Abstract
ABSTRACT In this essay, I conduct an ideological performance critique of Tig Notaro’s now-famous 2012 stand-up comedy performance, Live, in which she discloses her recent breast cancer diagnosis. Doing so places her firmly within the realm of dominant pink ribbon culture, which valorizes the she-ro, an attractive, all-conquering superhero. I argue that Notaro utilizes the literary and rhetorical trope bathos to subvert the she-ro ideal. Her subversion demonstrates the potential power of stand-up comedy to intervene in harmful and oppressive ideologies on behalf of marginalized and misunderstood populations and renegotiate these populations’ positions in the dominant culture.
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