My Opinion: Many People In The United States Wouldn't Consider The Character "Emanuella" Funny If Those Nigerian Comedy Skits That She Is Featured In Were Known In This Country

MarkAngelComedy, Dec 4, 2015  #MarkAngel #Emanuella #MarkAngelComedy

This FUNNY VIDEO is da bomb. my mum has been laughing since yesterday. Emmanuella the little girl in this video is a clown
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Total views as of September 15, 2023 - 7,924,253
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Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest revision- September 17, 2023

This pancocojams post showcases ten YouTube videos of Nigerian business man, writer, actor, comedian Mark Angel's comedy skits that feature Emanuella Samuel playing the character "Emanuella".

This post presents some information about Mark Angel and Emmanuella Samuel.

This pancocojams post also presents my opinion about why I don't consider many of Nigerian Mark Angel's comedy videos featuring the child character Emanuella to be funny and why I think that many other Americans also don't consider them funny (or wouldn't consider them to be funny (if they were familiar with those comedy videos)

The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the Mark Angel and Emanuella Samuel for these videos. Thanks to the cast of the Mark Angel videos and thanks to all those who are or have been associated with the videos,Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post.
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This pancocojams post focuses on the child character "Emanuella"* in Mark Angel's comedy skits rather than the actress Emanuella Samuel herself or the character that Emanuella Samuel plays as a teenager in Mark Angel's comedy skits.  

The name "Emanuella" is spelled that way in Emanuella Samuel's Instagram account and her Facebook page. However, that name is spelled "Emmanuella" in Wikipedia and in other online sites.

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INFORMATION ABOUT MARK ANGEL COMEDY SKITS
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Angel_(comedian)
"Mark Angel (born 27 May 1991) is a Nigerian comedian, scriptwriter, and video producer. He is best known for the Mark Angel Comedy series of shorts on YouTube, often featuring child comedians such as his cousin, Emmanuella Samuel (age 13),[2] his niece,[3] and her cousin "Aunty" Success Madubuike (age 8). Angel's YouTube channel was the first African comedy channel to reach one million subscribers

[...]

Early and personal life

Angel was born in 1991 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.[5] He attended Obafemi Awolowo University to study medicine, but left for family reasons. After college, he studied cinematography in India[6] and spent time in Nigeria gaining experience in cinematography and theater, but could not find stable paying work in Nollywood.[citation needed] He began independent filmmaking in 2013 under his studio, Mechanic Pictures

[...]

Mark Angel Comedy

Angel is best known for Mark Angel Comedy, a series of YouTube comedy shorts that feature a number of people from Angel's family and neighborhood in Port Harcourt. Many of the shorts involve children, primarily Emmanuella[9] and Success.[10]

Angel's first well known short is "Oga Landlord,"[citation needed] wherein a man late on rent (Angel) is trying to hide from his landlord (Daddy Humble), and tries in vain to have a child (Emmanuella) cover for him (e.g. "My uncle is not around. He just told me.").[11]

Emmanuella is Angel's longest-appearing actress. She has won comedy awards in Nigeria and Australia for her work with Angel,[12] and is Africa's youngest YouTube award winner.[13] She started film work in school as part of a class video project prior to being chosen by Angel for his stable of actors.[2] Videos starring her often reach up to a million views in the first week after posting.[14]

Mark Angel Comedy received a plaque from YouTube for having reached one million subscriptions in 2017. It was the first Nigerian-based YouTube channel to reach that threshold.[15]"...
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Online articles provide different opinions about whether Mark Angel is Emmanuel Samuel's uncle, or cousin, or no relations at all. 

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MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE ACTRESS EMANUELLA SAMUEL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuella
"Emmanuella Samuel (born July 22, 2010), mononymously known as Emmanuella, is a Nigerian YouTube child comedian on Mark Angel's YouTube channel. Emmanuella's first appearance was on episode 34, titled "Who Mess?"

