Chuck Knipp
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Chuck Knipp, a white male comedian, performs in blackface as Shirley Q. Liquor |
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| Born: | |
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| Occupation: | actor, comedian |
| Website: | Shirley Q. Liquor |
Chuck Knipp is an American drag comedian best known for his controversial alter ego, Shirley Q. Liquor.
Knipp is a minister of the Quaker Universalist Fellowship and a member of the American Association of Professional Chaplains. He was ordained to the Diaconate in 1997 by a bishop of the Friends Catholic Communion. His special ministries are to same-sex couples, those in prison, and those undergoing terminal illness.
Knipp is a registered nurse with extensive background in emergency, intensive care and psychiatric nursing. After attending the University of Texas and Ole Miss, he graduated from Lamar University in 1984. He is currently employed in pastoral hospice and chemical dependency nursing.
Knipp is a citizen of both the United States and Canada, active in the ACLU and Libertarian Party and was nominated as their candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000. (Texas, District 2). He is a commissioned notary public at large for the State of Kentucky
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[edit] Summary of characters
[edit] Shirley Q. Liquor
Knipp's best known character is Shirley Q. Liquor, which is based on his experience with and interpretation of a certain subgroup of black southern woman. Knipp performs the character - an illiterate, welfare-collecting mother of 19 children[1] - in dark body and face makeup, also known as blackface. Knipp speaks in what is perceived by many as offensive "ghetto" or "Black" speech when he is performing as Shirley. Her conversations are often riddled with malapropisms, as when she suggests that her cat needs to get "sprayed", or when she goes shopping at "K-Mark" or 'Wal-Mark". The character attends Mount Holy Olive Second Baptist Zion Church of God in Christ of Resurrected Latter-Days AME CME (a reference to historically African-American churches). She also references the Macademia Jubilation Congregation and the Reese's Peanut Butter Choir. On a few skits, she refers to herself as The Reverend Doctor Shirley Q. Liquor.
Liquor's best friend is the seven-foot-tall, 400 pound Watusi Jenkins, who struggles with mental illness and needs to get "her head shocked" on a regular basis. Jenkins is a fan of Barry White as well as soap operas, which she refers to as "stories". She is a fan of cold malt liquor and menthol cigarettes. Jenkins usually appears in "Happy Hour" skits which mimic a radio broadcast.
In addition to live performances, Knipp has produced several spoken-word CDs. Knipp's "Daily Ignunce" morning radio routine, usually 90 seconds long, is syndicated and heard on radio stations throughout the United States. Most recently, the character of Shirley Q. Liquor made an appearance in cartoon form on the pilot episode of Laugh Out. Laugh Out is the world's first interactive, gay-themed comedy show.Shirley often addresses people by saying, "How you durrin'?"
[edit] Betty Butterfield
Knipp spun off a new character in 1998: "Betty Butterfield" a large, drug addled, church hopping southern white woman. Butterfield's character was first referenced in a Shirley Q Liquor skit entitled "Telemarketing" in which Liquor mimics the sound of a white woman answering the phone: "m'hello?"
This greeting would become the trademark of Butterfield's routine. Unlike most Liquor skits, which are audio, virtually all of the Butterfield skits are in the Quicktime video format. Betty Butterfield is most likely be found discussing her never-ending search for a church she can fit into. She has visited Mormon, Catholic, Pentcostal, Episcopal, Buddhist, and even Scientology churches, none of which were to her liking. Chain smoking throughout, Betty is likely to burst into tears at any moment as she discusses her church escapades, need for better prescriptions, and her abusive double-amputee, Vietnam veteran husband, Jerry. Knipp frequently performs his live shows first as Betty Butterfield, then as Shirley Q. Liquor.
[edit] Controversy
[edit] Protests & Cancellations
- In 2002, a group of protesters picketed a sold-out New York City performance at the View, a gay club in the Chelsea neighborhood. Later that year, an appearance in Boston which was scheduled for October 18th was canceled. [2] "I understand that the protesters thought that I might be going to do some sort of horrible offensive racist minstrel show,” Knipp said to the Daily Free Press, a publication of Boston University. “I just wish they’d seen it first and made up their own minds.”[3]
- In 2004, Knipp was removed from the Divas Rock Atlanta concert following protests from gay non-profit groups. [4] “I know the purpose of the event is to try to bring the community together," said Linda Ellis, executive director of the Atlanta Lesbian Cancer Initiative, "but there is nothing about [Knipp’s] performance that brings people together."
- In 2005, another New York protest occurred when appearance by the Shirley Q. Liquor character was slated to take place during celebrations for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. This time, the protest would be prove to be successful; Knipp did not do the show.[5]
- In 2006, Knipp was banned from Eastern Kentucky University [6].
