Amber Ruffin's Comedy Glow-Up
Ruffin's rising star is right on time, because whew, we sure do need a good laugh.
By Rebecca Carroll
Getty/Brianna Ellis-Mitchell
God, I love funny. Not just humor or "good" humor, or ha-ha that's funny or clever or whatever. I mean, I actually cannot stop myself from laughing funny. I also love ingenuity. And black women. So funny, ingenious black women are extremely my jam. And because this week a certain not funny, not ingenious, not black woman comedian decided it would be cool to do an unannounced stand-up show at a comedy club in New York City less than 10 months after admitting to sexual misconduct, it seems like a really good time to highlight a brilliant black woman comedian. Have y'all heard of Amber Ruffin?
Right now we are experiencing a renaissance of new talent, new art forms, and with that, of course, a new wave of black firsts. Amber Ruffin is the first black woman to write for a network late-night talk show, "Late Night with Seth Meyers," and was also the first black woman to host the 70th annual Writers Guild of America East Awards earlier this year, when she started her opening monologue with, "I'm your host, Diversity."
Ruffin is a charismatic gem of a performer.
Those firsts, especially writing for Seth Meyers, have garnered the attention of mainstream media outlets and magazines of late, but the whole "first" designation is not her favorite. In an interview last month, Ruffin told Wisconsin Public Radio: "It never occurred to me that I would ever be a first anything. You forget how recent all of our nation's atrocities are until there's the next person who's the first black anything." Say that, Ms. Ruffin. And to my mind, she's more than the first black woman writer for a late-night network show. Ruffin is a charismatic gem of a performer who takes risks, and uses her voice with vigor and joy and self-assuredness.
In her "Late Night" segments, including "Amber's Minute of Fury" and "Jokes Seth Can't Tell" (the latter developed with her co-writer Jenny Hagel), she presses right to the point of the joke, simultaneously engaged with the material and the audience. Ruffin is by turns silly and serious-minded, accepting the imprimatur of her glow-up on an all-white network show, and making every minute of airtime her own with comedic precision and pointed social commentary on race and gender. That combination of craft and delivery and cultural analysis earned her an Emmy nomination last year.
Ruffin has been in the game as an actress, YouTube personality, and writer for some time — notably, as the narrator on "Drunk History," the hilarious show on Comedy Central that features historical reenactments presented by drunk storytellers. But it's thrilling to see her shine, and her timing is impeccable. I don't just mean because of a certain not funny, not black woman comedian, but because in a recent segment for "Late Night," which aired less than two weeks before Louis C.K.'s impromptu performance, Ruffin gave a prescient performance in which she reworked art by problematic men, and it was glorious. She took on Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey, Woody Allen, and at the end, "a billion stand-up comedians" who have been accused of sexual misconduct: "Stand-up is hard, but recognizing consent is easy."
What strikes me the most about Ruffin, though, is that she is so complete. Open-hearted enough to accept the not-so-distant atrocities of our past, and forward-thinking enough to be the salve for the atrocities of our present. Come on with that black and beautiful movement, Amber Ruffin.
Rebecca Carroll is a cultural critic at WNYC New York Public Radio, where she writes and hosts her Rebel series, and a critic at large for the Los Angeles Times. Her column "Black Is Beautiful" is a weekly look at the style, beauty, culture, or fashion that centers, elevates, and celebrates blackness.
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