“Thinking White”: Performing Racial Tension in Blue Collar

By most accounts, as Paul Schrader’s first film as director, Blue Collar was a tension-filled production with the three leading actors coming to blows on multiple occasions. This chapter, will explore the performance styles of Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto, and Richard Pryor with particular focus paid to the latter’s identity as a stand-up comic and movie star during the mid- to late- 1970s. Through casting Pryor, Schrader does not fundamentally alter this comic persona but rather captures a dramatic variation of it, employing it as a defying signifier against the midcentury “realist” acting styles of Keitel and Kotto, who both trained on the New York stage. Through a fostering and challenging of Pryor’s persona and style, Schrader produces a tension between his performers that feels acutely aware of the comedian’s “territorialized” black identity as well as his ability to challenge racial boundaries through his humor. The contrasting styles of Keitel, Kotto, and Pryor provide a dramatic tension attuned to the complicated racial conflicts found in the more integrated work spaces of the 1970s.