Dave Chappelle: The Petronius of Our Time

Petronius gets credit for being the first author to use speech patterns to convey information (and probably judgements) about social class. But to get a sense of how nuanced that conversation between performer and audience can be, check out this Inside the Actor's Studio interview with Dave Chappelle:

Chappelle has mastered representing different social strata through dialogue. He uses syntax, lexical choice, and pronunciation (all the same tools as Petronius) to convey a great deal about the background of a character--and in doing so he makes us think about how we judge people. (Though the discussion of speech starts around seven minutes in, the earlier parts of the interview contextualize the discussion.)

What I find most interesting is the fact that Dave's discussion of race is not simple (witness the limo-in-the-ghetto scene). He's not just judging white (or black) characters for their dialect; he's challenging you to consider your own habits of judgement. Was Petronius doing that? Maybe.

It's true that the freedmen characters are sent up as half-educated and tasteless, but let's not forget that the urbane characters are sent up as pretentious and self-important. Trimalchio is focused on displaying his wealth, but the professors are focused on displaying their learning. Neither actually uses their advantage (money, education) for anything substantive; both are focused on stylish display. We know that the attack on the orators in the opening fragments is simultaneously an attack on the people who judge them by superficial criteria (in this case the parents who judge orators positively for stupid reasons are the target). Could the use of 'low' speech by freedmen be intended to criticize the reader's habits of negative judgement?