Stand Up Comedy Research Papers (original) (raw)

This paper explores gender in stand‐up comedy based on 20 months of ethnographic research in Finland and recent media discussion involving the booking of performers for a national comedy tour. As the vast majority of stand‐up comedians are men, discussions of gender tend to focus on the anomalousness of female comedians. These debates often rely on essentialist views of women and stand‐up comedy, presenting female comedians as transgressive due to the perceived incompatibilities of women and comedy. However, the situation in the clubs and performances is more complex. I chart this territory by looking at gender in relation to ‘invention’ and ‘convention’ in stand‐up comedy performance. I explore how some of the conventional, established and expected aspects of stand‐up, such as the public use of power and threat of failure, are related to ideas of gender. I then go on to show how comedy enables invention, new and/or unique ideas and forms. This allows comedians to approach and enact gender in more digressive ways: taking indirect, experimental paths and imaginatively shifting between perspectives and positions to subvert and question roles and patterns. As stand‐up becomes more diverse, discussing gender requires a more nuanced approach going beyond a simple binary.

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- Anthropology, Social Anthropology, Comedy, Gender

Stand-up Comedy has more to do with teaching than you might think. Is there more to Stand-up Comedy than just 'being funny'? what can teachers learn from interactive performance? How does the experience of Stand-up Comedy relate to:... more

- by Martin Billingham
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- Education, Teacher Education, Formative Assessment, Active Learning

Phil Callaway says, "I have a fear of speed bumps, but I'm getting over it." Janice gave Ed a birthday present of Phil Callaway's newest book 'Laugh Again like a Child'. Reading this book caused us to laugh and chuckle deeply. We hoped then that we could interview Phil. Who might have imagined that a comedian could be a missionary? Phil was told that it would never work. "I took a lot of heat early on for combining a message of humour with a message of hope in Christ. To laugh didn't seem to be the holiest of things." Becoming a missionary comedian was not intentional:

- by Dr Ed Hird
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- Christianity, Screen Comedy, Contemporary Christianity, Stand Up Comedy

Contemporary comedy audiences are accused by some comedians of being too morally sensitive to appreciate humor. To get closer to an answer, I will first briefly present the argument over audience sensitivity as found in the nonphilosophical literature. Second, I then turn to the philosophical literature and begin from the idea that “funny” is a response-dependent property. I present a criticism of this response-dependence account of “funny” based in the claim that funniness is not determined by what normal audiences actually laugh at, but by what merits laughter. Third, I argue that excessive or deficient moral sensitivity distorts audience receptivity to humor. Fourth, I turn to candidates for ideally sensitive audiences. I conclude by returning to the particular cases of supposed oversensitivity or undersensitivity to jokes to see how we might judge them.

- by Phillip Deen
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- Philosophy, Stand Up Comedy, Philosophy of Humor, Art Theory and Criticism
- by Izuu Nwankwọ
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- Popular Culture, Stand Up Comedy, African theatre and performance, Jokes

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first (rhetorical) investigation of Persian stand-up comedy. In the present research, a rhetorical approach is taken to examine humor styles and techniques used in seven stand-up performances. These performances were performed by two Iranian comedians, the finalists from a recent (and probably the first) Persian stand-up comedy contest in Iran. Initially, Asian stand-up comedy is briefly addressed. Then, Persian stand-up comedy is introduced within the continuum of Iranian performing traditions. Afterward, the typology, unit of analysis and the communication framework employed in this research are elaborated on. Having established the historical and theoretical preliminaries, the paper reports on and discusses the findings. Particularly, the rhetorical devices used by the comedians to create humor are highlighted. Moreover, several aspects of the interaction between the comedians and the audience are touched upon. Finally, the paper points out several directions of Persian stand-up comedy, the study’s limitations and suggestions for further research.