 Career

Emmanuella made her foray into comedy at the age of five. She was on a family holiday and met with Angel. He needed some children for his comedy shoot, and called a few children he knew for the audition, but they couldn't memorize their lines and he then turned to Emmanuella. Despite the eighteen hour long video shoot, a stunt he pulled to test the endurance of the kids, Emmanuella did well. After her selection, Angel had to convince her parents to let her become a part of the Mark Angel Comedy team and got their approval. And she was featured in Australian movie titled: Survive or Die [2] She became well known after the comedy skit "My Real Face", in which she was making jokes about a headmistress to a student without knowing the student was the daughter of the headmistress.[3] This short skit was featured on CNN's Facebook page."...

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INFORMATION ABOUT MARK ANGEL COMEDY VIDEOS & MY OPINION ABOUT THOSE VIDEOS
Mark Angel comedy videos have been on YouTube since 2015 and videos are still uploaded in 2023 to that channel. According to that channel's summary, 789 Mark Angel comedy videos are found on that channel. Initially, a new video was aired every Friday, but at some point that channel began to air Monday throwbacks (an old video or a compilation of two or more old videos).

I consider Mark Angel comedy videos to be creative, well written, well produced, and well acted by all of its cast members. These videos feature the characters speaking English and may also include some Igbo. These videos also include English language captions. 

I'm an African American who recently happened upon Mark Angel's comedy skits while "surfing" Nigerian YouTube videos. As of the publication date of this pancocojams post, I've only watched thirty one Mark  Angel comedy videos. I purposely focused on a sub-set of those videos that star or feature the child character Emanuella, but also watched some videos that star or feature Emanuella as a teenager. I've also watched a few additional Mark Angel comedy videos that don't include Emanuella (such as  the 2017 video entitled "Kanye West") 

Judging from the videos' millions of views and large number of commenters in those videos' discussion threads, the Nigerian comedy skits of the character Emanuella (as a child, as a teenager, and now as a young adult) are very popular in Nigeria and some other nations throughout the world.  I've particularly noticed YouTube comments praising Emanuela from Nigerians, and from people in India, the Philippines, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Haiti. 

The Mark Angel comedy video channel has consistently been on YouTube since 2015. Although those videos appear to be popular outside of Nigeria, it seems to me that few people in the United States are aware of them. According to its Wikipedia article, the character Emanuella is one of the-if not the-central person in the Mark Angel comedy videos. it's probably that people in the United States just aren't aware of these Nigerian videos. However, I wonder if Americans were aware of these videos, would they consider them to be funny?

Instead of trying to suss out why the character Emanuella-and particularly the child character Emanuella might be considered funny and popular in Nigeria and elsewhere around the world, this pancocojams post presents my opinions on why I think that these Mark Angel comedy videos might not work (or might not be working) in the United States.

I've divided this post into different sections and have focused on portrayals of Emanuella as a child*. I've also included embedded examples of ten "Emanuella" videos, mostly of Emanuella as a child and have referred to additional examples of "Emanuella" videos (again, mostly of the child Emanuella).

*In the few videos of Emanuella as a teenager that I have watched, that character is portrayed as a quick witted, take charge person who cares about her family and friends. It seems to me that in the few teenage Emanuella videos that I have watched, the comedy is usually performed by the other cast members and/or by the situation/s and resolution/s of those situations. Read the "cultural differences" section of this post in which I suggest that Americans may not "get" the comedy of these videos because of our cultural differences with Nigeria (and some other African nations) and/or our lack of familiarity with Nigerian cultures (and other African cultures).

I realize that some people will disagree with this  analysis and my opinions. Please feel free to add your reactions to this content in the comment section below.

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TYPES OF HUMOR
1. Emanuella is portrayed as an impertinent child (a smart-mouthed child who doesn't show the proper respect for adults)

An example of this portrayal is the 2016 video "Three Of Them"'. In that video Angel's comedy a very young Emanuella is shown being impertinent (i.e. being disrespectful) to an adult. That video, which isn't given below but can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZFgD9fbnb8 . In that video, Emanuela responds to a woman's question about whether Emanuella thinks that she (that woman) is fat. Emanuella says "I know five fat women and you are three of them".  

