Ya done messed up, A-A-Ron

January 31, 2021 2:49 AM

An oral history of Key and Peele's Substitute Teacher (EW). Keegan-Michael Key on the perfect metaphor for improv and how it works for Substitute Teacher. Previously.
posted by adrianhon (18 comments total)

I have always loved this sketch for its racial satire, which Key touches on a little in the video. I grew up watching my Black classmates belittled and insulted for their names by white teachers, especially but not exclusively white substitute teachers. Honestly, I grew up watching my Black classmates belittled and insulted by white and Black teachers for all kinds of things, treated in ways that were overwhelmingly different from how white kids in the same classrooms were treated. Seeing the turnabout, seeing a Black teacher treat the white kids as white (and sometimes Black) teachers actually treat Black kids every day in classrooms all over the US was revelatory for me as a 30-something the first time I saw it.

All that said, the main effect of this sketch on the modern world seems to be on people named Aaron.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:12 AM on January 31, 2021 [30 favorites]

Satire often shines a light on some very uncomfortable truths. Should we laugh at this scenario today? It's so hard not to, because the actors are so committed to the sketch. Key and Peele are as always, brilliant. It's objectively funny. But is it so funny, too many people miss the point? Watching it now, I can't approach it as I did when it first aired (2012). It feels wrong to react as I may have in the past. Not sure how I feel about this now. I really wish the article had focused more on what the creators think about this sketch through today's lens. It feels like a missed opportunity for some insightful commentary.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:22 AM on January 31, 2021 [4 favorites]

I'm so happy to see all the actors who played the students be identified and interviewed. My favorite moment is when Shelby Fero screws up her mouth before finally giving in to "D-nice". It is so perfect.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:24 AM on January 31, 2021 [7 favorites]

As someone whose first name (two syllables, spelled phonetically) is consistently mispronounced by white people who don't even bother to ask, and who now intentionally mispronounces her last name for white people because I'm tired of dealing with it, I love this sketch. I laughed at in 2012, I laugh at it in 2021, because if anything, the vibes of "you don't know when a people in power is going to go off the rails" has gotten even truer-to-life in the last 5 years.

(Also, what's with this trend of interviews being relabeled oral histories? Is this like the archive thing from a few FPPs ago?)
posted by basalganglia at 6:32 AM on January 31, 2021 [26 favorites]

this just got me in an hour-long replay of my favourite k&p sketches. god bless eccentric global rights management, because i didn't even know who they were, but for a while they were available on comedy central from my IP address, and that's how I just decided to check this new show, sight unseen.
posted by cendawanita at 7:57 AM on January 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

It's objectively funny. But is it so funny, too many people miss the point?

I'm not sure "objectively funny" is a thing 🙃but I'd prefer that racists see this sketch and think it's hilarious even if they don't "see" the underlying social commentary vs. them not seeing and enjoying the work of black creators.

Some people who see this will make the connection that they're Substitute Teacher when it comes to race, gender, etc., and IMO that's a growth moment right there.
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 9:09 AM on January 31, 2021 [3 favorites]

> All that said, the main effect of this sketch on the modern world seems to be on people named Aaron.

Just last night I welcomed a friend of mine to an online meetup with a joyful "A-a-ron!!!"
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:14 AM on January 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

PSA: If you, like me, got into K&P through lengthy YouTube binges instead of watching it on TV, you'll be thrilled to know that their dormant YouTube channel had started regularly uploading TV-only sketches. I used to think they were so good because they posted their best bits online and that the rest of the show would be more hit-and-miss like other sketch comedies, but it's consistently solid stuff.
posted by Rhaomi at 9:22 AM on January 31, 2021 [8 favorites]

All that said, the main effect of this sketch on the modern world seems to be on people named Aaron.

Indeed, as someone with that name, it's a good thing I love Key & Peele, love that sketch, and am ok with that nickname because man is it inescapable and long-lived. If a person wasn't cool with it it could get really old really fast. And I do like how it highlights the disconnect between the spelling and pronunciation in English because it's weird and I'd noticed it since I was a kid but that sketch really put a flag on that, as well as other "weird" name spellings like Jacqueline. Names that are only "weird" because of their history, and only not-weird because of their integration into the presumed normal.
posted by traveler_ at 9:45 AM on January 31, 2021 [2 favorites]

Just last night I welcomed a friend of mine to an online meetup with a joyful "A-a-ron!!!"