- by Mohammad Ali Heidari-Shahreza
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- Discourse Analysis, Rhetoric, Comedy, Humor

Inspired by the growing attention to the politics of comedy in the United States and elsewhere, this paper asks what it would mean to think critically about relations of power mobilized through cheerfulness, humor, and laughter. The paper shows that existing answers to this question are tainted by skepticism about the enduring contributions of comic acts, and it then goes on to suggest that we turn to an alternative trajectory in democratic theory, one that encourages us to focus on the empowering and pluralizing potential embedded in what the paper names “comic power.” The wager is that attention to the potential embedded in this power can give us new traction on the conditions of democracy more broadly understood. To show this, the paper draws on two rarely paired resources—Spinoza’s philosophy of immanence and Dave Chappelle’s critique of racial discrimination—placing both of them in conversation with discussions about the mediations embedded in new media technologies.

- by Lars Tønder
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- Cultural Studies, Greek Comedy, New Media, Political Theory

This review is as much about a new book by Aziz Ansari and Eric Klinenberg as it is about the overall phenomenon of scientific production for wider public. It is a timely topic because this “public sociology” text exists within an increasingly professionalized academic environment, where the notion of “publish or perish” is felt by everyone. In this environment, the questions around who are we publishing for and for what ends become even more significant. Even though there might be some exceptions to the rule, the problem of science, in our case sociology, entering the public domain is relevant, as it should be. So how can sociology be more reflexive of its public role? Perhaps by changing the conventional forms of scientific publications.

- by Zuzana Botikova
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- Sociology, Public Sociology, Family studies, Comedy

Bill Cosby's immorality has raised intriguing aesthetic and ethical issues. Should the crimes that he has been convicted of lessen the aesthetic value of his standup and, even if we can enjoy it, should we? I first discuss the intimacy between the comedian and audience. The artform is both structurally intimate and the comedian claims to express an authentic self on stage. After drawing an analogy to the debate over the ethical criticism of art, I argue that it is reasonable to find a comedian's performance less funny because standup's artistic success relies on this intimacy. I contrast the comedy of Bill Cosby with that of Louis CK. CK's moral flaws are much more present in his comedy, and it is therefore more difficult to find him funny. Last, it is ethically permissible to enjoy their comedy, if no harm to others results, both because it does not corrupt the audience's character and because amusement is valuable.

- by Phillip Deen
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- Comedy, Stand Up Comedy, Art Theory and Ethics, Humor Studies
- by Cassandra Hartblay
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- Cultural Studies, Russian Studies, Comedy, Disability Studies

What makes us laugh? Who makes us laugh? And why do we pay people to make us laugh? This course seeks answers to these questions (and others), approaching them from the perspective of rhetoric. Are stand-up comedians rhetors? And if they are, what exactly is the nature and purpose of their rhetoric? Beginning with a brief introduction to classical rhetoric, it moves into epistemic rhetoric and Kenneth Burke’s concepts of dramatism and the “comic frame.” These notions of rhetoric serve as a starting point for a critical (and creative) approach to stand-up comedy. From Lenny Bruce and George Carlin to Bill Hicks and Chris Rock, this course considers performances by some of the most notable stand-up comedians of the last fifty years and asks questions about language, race, gender, class, and the function and nature of comedy and laughter. Through writing students produce genealogies of our own senses of humor, as well as perform rhetorical analyses of comedy performances. The course culminates with student performances of carefully crafted (if not necessarily funny) rhetoric.

- by Steven Kapica
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- Rhetoric, Laughter, Judith Butler, Stand Up Comedy
- by hidden tesla
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- Comedy, Stand Up Comedy

This chapter studies the relationship between dark humor, addiction, and abjection. As a case study, it examines a stand-up routine by comic Craig Ferguson in which the comedian touches on such varied topics as peeing his pants, vulnerable populations, and alcoholic amnesia, noting how each relates to abjection. Since drunkenness frequently leads to vomiting and accidental urination, those examples provide the clearest cases of how alcoholism connects gross-out humor to bodily abjection. Ferguson also discusses how addicts form vulnerable populations, which demonstrates a social understanding of abjection as people left behind by society. Finally, Scepanski investigates drunken blackouts as temporal abjection. Since memory is so fundamental to understanding oneself, blackouts create an alienating disconnect between present and past.

