Hip-Hop TV’s Leading Edge : Along with its Emmy awards and enviable ratings, ‘In Living Color’ has attracted criticism that the show deals in negative stereotypes

It’s midafternoon, and Keenen Ivory Wayans is in his office at Fox’s Hollywood studios, frowning. A visitor with a 3 p.m. appointment has been waiting to speak to him for nearly an hour, but Wayans has other things on his mind, other phone calls to make. And other things to be steamed about.

On the desk in front of him is a New York magazine that has just hit the stands. He is pictured on the cover with his sister Kim and his brothers Shawn and Damon, who all star with him on “In Living Color.” The headline on the magazine reads, “Color Them Funny,” and they are all smiling.

But Wayans, the guiding force behind Fox’s feisty comedy series, is not smiling now.

“I don’t like this,” he says, thumbing through the article. “I don’t like this at all.”

The article told how “In Living Color,” which premiered last April to mostly rave reviews, has offended some African-American leaders with negative stereotypes. It also said that gay organizations were protesting the show’s most notorious regular segment, “Men On . . . ,” a takeoff on Siskel-and-Ebert-type review shows featuring two outrageously dressed and effeminate men, Blaine Edwards (Damon Wayans) and Antoine Merryweather (David Alan Grier), who employ sexual double-entendres while discussing films, art or books.

“This article is just trying to create controversy,” Wayans said. “It’s dwelling on the bad things too much,” adding that the story, in his opinion, distorted the amount of opposition by blacks.

Since winning the Emmy Award in September as last season’s best comedy-variety show, beating such formidable competition as “Late Night With David Letterman” and “The Tracey Ullman Show,” Wayans and the cast have been on a roller-coaster of controversy and publicity. They have been besieged for interviews and gossip, and the same questions keep popping up:

Did Wayans really have a falling out with Arsenio Hall when “In Living Color” made fun of him? (Wayans says no.) Did Wayans really have an affair with Kim Coles, who left the show after the first season? (Wayans says no.) Aren’t gays offended by the “Men On. . . .” segments? (Wayans says no.) Aren’t blacks offended by some of the images presented on “In Living Color”? (Wayans says, for the most part, no.)

During a recent interview, Wayans, clad in a colorful T-shirt and sweat pants, appeared polite but not overly forthcoming. He said that he was upset by the New York article, and was generally burned out by the combination of trying to put the weekly show together and responding to the demand for information.

But the most bothersome questions, Wayans said, have to do with comments about some of the portrayals of blacks on “In Living Color.”

Targets have included the hosts of the Homeboy Shopping Network, two fast-talking hustlers (Wayans and brother Damon) who speak in rap lingo about getting “mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money,” and Anton, a homeless street entertainer (Damon Wayans) who disgusts onlookers with his habits of picking his nose and emitting body odors.

“If you have a black point of view, you’re damned if you show the bad side and you’re damned if you don’t,” he said. “We have the same diversity as any other show. We don’t dwell on the homeboys for 30 minutes. We also have black professionals, people in suits.”

When fans approach him to do more positive role models for blacks, Wayans said, “I ask them what they view as positive? And how do you do a positive parody? People expect miracles in the wrong places. This show isn’t going to change the world. It may have an effect, but the only thing that can change the world is the government, and the government controls the media.”

Wayans finds the questions about “Men On . . . “ more legitimate, but insists that he has not received that many complaints about it. And, he said, “We’ve gotten petitions from gay groups asking us to never stop doing it.”

In many ways, the show has been categorized as a rap show in spite of itself, Wayans and others say. The main mission of the show is to be funny, Wayans said. Much of the comedy is not racially oriented, he pointed out, and political satire is rare.

Rosie Perez, the choreographer of “The Flygirls,” the dancers who punctuate each show with precision, hip-hop styled steps, said that the black or ethnic perspective was not a major factor of the show’s appeal.

“Sure, it’s a part, but for the most part, the show is intended to just be stupid and funny,” she said. “This is comedy that you can do in your own home. It’s real honest.”

Comedian Franklin Ajaye, who wrote for the show during its first season, said that there was no order by Wayans for the writers to continually come up with racially based humor.

“Of course, the show had a racial perspective, but we weren’t told to always approach things with a black perspective,” he said. “We were just told to get as many jokes into the sketches as possible. That was the mandate.”

But he added that even he felt uncomfortable with some of the African-American images presented on “In Living Color.” That concern was shared by adult fans who approached him about the show.

“Whites for the most part like the show, but there’s more ambivalence about it in the black community,” Ajaye said. “They would say, ‘Hey, I like some of it, but I wish they wouldn’t do this, or I wish they wouldn’t do that.’ They think it’s a good, clever show, but they have a problem with some of the images.”

Ajaye would respond that the show was not aimed at them: “These were people in the 35-40 range, and I told them the show was not conceived with them in mind. It’s aimed at viewers 14-25.”

Still, Ajaye felt the show should have strived for more than just the funny bone. “If you’re going to aim a show at urban black youth, especially when they are floundering in so many areas, it’s not enough to entertain them,” Ajaye said. “You have to instruct and guide them.”

Ajaye said that he and partner Barry Douglas would make attempts at writing relevant and topical racial humor. One skit, “Endangered Species,” was a parody of animal trainer Joan Embrey’s appearances with animals on “The Tonight Show.” It was inspired by a talk the pair had with Wayans.

