Posted on March 5, 2025 by Anna Boone
In collaboration with UTSA’s Film/Media program, speaker Ailish Elzy presented Silly Humor, Kaleidoscopic Blackness, and Affirming Spectatorship in A Black Lady Sketch Show to students and the public at Student Union in the Willow Room last month. Her presentation explored silliness as a distinct comedic mode and how it can also be used as a tool of radical resistance. Elzy, a Ph.D candidate in Media Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, shared her expertise of Black film history, humor studies, and genre theory to her discussion. She presented insights from her research, creative work, and passes on her best piece of advice to our students.
Photo of Ailish Elzy by Anna Boone
What made you interested in film? And did you have an “aha” moment, the moment that you knew – “Oh, I have got to be in this field.”?
I started undergrad at Eastern Washington University, outside of Spokane. It's a really small school, and I was doing journalism. And I found it to be really formulaic, the writing style, and I didn't like it, and it wasn't creative enough. So, I literally grabbed the book of majors that we had there and was like “what else can I do?”. And truly didn't even know that screenwriting was an option that you could study. I found out that we had that at that school. That school wasn't known for screenwriting or film or anything, but I was like, okay, maybe I could do this. I took some classes. I looked up what screenwriting was, went to the library, got a bunch of books, and kind of figured out how to do it, and was like, “oh, I like this”. And then applied to a bunch of programs and schools, and it didn't get into any of them. And then I applied to a bunch of programs and schools and didn’t get into any of them. Then I applied like two more times and finally got into a film school at San Francisco State. And then once I started, I realized this is where I'm supposed to be. But it was less of an aha moment and more of- how can I do writing that's fun and creative?
And also, I realized I genuinely didn't know that film was the thing you could do. So once I figured that out, I was like, “Oh, yeah, let me do this!”
You're a Ph.D candidate in Media Studies at UT. You have an MFA in Writing and Introducing for Television at Loyola Marymount University, and an MA in Cinema Studies at San Francisco State University. What was your favorite role out of all of those positions?
In terms of film, I think I'll always love screenwriting because that's what I started out doing. That's what I went to school for - most of my degrees are screenwriting degrees. But recently, if I'm on a set, I actually think I really like assistant directing. I never liked directing. I never liked producing. I never liked anything that required just a lot of emails. That's not my strong suit. But I'm an older sibling. I'm all of the things that require you to be organized and make sure you're a point person on set. I really love that. I had been on a lot of sets that had really bad ADs and people who weren't organized and weren't good being the point person. I was like “Okay, let me do this since nobody else is doing this.” Very controlling and organized. But I think it's a weird answer because I don't think it's something that people necessarily think about. I love it because you're there and you have a hand in everything, and you can also help everyone get their job done and do their best work. It's a very underrated position. Honestly, it requires a very specific type of personality, like a camp counselor or an older sibling, but I really love it.
The term “Kaleidoscope Blackness” is in the title of your discussion - can you elaborate more on what it means?
It's from this book, Laughing to Keep from Dying, by Danielle Fuentes-Morgan. In her book, she talks about satire and blackness and the overlap of that. She uses that phrase. That's her thesis, essentially. It's like, Blackness is kaleidoscopic, meaning she's aware of all of the autonomous ways that you can be black and how it overlaps with satire, with comedy, both in media art and painting and she has a couple of other non-film and TV examples. I just really like her book and the work that she does and how she uses satire. I wanted to build on her work and a lot of my stuff is trying to be as cool as hers.
Your dissertation explores silliness as a tool of radical resistance. Outside of academic spaces, how do you use comedy as a form of resistance in your work?
I think comedy is a form of resistance in itself, or it can be in a lot of ways. I think it can be really disarming for people when you joke with them, especially in buttoned-up situations when people are supposed to be serious. But life is not that serious. I think it's really important to laugh and be jokey and be funny. I think it levels people in a way, or it can, or has the ability to.
I think in terms of radical resistance, sometimes the small things are really important. There's this theorist, Robin D. G. Kelly, and he talks about small ways of resistance. An example of this is when he worked in McDonald's, him and his co-workers would wear their hair in ways that they maybe weren't allowed to, or they would have buttons on their uniform, which also they maybe weren't allowed to, or would make extra fries that nobody ordered so that they could take it home. Those were all small acts of radical resistance. They weren't quite funny, but they were ways that you can get it back at the man or whatever. I think silliness and comedy can be really small acts of radical resistance, and everyone has the ability to do it. So in ways like that, I think in my life is how I try to use it.
It doesn't have to be a big protest or a big march or a huge act. It can be, but those are really hard, and not everyone can do that. So just little acts and comedy, it can be one of those things. I love that.
How does your academic work influence your creative experience?
I think they're intertwined. I feel like they're one and the same. I think all of the scripts that I had written in my MFA were all very... they were all comedies, even the ones that were supposed to be dramatic. There were the elements of comedy to them. So, I think it's always there. It's always informing each other. I think there's just an overlap in general.
We have a growing Film/Media program here at UTSA. What is your advice to students in the program?
I think following your curiosity is the best advice I was given, and the best advice that I could give. Not doing the things that people expect you to do or doing the things that other people are doing because you think that that is the trajectory you are supposed to take. I think doing what you find interesting and what makes you excited and happy and curious - one, it's going to make you stay grounded. You're doing the thing that your heart is telling you to do. You know?
I think if I was doing if I was "supposed" to do I'd be really bored and annoyed - or what I was expected to do. I think that there's definitely a lot of expectations for women, especially women of color to do a specific thing. Showing the diversity of Black people aren't just into to this or women aren't just into this - if you follow the thing that you, as an individual person, makes you curious and happy, I think that that makes for the most interesting work.
— Anna Boone