- by Philip Scepanski
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- Screen Comedy, Humor, Self Harm, Abjection
- by Matt Meier and +1
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- Social Change, Rhetoric, Comedy, Humor

This research and writing is presented as a “pre-curriculum,” containing theoretical frameworks within which antiracist educators may apply their talents and sensitivities towards opening dialogue and critical exploration of the functioning of Islamophobia. Resistance to sustained examination of dominant Islamophobic stereotypes in this time of ongoing military aggression towards Muslim populations internationally and racial and religious discrimination domestically, poses exceptional challenges. Entrenched media representations, and political discourse on both right and left tend towards demonization at worst or flattening and invisibilization at best. Oftentimes dedicated, sophisticated facilitators who are immersed in anti-oppression curriculum and anti-racism work in particular, share that they “hit a wall” when it comes to Islamophobia, or express a distancing lack of knowledge. This paper poses the inquiry: How can political humor and social justice comedy effectively open up greater curiosity, deeper engagement, and interrogation of Islamophobic and anti-Arab narratives, and illuminate the deployment of stereotypes with a critical media literacy lens? Strategic incorporation of comedic “texts” offers a form of epistemological inquiry that can surface and problematize what is “known.” As diverse comic artists employ humor as educational bridge-building outreach, antiracist educators can in turn draw from this prolific material as pedagogical tools.

This master’s thesis theorizes the political and cultural significance of stand-up comedy as an institution in the contemporary US public sphere, against the dominant perception that it is an enterprise severed from social consequence. Via a critical application of Ferguson’s theorization of power in The Reorder of Things (2012), in addition to a reading of stand-up comedy routines and related public discourse that utilizes feminist and queer of color theory, I show how subjective terrains of race, gender, and sexuality produce the discursive and political materials which organize stand-up discourse and performance in moments of “racial comedy,” “gender comedy,” and “sexual comedy.” I argue that this landscape of cultural production emerges from, but also partially constitutes, a general conflict (as well as many specific ones) between dominant and critical formations of race, gender, and sexuality. Further, I show that the historical and political viscosity between hegemonic and critical projects has deep implications for contemporary modalities of perspective-taking in, enjoyment of, and affect toward stand-up comedy. To support this argument, I examine dominant articulations of the social formations of racism and heteronormativity and posit their salience in contemporary iterations of stand-up comedy; and I theorize how a critique of those intersecting political domains—stand-up, racism, and heteronormativity—suggests a new space for and mode of critique and critical pedagogy. I conclude by discussing the emotional politics of doing critical scholarship as a hegemonic figure in the milieu of US cultural politics.

- by hidden tesla
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- Stand Up Comedy

"Stand-up comedy is flooded with an immense number of straight, white men. Bo Burnham, a 25-year-old Millennial “prop comic,” follows this tradition, but he differs greatly from those who came before him. Burnham’s conscious, self-deprecatory engagement with his identity through his brand of witty, instrumental, satirical comedy actually invites audiences to question norms, hegemony, and their most unacknowledged associations. At the start of his comedic career, Burnham released songs through YouTube that primarily relied on wordplay, one-man-band-style musical accompaniments, and literary references. Today, Burnham just released his third hour-long stand-up special through Netflix, and his comedic energy has certainly shifted from merely clever musicality to blunt satire. What’s notable and unique about Burnham are his fluctuating comedic moods and constant, self-aware performativity. He mostly maintains an ironically detached position from himself as an individual in favor of stage personas, and he utilizes breaks in the routine to address real-world issues in hyper-serious tones. Through a creative, refreshing brand of comedy that embraces queerness and awkwardness, Burnham subtly encourages his listeners to think deeply about what’s funny, why they laugh, and the political efficacy of humor. In this analysis, I will explore Burnham’s performative aesthetic and its potential for activism through queer engagement with both his audience and predominant American culture."

- by Sam Lauer
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- Comedy, Performance Studies, Humor/Satire, Stand Up Comedy
- by David Gillota
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- Humor, Stand Up Comedy
- by David Gillota
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- Comedy, Humor, Stand Up Comedy, Humour Studies

A response paper to Riviere's “Womanliness as a Masquerade” written for a Gender and Media course in the Communications department at Concordia University, I use my experiences as a stand up comedian to engage with the ideas put forward... more

- by Sarah Stupar
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- Gender Studies, Feminist Theory, Comedy, Gender and Sexuality
- by Nina Setyaningsih
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- Southeast Asian Studies, Sociolinguistics, Humor, Southeast Asia
- by Murat Cankara
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- Stand Up Comedy, Humour Studies, Kültürel çalışmalar, Mizah

