stereotypes and power dynamics. Within the hauntological framework, the joke becomes a haunting reminder of the unresolved tensions and anxieties that continue to shape our social interactions and collective consciousness.

In the hauntological dimensions of fried chicken’s entanglement with soul food culture, one cannot overlook the layers of contradiction that define this culinary motif. Fried chicken emerges not just as a simple symbol, but as a spectral presence haunting the cultural landscape. As Turner notes (1987), food serves as an influential medium through which humans imbue their environments with meaning and emotion, perpetuating a haunting presence that transcends the boundaries of time and space. Fried chicken, profoundly ingrained within the fabric of soul food, personifies a duality—an emblem of communal identity and familial tradition, yet also an echo of the wounds inflicted by slavery and racial oppression. Scapp and Seitz’s analysis (1998) of soul food as a contested terrain within African American discourse evokes a strong connection with the hauntological condition, wherein competing narratives and discourses converge to shape collective memory and identity. The ongoing debate surrounding the appropriateness of fried chicken within black food culture reflects the spectral nature of cultural memory, constantly shadowed by the ghosts of history and tradition.

Turner’s exploration (1987) of the persistent rumor linking Church’s Chicken to the Ku Klux Klan also underscores the spectral dimensions of fried chicken’s symbolism, blurring the boundaries between reality and myth, past and present. In this context, fried chicken becomes a locus of anxiety and ambivalence, epitomising the spectral presence of racialised stereotypes and historical traumas that remain influential in shaping contemporary perceptions of identity and belonging. Within the hauntological framework, fried chicken is not just a culinary motif but is a spectral signifier of the interrelatedness between memory, history, and identity within the African American experience. It is through this lens of spectrality that we can begin to unravel the significance of fried chicken as a haunting presence within the cultural imagination (Schmidt, 2012).

Discussions on race, ethnicity, and racism often skirt around the impact of humour and funniness, yet modern popular media has long wielded these tools to confront and challenge racial injustice. Sociologists have often overlooked this facet, perhaps dismissing humour as mere frivolity, a discourse lying outside the serious realms of academic inquiry. However, beneath the veneer of laughter lies a structure of resistance, woven through rhetorical devices that carry a weight of paradoxical significance. This discourse, within the network of modern popular media, resonates with hauntology—a spectral presence of past injustices lingering in the present. Similar to the reverberations of history within the recesses of memory, these amusing presentations bear the weight of generations past, echoing the struggles and triumphs of those who came before.

The concept of reverse discourse, which involves flipping societal narratives to challenge deep-seated stereotypes, becomes a form of spectral resistance, reclaiming long-buried narratives within their historical context. Through the lens of hauntology, these mirthful exhibitions become more than just entertainment; they become sites of memory, haunted by the ghosts of racism’s past (Weaver, 2010). In this spectral landscape, the theme of fried chicken and soul food acquires added importance—a symbol of both cultural heritage and the enduring legacy of racial stereotypes. Through humour, contemporary mass media navigates these fraught territories, subverting and challenging the narratives that seek to define them. Yet, within this complexity lies a fundamental ambiguity—an uncertainty that shrouds the outcomes of resistance humour. The polysemy of these performances complicates straightforward interpretations, casting doubt on the very notion of success. Resembling ephemeral figures in the chambers of remembrance, these playful demonstrations resist easy categorisation, embracing the multiplicity of meanings that haunt the socio-linguistic landscape.

Whilst the humour of todays’s prevalent media outlets serve as a potent instrument for anti-racist critique, it remains ensnared within the mesh of historical and mnemonic threads. Its significance, like the aroma of fried chicken wafting through the air, lingers long after the laughter fades, reminding us of the knottedness of race, identity, and the persistent quest for justice.

Source this post as:

Peng, S-H. L. (2024, March 8). "Minny don’t burn chicken": humour, hauntology, and fried chicken stereotype. The Chiaroscuro. https://chiaroscuroreflections.blogspot.com/2024/03/minny-dont-burn-chicken-humour.html

Bio

Sheng-Hsiang Lance Peng, a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge’s Education Faculty, navigates and connects the domains of social work and education, exploring cross-disciplinary issues. A proponent of hauntological perspectives, he also pens a hotchpotch of articles discussing their application across various spheres. Visit this link to explore his webfolio.

References

Derrida, J. (1994). Specters of Marx: The state of the debt, the work of mourning, and the New international. Routledge.

Freud, S. (2014). Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. READ Books.

Norrick, N. R. (2000). Conversational Narrative: Storytelling in everyday talk (Vol. 203). John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.203

Oring, E. (2010). Jokes and their relations. Transaction Publishers.

Scapp, R., & Seitz, B. (Eds.). (1998). Eating culture. State University of New York Press.

Schmidt, C. (2012). “She Said She’d Never Even Had Fried Chicken!”: Fried Chicken, Humor and Race in Bob Roberts: SUE SAMUELSON AWARD FOR FOODWAYS SCHOLARSHIP 1st PLACE WINNER 2010. Digest: A Journal of Foodways and Culture, 1.

Spears, G., & Walsh, R. (1998). A cowboy in the kitchen: Recipes from Reata and Texas west of the Pecos. Ten Speed Press.

Turner, P. A. (1987). Church’s Fried Chicken and The Klan: A Rhetorical Analysis of Rumor in the Black Community. Western Folklore, 46(4), 294. https://doi.org/10.2307/1499891

Weaver, S. (2010). The ‘Other’ Laughs Back: Humour and Resistance in Anti-racist Comedy. Sociology, 44(1), 31–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038509351624