- In 2007, Jasmyne Cannick, an African-American and gay rights activist, spearheaded a campaign against Liquor's act, encouraging nightclub owners to cancel Knipp's act. Cannick's movement brought nationwide attention to an underground act, and Knipp's act was canceled West Hollywood[7], Hartford, Conn.[8], and the Gay Mardi Gras[9] in New Orleans, all in the same month. CircuiTicket, which was selling tickets to Knipp's show, countered by posting Cannick's e-mail address and home telephone number to their website, encouraging Liquor fans to contact Cannick.
[edit] Criticism
Since the 2007 boycott, there have been a number of articles in media that have taken issue with Knipp and the character.
- To Knipp's declaration that Liquor "was created in celebration of, not to downgrade, black women,"[10], Cannick countered in her blog: "...it is not possible for Charles Knipp, a white man, to help heal years of mistreatment and racism at the hands of his people by putting on a wig, speaking Ebonics, and in blackface...There is nothing remotely uplifting about Knipp’s act and I wish people would stop defending his character with the tired argument that he’s trying to heal the nation. The only thing Knipp is trying to heal is the hole in his pocket from all of the money he makes off of degrading Black people."[11]
- BET.com writer Jennifer Daniels wrote: "I have [no] intention of slinking off into some corner while some pseudo-bigot paints his face black and gets rich off spewing hurtful and embarrassing stereotypes about Black women...Knipp is free to celebrate Black women his way. That is certainly his right. But I have a right to publicly critique said celebration and encourage others not to participate."[12] Daniels offered Knipp an interview with BET to set the record straight about his Shirley Q. Liquor character, but Knipp declined to participate. [13] Cannick has also challenged Knipp to a public debate, saying, "He never fights his own battles, he has to send in RuPaul to do that for him. Anyway, he's been called out, let's see if he answers." As of April 2007, such a debate has not occurred.[14]
- Shortly after the cancellation of Knipp's Hartford, Conn. show, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Helen Ubiñas of the Hartford Courant wrote of Liquor apologists: "Racist? Sexist? Homophobic? Absolutely not, come their defensive apologies; just a little harmless satire."[15]
[edit] Defense
- Entertainer RuPaul has long been a fan and supporter of Knipp. "Critics who think that Shirley Q. Liquor is offensive are idiots. Listen, I've been discriminated against by everybody in the world: gay people, black people, whatever. I know discrimination, I know racism, I know it very intimately. She's not racist, and if she were, she wouldn't be on my new CD." [16] In her blog, RuPaul adds: "I am very sensitive to issues of racism, sexism and discrimination. I am a gay black man, who started my career as a professional transvestite in georgia, twenty years ago."[17]
- Boston Phoenix journalist Dan Kennedy awarded Boston government official Jerome Smith the dubious Muzzle Award for his part in leading to the cancellation of Knipp's scheduled 2004 Boston performance.[18]
- Writer David Holthouse, of the "Intelligence Report" from the Southern Poverty Law Center, has stated "Knipp is not a white supremacist" and that Knipp "invites the audience to sympathise with a single Black mother." An in-depth article is due soon in Rolling Stone Magazine.
- The New York Blade criticized GLAAD for condemning Knipp, stating, "We commend GLAAD for condemning racism, but we question whether the organization’s goal is best attained by joining this particular fight."[19]
- John Strausbaugh, author of Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture, defends Liquor's act in his book.
Knipp concedes that his performances as Shirley can make people uncomfortable. Knipp has said his show is about "lancing the boil of institutionized racism" and that "treating African Americans as if they have a disease is the real racism" because black people are "more than intelligent enough to discern the nuance" of his performances. He's also said that "many people thought that Harriet Beecher-Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was and still is perceived as racist, despite being the probable artistic genesis of emotional support against slavery in the 19th century."
[edit] Trivia
- Knipp was a friend and confidant of the murdered Atheist leader Dr. Madalyn Murray O'Hair
- Was roommate with Nicholas West, murdered in Tyler, Texas in an infamous hate-crime in 1992
- graduated high school with future adult film star Tom Byron West-Orange Stark High School Class of 1979
- Member of the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center's "Teaching Tolerance" program
- Member, American Association of Professional Chaplains
- Member, registered clergy of "Center for Progressive Christianity"
- Member Quaker Universalist Fellowship, Quaker Universalist Group (U.K.)
- Survived both Loma Prieta earthquake and Hurricane Katrina
- Active in the Episcopalian Church (ECUSA)
- Knipp's act was started in the livingroom of his shared apartment using his room mate and friend Trinity Ridgeway and a telephone answering machine.