This essay establishes a first genealogical link between
William E. Connolly’s pluralist thought and a recent mimetic
turn—or re-turn of mimesis—in critical theory. Crafting new connections
between Connolly’s diagnostics of affective contagion,
crowd behavior, and aspirational fascism, on the one hand, and a
Nietzschean diagnostic of the Dionysian powers of simulation, the
mimetic unconscious, and the contagious intoxications it generates,
on the other, the essay opens up new possibilities for encounters
between new materialism, poststructuralism, and mimetic
theory via the ancient view that humans are, for better and worse,
imitative creatures—or Homo mimeticus. In the process, it aligns
Connolly’s insights into the powers of mimesis with a minor tradition
in continental philosophy— from Nietzsche to Deleuze—and
furthers a Janus-faced evaluation of satirical TV shows that fight
contra (new) fascism at the level of the message, yet might further
comic fascism at the level of the mass medium.

- by Nidesh Lawtoo
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- Political Theory, Mimesis, Poststructuralism, Fascism
- by Ben Hudson
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- Information Technology, Media Studies, Television Studies, Comedy

Negli ultimi anni la serialità comedy ha iniziato a svilupparsi e a mutare in modalità che hanno richiesto una riarticolazione delle procedure di comprensione del genere. Alcune serie contemporanee si risolvono in commedie di formato breve che, se da un lato dimostrano richiami evidenti alla situation comedy cosiddetta classica, dall’altro sono attraversate da elementi appartenenti a generi differenti che si ibridano tra loro dando vita a forme innovative.
Il presente elaborato è frutto di un percorso di ricerca che, partendo dal contesto mediale contemporaneo, confluisce nell’analisi di due serie televisive – Fleabag (2016) e Chewing Gum (2015) – le quali ci sembra fungano da testimonianze di due differenti realtà, elemento questo che cercheremo di far emergere nel corso dei capitoli ad esse riferiti. Queste due produzioni risultano focalizzate principalmente su figure femminili, le quali portano sullo schermo i propri corpi “indisciplinati” e la propria sessualità, servendosi di una serie di percorsi narrativi e strategie enunciative – come la rottura della quarta parete – che si distaccano dalla struttura testuale della sitcom tradizionale.
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Lo scopo del lavoro è innanzitutto volto ad un’analisi delle strategie distributive e promozionali messe in atto per questi due show. Partendo da una breve revisione dei piani editoriali dei network originali delle serie – ovvero BBC Three e Channel 4 –, dei loro elementi in comune, fino alle divergenze, cercheremo di metterne in luce i punti di forza, ma anche le difficoltà cui entrambi i network “tradizionali” devono far fronte, in un panorama odierno complesso, pieno di sfide e di nuovi player concorrenti, come le piattaforme SVOD (Subscription Video On Demand)1. Vedremo che di fronte ad un panorama così sfaccettato, non basta limitarsi al controllo della competizione a livello nazionale, ma è necessario fare i conti con l'ascesa di piattaforme come Amazon o Netflix, le quali che contribuiscono allo sviluppo di nuove modalità di storytelling, oltre all’espressione più libera e creativa di alcune voci critiche. Seguirà quindi un’analisi delle strategie comuni tra questi due (relativamente nuovi) player, e di come le varie forme di contenuto ne siano influenzate.
Nel corso del secondo capitolo metteremo a fuoco il contesto mediale da cui i nostri due esempi di analisi (Fleabag e Chewing Gum) sono nati, cercando di dare il giusto spazio anche ai paratesti – elementi che circolano attorno ai contenuti primari – che possono da una parte essere estrapolati dai testi stessi, riconfigurati e tesi verso nuovi significati – è il caso degli original short-content –, ma possono anche essere elementi paratestuali legati alla figura dell’autrice/showrunner, o fattori che servono a collocare le serie in una posizione di legittimità culturale, estetica e artistica.
Nel terzo capitolo cercheremo invece di indagare più in profondità le dinamiche testuali ed in particolare, i meccanismi umoristici che fanno rientrare i due show in esame all’interno del grande ventaglio comedy, con tutte le varie declinazioni e criticità che caratterizzano il genere. L’obiettivo del capitolo si risolve perciò nel tentativo di analizzare le due serie, attraverso una revisione dei contenuti, dei personaggi e delle rappresentazioni di genere: vedremo infatti come l’elemento cringe e il legame comunicativo con lo spettatore, che affiora nei momenti awkward delle protagoniste – messo in atto da strategie testuali come la rottura della quarta parete –, siano alla base della creazione del “comic impetus” delle rispettive comedy. Inoltre cercheremo di indagare le modalità ambigue con cui questi show si inseriscono all’interno del dibattito postfemminista – attraverso l’esame delle politiche del corpo e della sessualità messe in scena – e a quale tipologia di spettatrice potrebbero essere rivolti.