2. Emanuella is portrayed as a mischievous child
An example of this portrayal is the first portion of a 2016 "throw back" (oldie) video compilation that is entitled "Missing Emanuella" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpSaJ8Q1as8 . In the first portion of that video Emanuella and a boy her age are shown annoying her Uncle Mark and two other adults by sneaking behind them and hitting them. Initially, each of the adults think that another adult has hit them, until Uncle Mark catches on to the trick and joins in on it. Later in that same video, Emanuella and Uncle Mark hold a life like rubber lizard tied to a hidden string and move it in front of people who are walking down a poorly paved sidewalk. 
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The closest fictional examples that I can think of for child comedic characters in the United States who are known for doing pranks are "Dennis the Menace" and the boy in the Home Alone movie series. I don't like that type of humor and am guessing that quite a few people in the United States don't like that type of humor either. 

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EMANUELA'S PHYSICAL APPEARANCE
Emanuella is a brown skinned girl who (as a child) is always shown with either a bald head or  very closely cropped hair. (In some videos of Emanuella as a teenager that I have watched, she is shown with very closely cropped hair or she wears a scarf on her head).

I realize that it is (or was) the norm in Nigeria and some other parts of Africa for young school girls to have bald or closely cropped hair. However, in the United States girls are expected to have hair, and people of all races in this country have almost always had a preference for females with long hair, and especially for girls with long hair. Americans almost automatically assume that a child who is bald or who has closely cropped hair is a boy. Therefore, in order for Americans (in the United States) to like Emanuella, we have to first readjust our assumptions about that character's gender. Although the child Emanuella wears a girl's school uniform or wears a dress when she is out of school, she still "presents" as a boy to us because of her lack of hair. That incongruence is something that I've gotten over (and I'd come to recognize that bald headed women could be beautiful before watching the first Black Panther movie). However, I believe that Emanuela's lack of hair is a large factor in whether or not Americans have (or would) find these Mark Angel comedy videos to be appealing.

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In large part because of the Shirley Temple movies of the late 1930s and television re-runs of those movies, Americans have become used to female child stars who are cute and talented in acting, singing, and dancing. If a child can't sing or dance, she or he may also become popular if she or he is cute and adorable (Think, for example, of "Ruddy", the name of the youngest child in the (fictional) Huxtuble family on the American television series The Cosby Show. That series first was televised in 1984-1992 and is still available as re-runs on certain American television channels.

In contrast to those examples, I wouldn't usually describe the child Emanuella in the Mark Angel comedy videos as cute or adorable, although (to cite one example) I thought she was adorable in the store in the "Combantrin" video (which I listed as one of the Mark Angel videos that I like). I wonder if part of Emanuella's comedy persona is the way she looks and her ability to make funny expressions. For instance, in her first or one of the earliest Emanuella videos entitled "My Real Face" given as video #1 below) Emanuella is missing front teeth. Her gap teeth are highlighted in that video when Emanuella makes a series of ugly faces to attempt to become unrecognizable to a girl who is going to report her to the school's headmistress, that girl's mother. (Watch video #1 in this post.) 

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CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
The considerable differences between Nigeria and the United States and most Americans' lack of familiarity with or congruence with those differences probably does result or would result in Americans not considering Mark Angel's videos to be funny.

One example is the video "Math" (given as video #3 in this pancocojams post.). In that video the mathematics teacher is very harsh toward all of his students. His harshness is shown by his yelling at the students who don't know the answer to the complicated math problem that he wrote on the chalkboard and in his refusal to permit a student to go to the bathroom. A number of commenters from Nigeria and African wrote in that video's discussion thread that they have memories of teachers like that math teacher is portrayed, but I believe that most public elementary teachers in the United States aren't like that. I certainly didn't consider that episode to be funny, even after Emanuella answered the teacher's question what does she not understand about the problem with the statement that she hasn't understood anything since the last term (that the class met).

