NOAH publicly—and unsuccessfully— petitioned the Da Vinci Code filmmakers not to make the movie's villainous monk character an albino, as he is in the book. Varnado tried out for the part, which went to non-albino actor Paul Bettany. Varnado says he never saw the entire film script, but had he been offered the part and found it degrading, he wouldn't have taken it.
"I don't think there's anything I can do that will not offend somebody in the albinism community," he says. "I even get hate mail because of the name of my website, bestalbino.com—which is a joke.
photo: Rafael Fuchs
Beyond the pale: life onstage as a white black man.
"People want me to speak on their behalf, which I would, if I really felt strongly about some thing. But the people who usually reach out to you are the people who are kind of overboard."
Nonetheless, he says he hopes to improve the way both blacks and albinos are perceived in the media. "I'm trying to be intelligent, to be funny and do more than what people expect," he says.
photo: Rafael Fuchs |
Varnado's stage presence has evolved. On Premium Blend in 2003 he rocked spectacles, gym shoes, and rolled-up shirtsleeves, slowly and awkwardly shuffling around the stage. For Conan last year he lost the glasses and sported a trendy green jacket. Now he wears whatever the hell he wants, and swaggers through joke after cringe-worthy joke.
"Sometimes it takes me awhile to realize that something is actually racist. I used to love the show Super Friends when I was little, and they had this character named Black Lightning. Black Lightning was a black superhero with 'black' at the front of his name—which I think is a little wrong," he told a small crowd of open-minded-looking hipsters congregating at Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction last month.
"I'm sure when he showed up he probably said, 'Hey, Superman, you got some super powers; they call you Superman. That guy looks like a bat; they call him Batman. I can shoot lightning out of my hands—I should be Lightning Man!' Superman responds, 'You've got a choice: You can be Black Lightning—or Niggatron. Take your pick. Anything you want, kid!' "
The hipsters ate it up. Who knows why some jokes work and some fail—in Varnado's case, one thing is clear, however: Racism is an absolute gas.
"Recently, somebody told me this horrible stereotype, that all Chinese people know kung fu," started a joke he told on Comedy Central's Premium Blend. "And I disempower stereotypes whenever I get the chance, so for the past six weeks I've been fighting the Chinese. And what I've found is that not all Chinese people know kung fu. But most of them will hit you anyway, because, let's face it, Chinese people are very irritable. Irritable people!
"Some people hear that joke and say, 'Victor, I'm disappointed in you, because you said you hate stereotypes, but you made this horrible stereotype.' That's what people have said, but most of those people are Haitians, so whatever! C'mon. Who listens to Haitians, right?"
And then he puts his hand to his forehead and raises two fingers, forming demonic horns, and laughs like Satan. And the audience nearly falls out of their chairs.