- by Elisa Pizzin
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- Gender Studies, Media Studies, Feminist Theory, Television Studies

On October 3, 1992, when Sinéad O’Connor called the Pope “the real enemy” and tore up his picture, the backlash was fierce; the episode effectively ended her career. But, when you think about it, her stunt wasn’t that different from other things that have been done on the show. From George Calrin’s opening monologue on the very first episode (where he essentially calls religion a crutch that can leave you permanently disabled), to sketches like “Djesus Uncrossed,” “God is a Boob Man,” and “The Religetables,” SNL has never been afraid to be blasphemous and sacrilegious. And I haven’t even mentioned The Church Lady, that time Jesus made fun of Tebow in the Bronco’s lockeroom, and that time Louis C.K. implied God was a serial killer. There was backlash about all these episodes too. So why didn’t they end anyone’s career? In this paper, I’ll explore these sketches and acts (and the public response to them) to try to get to the bottom of all of this. Ultimately, I’ll argue, they didn’t end anyone’s career because they probably make a pretty good point. And with that in mind, I’ll conclude by arguing that…well… we probably all owe Sinéad O’Connor a huge apology.

- by David Kyle Johnson
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- Comedy, Stand Up Comedy, Film and Television Comedy, Sinead O'Connor

This book presents current discussions on the concept of genre. It introduces innovative, multidisciplinary approaches to contemporary and historical genres, their roles in cultural discourse, how they change, and their relations to each other.
The reader is guided into the discussion surrounding this key concept and its history through a general introduction, followed by eighteen chapters that represent a variety of discursive practices as well as analytic methods from several scholarly traditions.
This volume will have wide appeal to several academic audiences within the humanities, both in Finland and abroad, and will especially be of interest to scholars of folklore, language and cultural expression.

- by Mr Frog and +2
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- Mythology And Folklore, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Folklore

This study focuses on stand-up comedy in English at Rome’s Comedy Club and investigates how the comedians and the audience deal with humor based on stereotypes about Italians and foreigners living in Italy (e.g. culture shock, cultural differences and identity issues). In addition, this article discusses how comedians and the audience interact (mostly in English and sometimes in Italian) and negotiate humor regarding sensitive topics. The data analysis demonstrates that the comedians consciously exploit the context and accommodate to the audience to guarantee a positive response. In turn, the audience’s sense of superiority is fulfilled by the disparagement of comedians in general and self-disparagement. Most importantly, the audience shows that they do not take audience-disparagement at face value.

- by Margherita Dore
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- Humor, Stand Up Comedy, Humour Studies, Intercultural Humor

Stand-‐‑ up comedy is tightly constructed despite appearing to be casual and improvised. In one section this working paper examines a comedy bit about donut holes and finds in it a metaphysical dimension that is, in fact, typical of Seinfeld's comedy. Another section shows how a conversation with President Barack Obama hinges on the distinction between a social role and the person playing that role. A final piece looks at the wide range of ephemeral phenomena around which Seinfeld crafts his comedy.