Another example of a situation that I believe wouldn't be considered funny in the United States is the interaction between Emanuella and her Uncle Mark in the video entitled "You Will Not Understand" (given as video #4) below. In that video Emanuella asks her Uncle Mark for something to eat because she hasn't eaten all day and her Uncle refuses to allow her to eat any of the food that is in their house. He coldly says that they take turns and; since she ate yesterday, it's his turn to eat today. When one of Uncle Mark's girlfriends brings him some food and then leaves for a short while, he still refuses to share any of that food with Emanuella. The video continues with Uncle Mark making a quick getaway when another girlfriend says she is on the way to visit him. Emanuella takes that opportunity to offer some food to that girlfriend and she eats a hardy portion of that food while her Uncle Mark stays hidden and cries about his loss of that food.

The "Trump" video is yet another example of a situation that Emanuella causes that I believe wouldn't be considered funny in the United States.In that video Emanuella goes to the chicken coop, picks up a stick, and removes some chicken poop with that stick.. She then goes to the yard where her Uncle Denilson is sleeping and uses that stick to leave some poop under his nose. When Dennison awakens, he freaks out because everything smells stinky, Emanuella hides and laughs when her Uncle Mark and other adults call a doctor and she continues laughing when the doctor admits Denilson to a mental hospital. That 2019 non-political video is given as #5 below.  

The video entitled "Play Or Fight" that is given as #8 in this pancocojams post is another example of a skit which I think fails to be funny in the United States because of cultural differences between Nigeria and the United States.

The 2021 video "Bend And Select" is yet another Mark Angel video where cultural differences between Nigeria and the United States might result in Americans not finding that video funny. The words "Bend and select!" are the words that the regular cast member K Brown calls to  people passing by where he is re-selling okrika (used clothing from the United States and elsewhere) that are laying in piles on a cloth outside. In that video, the teenage character Emanuella shows her concern about her uncle and uses her take-charge cleverness to outwit the other okrika seller standing next to herUncle KBrown who is constantly underbidding him resulting in people disregarding the clothes that KBrown has for sale. Emanuella is joined in this video by Success, another talented child actress who is a regular cast member in Mark Angel's comedy skits. Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFd3tmpaPVY for that video.

Cultural differences between Nigeria and the United States are also found in some examples of Mark Angel's Emanuella comedy videos that are built around play on words. These words may mean the same thing in the United States that they do in Nigeria, or the words may have different connotations in those two nations. Also, these videos may include Nigerian English sayings (or other English words) that aren't known in the United States. An example of this is the 2019 video "Emergency"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3Sl4l4ZUVc with its play on words of the doctor not being "on seat" (which I figured out means something like "not at work at this time".

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SOME ASPECTS OF THE CHILD EMMANUELLA CHARACTER THAT I LIKE (and some other people in the United States may also like)
I found these two aspects of the child Emanuella character in Mark Angel's comedy skits  appealing.
1. Emanuella forgetting the item she is supposed to buy at the store 
(This video can be considered an example of both the "cute kids" and the "play on words" sections that are discussed later in this post.)

In this 2016 video entitled "Combantrin" a young Emanuella is directed by her Uncle Mark (who she lives with) to go to the store and buy him some medicine called "Combantrin". Emanuella walks to the store repeating that word again and again so she won't forget it. Along the way she stops and chats with a girl who is playing a hand held set of the video game "Mortal Combat". When Emanuella leaves that girl, she begins to repeat the words "Mortal Combat". When she gets to the store, Emanuella can't remember the name of the medicine. Her attempts to remember that word leads to several play on words. (This is one of the Mark Angel comedy videos that I consider funny. Read that list of videos in the section below.)