Although I have always liked Key and Peele when I have encountered their videos online, I have never actually seen the show and I think I saw the substitute teacher bit once years ago and had almost totally forgotten about it.

All this to say that I never really knew why my coworker Aaron is so often referred to — including by Aaron himself — as A-A-Ron, and now I’m wondering if (as he is in Toronto) if The Card Cheat knows the same guy. Tall fellow, greying beard?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:07 AM on January 31, 2021

TIL that the sketch has a sequel, which gets into extracurricular activities.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:27 PM on January 31, 2021 [4 favorites]

It's interesting to me to contrast "Substitute Teacher" with another Key & Peele sketch, "East/West College Bowl" (a sketch Key mentions in the "oral history" article link.)

Both sketches rely on names for their humor but "East/West College Bowl" makes me uncomfortable with its piling on, while "Substitute Teacher" works for me. I think I've figured out that it's the conclusion of "Substitute Teacher" that keeps it from being too much. Most of my ancestors immigrated from Ireland and perhaps for that reason I love the choice of "O-Shaq-Hennessy" for the climactic name misapprehension -- because it's a great choice to underline how the names mainstream white American society accepts as "normal" are just as culturally specific and arbitrary as any others that haven't already been assimilated..
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:05 PM on January 31, 2021 [6 favorites]

Halloween Jack: "TIL that the sketch has a sequel, which gets into extracurricular activities."

Don't sleep on MR. NOSTRAND.
posted by Rhaomi at 2:11 PM on January 31, 2021 [2 favorites]

Hi, I had been subbing for a long time when this sketch came out and oh god I love it and also oh god it hurts. Calling roll can really be the worst. I always tried to be respectful and ask how they preferred it, but that can turn into a shark tank, too.

I'm still trying to imagine a high school class that would actually be cowed by that kind of open intimidation, because someone will always call you on it. But it makes the comedy work.

As a substitute teacher, this sketch made me feel seen and also roasted at the same time.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:15 PM on January 31, 2021 [7 favorites]

My last name is Rea. It’s pronounced Ray. Not one teacher got it right without prompting. Once I mused to my friends, ‘thank God my first name isn’t Dia.’ And lo, I became Dia Rea among my friends for some time. Even my law school crim law prof got it wrong, which amused him greatly

I was never amused tho and I’m Irish; this sketch amuses me greatly, but I do wonder what my reaction would be were I not whitey
posted by angrycat at 2:24 PM on January 31, 2021 [2 favorites]

When my students tried saying names wrong in my classes I said with emphasis, "Don't ever call anyone out of their name, because that's what bullies do." I used to say the same thing to my middle school teaching colleagues when they thought kids' names were funny (oh, yes, African American kids had it the worst, but a common name in Pakistan is often spelled Butt). I always asked my students to tell me how to pronounce their names, and I would work hard on doing it right.

Yes, I have a dog in the fight. That's because I have a (conventionally spelled, Anglo-Saxon) first name that people always mispronounce when they encounter it.

I love this sketch so much, ever since the first time it aired.
posted by Peach at 5:54 PM on January 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

> Honestly, I grew up watching my Black classmates belittled and insulted by white and Black teachers for all kinds of things, treated in ways that were overwhelmingly different from how white kids in the same classrooms were treated.

Me too. I will never forget the high school French teacher who needed some heavy stacks of books moved, and called on the three Black male students in the room to do it.

That is what makes this sketch so good. We laugh because "the tables have turned", but then we ask: why did I find this so funny? Isn't this what many students really experience? It feels exaggerated to absurdity, but just how exaggerated is it, really?

I think this sketch taught a lot of people a subtle but deep lesson about racism, myself included.
posted by scose at 7:10 PM on January 31, 2021 [3 favorites]

When the singer Nate Dogg died a few years ago, I eulogized him on Facebook by asking what you’ve called your friend Nathan since 1993. His legacy is that they’re all Nate Doggs now. This sketch did the same thing for Aarons. There are no Aarons anymore, only A-A-rons. The name Aaron literally goes back to the time of Moses, and K&P replaced it in one sketch. It’s hard to believe something can still have that kind of cultural impact in the 2010s. This is the antithesis of the long tail.

Oh and it’s still quite funny.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:11 PM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]