5:30 - 7:30
Author, Dr. Artel Great (SFSU), takes us behind the scenes of Hollywood to detail the untold story of how five comedic pioneers: Eddie Murphy, Paul Mooney, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Robert Townsend, and Arsenio Hall, joined forces in the late 1980s to form a comedy supergroup known as "The Black Pack." Together, they created a series of socially and politically charged films and TV shows that revolutionized popular culture and changed the face of American comedy.
This event will provide an insightful look at the Black Pack's signature comedic style, politics, aesthetics, and the cultural impact that led to some of the most profitable, provocative, and enduring Black films and TV shows of the 20th century, including classics like Coming to America, In Living Color, Hollywood Shuffle, Boomerang, The Five Heartbeats, and The Arsenio Hall Show.
Dr. Artel Great is a leading cinema and media scholar, Independent Spirit Award-nominated filmmaker, and cultural critic whose work examines the politics, poetics, and possibilities of Black life onscreen. He is the author of the landmark book The Black Pack: Comedy, Race, and Resistance (Rutgers University Press, 2025) and co-editor of Black Cinema & Visual Culture: Art and Politics in the 21st Century (Routledge, 2023). He holds the George and Judy Marcus Endowed Chair in African American Cinema Studies and is Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at San Francisco State University.