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2. Emanuella outwits "the establishment"
An example of this is how Emanuella learns that a store offers a free cup of tea to its customers and shares that information with other children. The next day Emanuella and a number of children go to that store and not only get a free cup of tea, but bring containers so that they can take that "free tea" home with them. That 2017 "Tea Is Free" video is found as #6 in this pancocojams post. 

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THE VIDEOS THAT I CONSIDER TO BE FUNNY (of the 30 videos I've watched as of September 17, 2023)
(given in the order that I preferred them) are
1. the 2020 video "T.D. Jakes Style" (in which Uncle KBrown is shown as an assistant church pastor who decides to model his preaching after the African American evangelist T.D. Jakes ( given as video #10 below)

2. the 2017 video "2000 Words" (given as video #2 below)

3., the 2016 video  "Combantrin" not given in this pancocojams post  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bfGLpN_RmE 

4. the 2017 video "Tea is Free" (given as video #6 below)

and

5. the 2016 video "Singular and Plural" video (given as video #9 below).


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ADDITIONAL VIDEO EXAMPLES OF MARK ANGEL COMEDY VIDEOS THAT STAR OR FEATURE THE CHARACTER "EMANUELLA" 

SHOWCASE VIDEO #2: 2000 Words

Mar 31, 2017 #MarkAngel #Emanuella #MarkAngelComedy

This VERY FUNNY VIDEO will entertain you and make you laugh out loud. It is very hilarious. Emanuella is a clown. -snip- Total views as of September 15, 2023 - 13,324,725

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #3 - Maths Teacher


Mark Angel Comedy, Jun 16, 2017  #MarkAngel #Emanuella #MarkAngelComedy

This very FUNNY VIDEO is a message to our schools. It will make you laugh and teach you a lesson. Please share this video with your government and all school owners.
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Total views as of September 15, 2023 - 33,692,149

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #4: You Will Not Understand

Mark Angel Comedy, Nov 2, 2018 #MarkAngel #Emanuella #NigerianComedy2018

This very FUNNY VIDEO is hilarious. It will make you laugh out loud. If you Understand this video, comment the Moral lesson of this video in the comment box.
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Total views as of September 15, 2023 - 25,362,106

**** SHOWCASE VIDEO #5 - Trump MarkAngelComedy, Apr 5, 2019  #MarkAngel #Emanuella #NigerianComedy2018

This very FUNNY VIDEO will crack your ribs. Denilson Igwe is back but it seems he's welcome party didn't go down well. Happy New Mouth everyone, Enjoy.
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Total views as of September 15, 2023 - 13,185,446

**** SHOWCASE VIDEO #6-Tea Is Free

MarkAngelComedy, May 5, 2017 This VERY FUNNY VIDEO will make your day. These kid are clowns.... -snip- Total views as of September 15, 2023 - 12,964,039

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #7 - iPhone11

Mark AngelComedy, Oct 25, 2019  #MarkAngel #NigerianComedy2019 #Emanuella

This very funny video is hilarious. Be careful what you wish for...
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Total views as of September 15, 2023 - 10,928,904

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #8 - Play Or Fight MarkAngelComedy, July 27,2020

Play Or Fight (Mark Angel Comedy) (Throw Back Monday)

  #MarkAngel #NigerianComedy2019 #Emanuella

Hello! Its Throw Back Monday on Mark Angel Comedy. Enjoy this one.
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Total views as of September 15, 2023 - 749,968

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SHOWCASE #9 - "Singular & Plural"



MarkAngelComedy, May 13, 2016

The kids at Mark Angel Comedy will crack your ribs. Emanuella and her friends are something else. -snip-
Total views as of September 15, 2023 - 1,897,362

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #10 - T.D. Jakes Style (Mark Angel Comedy) (Episode 287)



Mark Angel Comedy, Nov 20, 2020 #MarkAngel #Emanuella #AuntySuccess

This is a very hilarious video. Enjoy this Assistant Pastor part 3. Uncle K Brown is really a clown. -snip- Total # of views - 3,058,968 views

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