The skit concerned an animal trainer (Kelly Coffield) who brought on an “endangered species”--an inner-city teen (Tommy Davidson). During the course of the sketch, the trainer said that the species was endangered because of “homeboy poaching.” “They were being killed for their sneakers,” Ajaye explained.

The line was taken out, “because it was felt it was a downer line,” Ajaye said, adding that he did not know know who excised it. “I got a lot of calls on that sketch. People felt that the idea of why the species was endangered was never addressed. I feel it would have been better with that line. It was frustrating. That was my last attempt to put a message into the skits.”

Despite his discomfort at some of the images on the show, Ajaye said he understood Wayans’ position. “Keenen is a very committed black man who is trying to further the position of black people,” he said. “So even though there were stereotypes, I give him the benefit of the doubt. Also, he has the soul of the comedian, and he wants to make people laugh.”

Ajaye and Douglas, along with many other writers, were “released” after the first season. “It was felt that we were pretty much burned out, sketched out,” Ajaye said. He said that there were no hard feelings, and that he was working on other projects with Wayans.

The nine-member cast has seven blacks and two whites. The director, Paul Miller, is white and a veteran of “Saturday Night Live.” The producer, Tamara Rawitt, is white and ran Eddie Murphy’s production company for two years. About half of the writing staff is minorities.

The show is most often compared to “Saturday Night Live” in the type of humor and viewpoint. Some fans also noted that it shares some of that show’s weaknesses.

“It’s very funny and very outrageous, but just like the best years of ‘Saturday Night Live,’ they don’t bat a thousand,” said Warren Littlefield, president of NBC Entertainment. “One skit will be brilliant, then the next one will come and you’ll think, ‘How did that get on the air?’ But that happened through the great years of ‘Saturday Night Live.’ Plus, this show has staked out some true, original characters.”

Wayans now hopes that recurring characters from the “In Living Color” repertoire will move into popular culture, in the tradition of “Saturday Night Live” creations such as the Blues Brothers, the Coneheads and the Church Lady.

The most likely to reach star status may be Homey the Clown, a militant “anti-clown” played by Damon Wayans who constantly snaps about being victimized by society and “lies perpetrated by the Man.” He whacks kids and adults with a stuffed black sock when they ask him to perform.

“Degrade and humiliate myself for your amusement, huh? I don’t think so ,” Homey snaps in a typical exchange. “Homey don’t play that.”

Fox executives and those associated with the show say Homey’s tag-lines are already being repeated on schoolyards and at parties. Yet even the show’s executives seemed to have been caught off-guard by the response to Homey during a recent screening of an episode to a studio audience.

The audience, composed largely of young African-Americans, almost exploded with cheers when a Homey the Clown sketch came on. “HOMEY!!” roared three youths. “Wassup?” Many chimed in when the clown declared, “Homey don’t play that” after the clown’s girlfriend tried to convince him to get a respectable job at the Chez Whitey restaurant.

The Homey sketches and other “In Living Color” parodies are delivered with a knowing but sometimes bitter wink at the sensibilities that have kept edgy, minority-flavored comedy off the airwaves for decades.

“The humor can work on a very subliminal level, and it’s saying a lot of unsayable things,” Rawitt said. “However prevalent racism is, it’s still a taboo topic. But through comedy, we’re cleverly allowing certain things to come through. We’re saying it still exists, and it has to be eradicated before progress can be made.”

Rawitt said that putting together a mainstream comedy show with a predominantly black point of view is not difficult: “The writing process is highly communal and open. Every once in a while, there might be someone who doesn’t have a true cultural perspective of the black experience. But we take care of that. This show is the vision of a highly conscious black man. And we have quite a few black cast members. So that kind of thing can be realigned in rehearsals until the comedy is as funny as it can be.”

Other “In Living Color” sketches that reflect Wayans’ “in-your-face, hip-hop” humor:

* The Brothers Brothers, “the most non-threatening black men on television,” starred Damon and Keenen Wayans in a musical sendup of the Smothers Brothers. “The networks want blacks, but they don’t want them real, so Oreos like us get a hell of a deal,” the pair sang with a smile. They were both named Tom.

* “Equity Express,” a satire of a recent credit card commercial where a black customer (David Alan Grier) encountered hassles from the white credit operator (Kelly Coffield), and was arrested when he tried to use his gold card to purchase clothes. “It was clear he wasn’t the sort to be carrying a gold card, if you know what I mean,” the operator said smugly to an unseen interviewer.

* “Y. T. Guilt” starring Coffield and James Carrey as two white liberals talking about their guilt about their feelings toward blacks. “I called the cops on some black kids today who were collecting donations for the United Negro College Fund,” Coffield’s character said. “I just assumed they were gang members.” An unseen announcer instructed them to call 1-900-Y.T.-GUILT. “Let one of our angry Afro-American operators put you in your place,” the announcer said. The couple wound up talking to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan (Damon Wayans), who told them they felt sexually and professionally inferior to blacks. “C’mon, Whitey, make that call,” Farrakhan/Wayans implored viewers at the end of the skit.

“Sure, our shows ridicule the racism that exists against blacks,” cast member Tommy Davidson said. “The issue is there, and it seems to be an underlying continuum. But this is about comedy. It’s not the civil rights movement.”