- by Bill Benzon
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- Comedy, Performance Studies, Popular Culture, Performance

It's common for stand-up comedians to tell stories as well as, or instead of, jokes. Stories bring something extra to the performance, and when presented as true add a further layer of appeal. However, most stories told as if true by comedians are not true. A categorizing of forms of comedic story is presented involving the dimensions of grammatical person and truthfulness. Some advantages of comedians' employing true first-person stories are discussed, and these considerations are then explored through the role of autobiography in the work of Doug Stanhope. Many aspects of Stanhope's (highly unusual) life find their way into his shows, and true stories and his personality more broadly are folded into other elements of his act (such as his political views). Links are made with Kierkegaard's notion of 'inwardness' and Carl Rogers' therapeutic 'congruence' and 'transparency', and it's argued that authenticity is a prerequisite for the quality of self-disclosure that is basic to Stanhope's excellence. ______________________________________

- by Stuart Hanscomb
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- Stand Up Comedy, Philosophy of Comedy

This critical discourse analysis examines white, female comedians’ stand-up material about the sexual encounter to illuminate how race, gender, and sexuality intersect to reproduce and subvert dominant discourses. The findings indicate that white, heterosexual comediennes reinforce discourses of the white female as the ideal victim of sexual assault and as sexual objects for male desire. Such discourses limit conversations about sexual violence and erase the realities of women of color. The study also describes how the comediennes subscribe to or challenge discourses of white, heterosexual females as disciplined objects of male desire and powerless victims of sexual assault. The results enhance existing conversations about white women, sexuality, intersectionality, and hegemonic discourses. Finally, this study articulates a need for white, straight, comedienne’s to be more reflexive about their privileged positions and incorporate those privileges in their standup material as a form of social activism.

The dissertation presents stand-up comedy as a genre of embodied verbal art and semiotic interaction. In particular, the study elaborates on how stand-up comics mediate themselves in a public arena and playfully thematize and reappropriate this self-mediation within a performance form founded on the ideals of immediacy, actuality, and self-presence.
The dissertation attends to such poetics of self-mediation through the lenses of textuality, reflexivity, and relatability. The perspective of textuality orients the research toward stand-up routines as the foremost texts through which stand-up comics mediate themselves for their audiences’ consumption. The perspective of reflexivity orients the research toward the metapragmatics of stand-up comedy, including both metacommunication in performance and the ideologies and valuations (of communication) embedded in the practice of stand-up. The perspective of relatability orients the research toward the dynamics of stand-up as an economy of attention and affect that depends on intersubjective capture between participants of interaction.
http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-29-7651-5

- by Antti Lindfors
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- Critical Theory, Semiotics, Cultural Studies, Folklore
- by hidden tesla
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- Comedy, Stand Up Comedy
- by Martin E . Smith
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- Comedy, Stand Up Comedy, William Shakespeare, Bo Burnham
- by David Gillota
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- Comedy, Humor, Stand Up Comedy, Ellen Degeneres

So strong is the cultural desire for an independent and original theory of comedy that Aristotle is imagined to have penned, aside from his glancing treatments of comedy in the Poetics, a critical assessment of the genre, now lost. The symbolic absence of this presumed Aristotelian treatise speaks volumes for the near unattainability of such a critical endeavor. Comedy is at times conceptualized as a generative “umbrella” genre that subsumes other adjoining modes of literary figuration—satire, parody, romance, irony, joke, word play, farce, and stand-up—all while being routinely subject to cultural and theoretical conflation with humor, laughter, amusement, wit, and other physiological as well as intellectual triggers or responses to the comic. The generic contours of comedy are ever-expanding and helplessly slippery. Comedy embodies divergences and dualities. Its anthropological association with fertility rituals at its generic inception suggests privilege and respectability, but Plato’s prejudice against comedy as fit for slaves and outcasts, together with Aristotle’s identification of comedy with lowliness and ugliness, conditions the perception of the genre as relatively vulgar, inferior, and base when examined alongside its nobler counterpart, tragedy. Comedy’s capacity to channel expressions for behavioral deviation in the Feasts of Fools qualifies the genre as a social subversive, but that comedy is conducive to societal stability as a safety valve for discontentedness and insurgence proves that the genre wields the potential of a social fixative. Comedy is said to be grounded on malice and superiority, but playwrights throughout the ages have used it to advance virtue. It is in and between these seemingly irreconcilable contradictions that theoretical abstractions of this elusive genre may be attempted.

- by Yi-Hsin Hsu
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- Greek Comedy, Theatre Studies, Drama, Roman Comedy
- by Domenico Scarpa
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- Performing Arts, Theatre Studies, Theatre History, Comedy