Bigger & Blacker
HBO · 1999 · 65 min
A loud argument for pricing bullets and relying on Robitussin.
Chris Rock solves gun violence with economics. By pricing bullets at five thousand dollars a piece, he argues, shooters would be forced to budget for their grudges and innocent bystanders would survive. It is the kind of aggressive, left-field logic that defined his late-nineties run, delivered at a near-shout while pacing the stage in black leather. He takes heavy societal problems and strips them down to an absurd but unarguable core.\n\nFilmed at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in 1999, the set arrived when Rock was highly visible. He was three years removed from Bring the Pain, hosting his own HBO talk show, and picking up roles in studio movies. While a few contemporary critics felt the hour lacked the absolute novelty of his previous outing, the material still caught on. The set leans heavily into specific childhood memories, notably a frantic sequence about Robitussin serving as a cheap medical treatment for everything from asthma to broken bones. He also spends time on the dynamics of aging out of the club, men settling down out of sheer exhaustion, and the domestic politics surrounding the big piece of chicken. It is a high-volume, tightly structured performance from a comic who knows exactly how to work a large room.
The set list
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Gun control via bullet pricing
Argues that gun violence would end if bullets cost $5,000 each, forcing shooters to consider whether victims are worth the expenditure.
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Fear of teenage white boys post-Columbine
Riffs on fleeing an elevator when two white teenagers entered, mocking media inquiries into the killers' entertainment choices instead of simply recognizing insanity.
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The lack of money in medical cures
Asserts that diseases like AIDS will never be cured because pharmaceutical profits lie in ongoing treatments rather than eradication, comparing drug companies to street dealers.
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White privilege and trading places
Observes that despite their complaints, not even the poorest white man or a one-legged busboy would ever trade places with a rich Black man.
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Robitussin as a cure-all
Reminisces about his father using Robitussin as a universal remedy for any ailment, even a broken leg.
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Male fidelity
Asserts bluntly that a man is only as faithful as his options.
How it plays
- Tone
- Brutally honest, irreverent, angry, provocative, and raucous.
- On stage
- Dressed in a black leather suit, presenting as a fiery, razor-sharp, blunt, and unapologetic satirist delivering social commentary.
- Pace
- Frantic, high-energy momentum characterized by stalking back and forth across the stage, shouting, and vocal shrieks for comedic emphasis.
- About
- gun control, racism and white privilege, relationships and infidelity, health care and pharmaceutical cures, youth violence and school shootings, parenting and fathers
What the critics said
Widely praised by critics as an outrageously funny, razor-sharp, and brilliant hour of observational satire, though some noted it was angrier, coarser, and slightly less revelatory than 'Bring the Pain'.
In the room: Enthusiastic and responsive with a superb rapport between Rock and the Apollo Theater crowd.
Backstory
Late 1990s American cultural climate marked by the Columbine High School shooting, Clinton presidential sex scandal, and national debates on race, health care, and gun control.
Details
- Released
- Taped
- Apollo Theater, Harlem
- Runtime
- 65 min
- Where
- HBO
- Director
- Keith Truesdell
- Honors
- Winner, Best Spoken Comedy Album (2000 Grammy Awards)Nominated for 6 Primetime Emmy Awards
- Topics
- Before
- Roll with the New (1997)
- After
- Never Scared (2004)
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Selective Outrage
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Tamborine
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Never Scared
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