Crossing The Line: Multiracial Comedians
Educational Edition: Completed, and available for purchase! See information below.

This is the first of a four part series with the Crossing The Line title. Starting in 2008, look for:
Crossing The Line: Politicians
Crossing The Line: Shock Jocks
Crossing The Line: Rock & Rap

Produced by:
• Emmy-Award winner, comedian/performer, and Professor of Media, Teja Arboleda, MEd
• Ethnic Studies Professor, Darby Li Po Price, PhD

An introduction to this documentary

Freedom of Speech:
Where are the limits? Who get’s to say what ? The N-word, Race, Bigotry, Power, Freedom, Denial, Pain...Healing.

The day we arrived in LA to begin shooting this documentary, TV's Seinfeld star Michael Richards lost his cool to hecklers and retaliated with the 'N' word. In today's world of race-relations, immigration and entertainment, the ultimate question is: where is the line, and who can cross it?

In the midst of heated debates over racial and ethnic identity, Americans consider the choice - to give up ethnic designations, or celebrate co-existing diversity. Caught in the cross--fire are millions of bi-racial and multiracial Americans. Competing against the maintstream on all counts, humorists and comedians provide meaningful insight into what really divides us.

From the research of Dr. Darby LiPo Price, and multiracial comedian/Producer/Director Teja Arboleda, comes this fascinating discovery of comedy, from the perspective of multiracial/bi-racial comedians.

This full length documentary analyzes how mixed race comedians mediate multiracial identities and humor. Crossing lines of racial, ethnic, and cultural acceptability by their very existence, multiracial comedians reveal that meanings of race vary across ethnic combination, gender, place, and time.

The film features the experiences, perspectives, and performances of American comedians of more than one racial ancestry--Sunda Croonquist (Swedish/African), Kate Rigg (Indonesian/Australian/Canadian/Nuyorasian), James Connolly (Mexican/ Irish), Mark Yaffee (Navajo/Mexican/Scots-Irish), among others.

Internationally acclaimed performer Rain Pryor, (daughter of Richard Pryor) plays an important role in this film, offering personal perspectives on these unique challenges. Dr. Randall Kennedy, Harvard Law School professor, and author of Nigger, a prominet NYC comedy club owner, a psychotherapist specializing in multiraciality, NBC Universal's Director of Diversity, and others contribute with their own perspectives of where the line is, or whether it exists.

The film is based on Dr. Darby Li Po Price's dissertation Mixed Laughter: Mediating Multiracial Identities in American Ethnic Comedy.

The timeliness of multiracial comedians' roles as crossracial mediators is underscored as they provide insight into controversies over how comedians express race (i.e., Michael Richards' use of the N-word, Rosie O' Donnell's slurs), and other debated meanings of race in an increasingly diverse society. Exploring these questions exposes the very nature of where pain and laughter come from in a racially divided world.