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Russell Peters Takes Aim at the World in Red, White and Brown
by Reg Seeton
 What's funny about stand-up comedy is how one comedian can get away with a certain style of racial comedy and another one can't. The differences between various races and cultures has always been a hot topic for comedians but not all have had an easy time of using it as a brand of comedy. Why did Andrew Dice Clay take so much flack and nearly get drummed out of the industry for his brand of racial comedy? Was it his delivery? Was it his image? Was it his color? Are we more sensitive when a white guy tells racial or cultural jokes than a person of color? I mean Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy crossed ethnic lines to make people laugh?
Even the Vietnemese born Dat Phan, the first year winner of Last Comic Standing, was able to skillfully play off of the different cultures of the world. Does it simply come down to timing and the age we live in? Or does it come down to the fact that some people just can't take a joke? Is there a difference between the redneck jokes Jeff Foxworthy tells or the "Git 'er Done" brand made famous by Larry the Cable Guy and the comedy of Russell Peters? Those were some of the questions that popped in my head as I watched the recently released Comedy Central special Russell Peters: Red White and Brown, which hit store shelves on January 30 as a DVD/CD combo.
Russell Peters is a melting pot of hilarious comedy. After bursting out of Brampton, Ontario, and paying his dues on the Canadian comedy circuit, Russell Peters is finally getting the stand-up respect he deserves. When you look at Peters' latest DVD routine from the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden, you'll notice how today's best stand-up comedian walks across the stage and controls his audience in the same manner as the greats before him. Red, White and Brown took me back to the days when Eddie Murphy was breaking out with his hilariously successful Delirious album (yes, it was an album first). In earlier clips of Peters at Montreal's famous Just for Laughs comedy fest, it was more about introducing himself to the world, getting his feet wet, and having to sell his comedy harder than he has to now.
 Over the past few years, word-of-mouth and several notable TV appearances and worldwide tours have helped to turn Russell Peters into a stand-up force to be reckoned with. And when you look into the crowd at a Russell Peters show, you'll see an audience that looks a lot like the U.N. Assembly. In Red, White, and Brown, Russell Peters traverses the globe from the stage to point out how just how screwed up everyone's culture can be. And, as you find out, Peters makes a clear distinction between race and culture that a lot of people just don't get.
If you've followed Russell Peters in the past year or two, you've probably heard a lot of the same routine to varying degrees. There's no doubt that Peters was in need of new material and he delivers on all fronts in Red, White and Brown. At the outset of the show, after an intro from the great rap pioneer Melle Mel, the tone is set fast when Peters notices a young kid in the crowd sitting next to his father. Only time will tell how the kid will be impacted by the show but, as Peters reveals, he won't be the same when he leaves. Throughout the show, the camera picks up on the kid after Peters explains the dynamics of having hair in your crotch or why people freeze up when they have an orgasm. On a completely different level, the real comedy must have come after the show when the kid's father had to field a barrage of questions on the drive home.
 Although no cultural stone is left unturned, and no ethnic background dodges Peters' comedic bullet, the highlight of Red, White and Brown is at his own expense. Russell Peters' parents were born in India but he was raised in Canada, which provides a well of laughs and is largely the comedian's safety net. It's hard to say that Peters is at all racist toward people of color when he's one himself. And that's why other minorities are able to cut Peters more slack. With Peters' comedy, it's not a black and white thing. It's more international and relatable beyond the shores of North America. The best moment in Red, White and Brown comes when Peters tells the story of when he traveled to India for the first time, unaware of the weight of his own cultural identity as an Indo Canadian. Peters reveals that he built up a sense of confidence to show his people just how Indian he was when he stepped off the plane, but the exact moment the doors opened is where the "Brown" gets defined in the concert title. It's Peters' own struggles with his culture and heritage that makes for the best comedy of the evening.
The CD/DVD comes loaded with an impressive array of features that includes a feature commentary by Russell Peters, Clayton Peters, and director Jigar Talati. When's the last time you watched a kick ass stand-up comedy disc and then got to listen to the comedian giving a commentary on his own routine? It's two stand-up acts. The extras also include a series of deleted scene of brief but hilarious cuts from the show and a the "White Jacket Bootleg" from another show on the tour (possibly the next night) in which Peters is wearing a white blazer and serving up even more awesome stand-up comedy that wasn't in the feature. For a third stand-up act on the disc, Peters also dishes a commentary track for this one, too. The great thing is that all of the extras feature new and different material without redundancies.
So, why does Russell Peters get away with his style of racial comedy yet some comedians can't? Because he's funny about it, that's all. And damn, funny. If you can take a joke, this is as good as it gets with stand-up on DVD.
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