Shirley Q. Liquor
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Shirley Q. Liquor is a satirical comic persona created by Lexington, Kentucky, resident Chuck Knipp.
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[edit] Overview
Knipp, a female impersonator, portrays "Shirley Q." as an African American woman. Knapp performs in "shabby drag" and blackface.
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 primarily Southern radio stations in the United States.
Knipp has performed with Tracy Morgan, formerly of Saturday Night Live. He has also appeared on a RuPaul CD, introducing several of the musical selections.
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.
[edit] Summary of character
Shirley often addresses people by saying, "How you durrin'?" Knipp speaks in what is perceived by many as ghetto Black speech, when he is performing as Shirley, and her conversations are often riddled with malaprops, as when she suggests that her cat needs to get "sprayed", or when she goes shopping at "K-Mark" or 'Wal-mark".
Other references to the character of Shirley Q. Liquor in skits:
- The character attends Mount Holy Olive Second Baptist Zion Church of God in Christ of Resurrected Latter-Days AME CME (a comical stereotype of African-American churches). She can be heard making constant notice of the loud-colored hats worn therein and spreading church gossip. 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.
- She has held down several jobs, including telemarketer, movie theatre employee, food service employee at the Shrimp Shack, hotel switchboard operator, presenter at a planetarium, radio announcer, flight attendant for Ebonics Airways, and volunteer at a nursing home.
- Her 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.
[edit] Betty Butterfield
Knipp spun off a new character in 2003: "Betty Butterfield" a large southern white woman in search of a church. 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.
[edit] Controversy
[edit] Protests
In 2002, a group of protesters picketed a sold-out New York City performance, protesting Knipp's performance as ignorant, racist and/or misogynist. The protests caused the engagement to end prematurely. There were additional protests in 2005, when an appearance by the Shirley Q. Liquor character was slated to take place during celebrations for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
There have also been a number of articles in media that have taken issue with Knipp and the character. The consistent theme of the media coverage centers around the fact that Knipp is in blackface, which has negative historical connotations, and that the comedy bits are perceived to be stereotypical in the extreme. [1]
[edit] Defense
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."
Entertainer RuPaul has supported Knipp's performances. RuPaul has said that "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." [2]
