Key and Peele: Aliens Don’t See Color
Aliens have invaded Earth, and they don’t understand racism.
In September of 2014, the season-four premiere of Key and Peele aired and featured a comedy sketch called “Alien Imposters.” It paved the way to the more professional and cinematic Key and Peele that we know today. The majority of humor in this sketch comes from plays on racial stereotypes, specifically between whites and blacks. There are lots of stereotypes present in this sketch, especially considering that the duration of the sketch is under three minutes.
The intro, or premise, of the video portrays an apocalyptic setting in which the aliens have invaded the Earth — or at least the United States. The stage setting looks top notch, like the set of a real film. In the beginning of the sketch, there are two black men (Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele) patrolling the area with guns, trying to keep an eye out for aliens.
The first extra character to show themselves to Key and Peele is a redneck who is wearing a small Confederate flag on his hat. He tells Key and Peele about a community of survivors, and welcomes them to join. Without any visual signs of doubt or uncertainty, Peele shoots the redneck multiple times, revealing an alien in disguise. Key asks Peele how he knew it was an alien, and Peele says, “Come on, a redneck wants us to move into his community? Us?”
There are several different stereotypes in this sketch, which help Key and Peele decide who is an alien and who is not. The aliens can perfectly disguise their looks, and can speak the English language fluently, but they don’t understand racism or racial stereotyping. A writer for the sketch, Phil Augusta Jackson said that if aliens did actually invade the Earth, “they wouldn’t know the nuances of how people get labeled and stereotypes that exist.” Peele catches on to the aliens’ weakness when they meet the open-minded redneck.
The second extra character looks like a typical white business man, except he is way too excited to see a couple of black men pointing their guns towards him. Key, being cautious, asks the man “Would you let me date your daughter?” The man enthusiastically replies yes, which gets him shot just as plainly as the first alien. This is a very widely known stereotype of white fathers, to not let their daughters date men who are not white. Even if this wasn’t about race, it would be obvious something was wrong, because most fathers would never be that happy about their daughter dating anyone.
Hearing the gunshot for the previous alien, a young white woman, played by Courtney Pauroso, comes running. Without any hesitation, she starts explaining how not-racist she is so she will not be shot. Key and Peele decide that the woman can tag along with them. When she tells them that her name is Emily, Key and Peele simultaneously say, “Of course it is.”
The group of three continue on and come across a black man, played by Damion Poitier, trying to get their attention. When asked his opinion on the police, he responds “Well, I loved their third album.” The man, or alien, genuinely thought he was being asked about The Police, a band of white Englishmen from the 1980s. Peele was expecting a negative answer about the policemen, as many human black men have a negative view of the police force.
The writers of Key and Peele definitely do their research and pay close attention to detail when writing the jokes for the show. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that the police’s third album, Zenyatta Mondatta, has been ranked as the worst of all their albums by Ultimate Classic Rock. It was also the only one of their albums that didn’t get a spot on the Rolling Stones list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Which only makes the aliens comment about the third album all the more amusing.
After they shoot the alien posing as a police-loving black man, they see an elderly white man with a cane walking by. The old man, played by Frank Birney, sees the two black men with guns and becomes scared. “I don’t have any money!” he yells and begins to run away. Key and Peele both look disappointed, but continue moving anyway. There is no way they could chase after the old man and help him, because sadly, he seems to be more afraid of the black men than of the alien invaders.
The conclusion of this sketch is centered around one man, who is definitely not an alien. He is an extremely racist, rich white man, played by Joey Kern, who sees the group and assumes that Key and Peele are valets. He gives them instructions to carefully pull his silver Lexus to the front for him, and to make sure not to scuff the paint. After the man throws his car keys to Key, Key decides to shoot the man anyway.
We know that this man is not alien because when shot, his blood is red. Unlike the other “people” whose blood was bright green, and transformed into aliens immediately after being shot. Emily asks if that man was an alien too, and they assure her that he was one, as to not upset her. Key and Peele clearly knew that this man was not an alien because after Key shot him, they gave a nod of justification to each other.
Key and Peele have definitely set the bar high for comedy sketches, whether dealing with race or anything else. David Sims from The Atlantic says that the show “excell[s] at finding laughter in otherwise seemingly humorless topics — slavery, suicide, terrorist attacks.” Racism normally isn’t anything to laugh at, but Key and Peele find ways to make the racism and racist stereotypes in their sketches hilarious. Even though there was a dark message told in this skit, the comedic aspect of the stereotypes in this sketch offsets it and gives it a good balance.
