‘The Indian uncle’ problem- why Indian stand-up comedians reject the older audience as Indian rightist and celebrate the young audience as liberals

The narrative pattern and discursive strategies of stand-up comedy in Nigeria reveal some tropes and motifs that are contemporary to the socio-political realities of the country. These narrative/discursive strategies demonstrate three discourse types: salutation/greeting discourse, reporting discourse and informing discourse. With these discourse types, stand-up comedians use themselves as the victims of the jokes in order to evoke laughter in the audience. The performances of stand-up comedy, however, have not been accorded due recognition of the functional arts that can be used to critique the failure of the ruling elite in the Nigerian State. This is because stand-up comedy is class-selective and occasion-driven. To evoke laughter in the audience and to comment on the reality of existence, stand-up comedians deploy language aesthetics, kinesics and atmosphere. The modal transition from pure oral stage to the technological phase of performance informs the conceptualisation of media mediated performance (MMP) through recorded VCDs/DVDs and the social media. Data on the stand-up comedy of AY and Elenu are collected through media mediated performances (MMP) on VCD. Data on the subject matter, topicality and discursive strategies of AY and Elenu’s (these are among ace stand-up comedians in Nigeria) jokes are analysed and discussed. With the subject matter and topicality of the jokes, this paper suggests that stand-up comedy performs the utilitarian functions of literary and performing arts. It entertains, moralises, satirises and educates members of heterogeneous audiences on some values and ethos of the contemporary Nigerian society.The narrative pattern and discursive strategies of stand-up comedy in Nigeria reveal some tropes and motifs that are contemporary to the socio-political realities of the country. These narrative/discursive strategies demonstrate three discourse types: salutation/greeting discourse, reporting discourse and informing discourse. With these discourse types, stand-up comedians use themselves as the victims of the jokes in order to evoke laughter in the audience. The performances of stand-up comedy, however, have not been accorded due recognition of the functional arts that can be used to critique the failure of the ruling elite in the Nigerian State. This is because stand-up comedy is class-selective and occasion-driven. To evoke laughter in the audience and to comment on the reality of existence, stand-up comedians deploy language aesthetics, kinesics and atmosphere. The modal transition from pure oral stage to the technological phase of performance informs the conceptualisation of media mediated performance (MMP) through recorded VCDs/DVDs and the social media. Data on the stand-up comedy of AY and Elenu are collected through media mediated performances (MMP) on VCD. Data on the subject matter, topicality and discursive strategies of AY and Elenu’s (these are among ace stand-up comedians in Nigeria) jokes are analysed and discussed. With the subject matter and topicality of the jokes, this paper suggests that stand-up comedy performs the utilitarian functions of literary and performing arts. It entertains, moralises, satirises and educates members of heterogeneous audiences on some values and ethos of the contemporary Nigerian society.

The genre of comedy originates from ancient Greece. However, this fact does not prevent it from changing and taking new forms over the years. Stand-up comedy derived from variety shows and vaudeville and emerged as a new separate genre recently. Although the study of humour in its many genres has been conducted for centuries, the study of stand-up comedy has received little attention. This may be because of the fact that stand-up comedy is a relatively “young” genre of humour. Until the 1960s, stand-up comedians did not play a central role during the performance but served as a kind of filler for the pause, for example, before the arrival of a famous band or theatre group. Ever since stand-up comedians began appearing on TV shows launched during the 1960s and 1970s, the success of stand-up comedy as a true linguistic genre has begun to grow. People became interested in the work of stand-up comedians and expressed their interest by buying tapes with their performances. Over the years, stand-up comedy has become a well-known and popular form of humour that has risen growing interest. Stand-up comedy has essential functions in the formation of society; its subgenres differ in the features of comic reproduction. Both verbal and non-verbal aspects in stand-up comedy attract attention. This article considers the verbal means of reproducing the comic, as well as the sociolinguistic aspect. The article considers the origins of the stand-up comedy genre, its main types and concepts, means of creating comics in the performances of English-speaking stand-up comedians, functions of stand-up comedy, features of performances, and analyses examples of jokes of English-speaking comedians.

Reviewed by: A Vulgar Art: A New Approach to Stand-Up Comedy by Ian Brodie. Jackson Trevor J. Blank A Vulgar Art: A New Approach to Stand-Up Comedy. By Ian Brodie. Jackson. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014. 255 pages. Hardcover, $60.00. Folklorists are often tasked with making sense of nonsense, breaking down the nuances of everyday life and parsing through interpersonal, artistic, and performative communications to reveal the depth and meaning behind vernacular expression and the contexts from which they derive. Talk is, of course, a foundational component of human interaction, and humor can serve as a rich and complex dimension of talk. However, while folklore scholars have traditionally prioritized orally transmitted phenomena over those which are technologically or mass mediated, few folkloristic works have managed to employ a more holistic approach that extends beyond mere textual analyses of humorous talk; they have neglected the multifaceted, layered dimensions of cultural exchange at play. In A Vulgar Art, author Ian Brodie ventures where others have not, shining new light into how stand-up comedy serves as a powerful locus of folkloric communication couched in vernacular talk, identity politics, tensions of performance and reception, cultivation and construction of material culture, as well as the curation and preservation of content in broadcast, analog, and Internet media. The book's title, A Vulgar Art, is culled from a quote by legendary stand-up comedian George Carlin, who reveled in the etymological origins of the word vulgar, noting its original meaning: "of the people." It is here, with this connotation in mind, that Brodie demonstrates how a folkloristic approach to the study of stand-up is so fitting. He begins by addressing the scattered scholarly literature on the topic of stand-up comedy, while informing readers about what folklore is, what folklorists do, and what constitutes a folkloristic approach to the study of his subject, before charting a course through a variety of both popular and less-heralded comedians' repertoires and the historical backdrops that led to the emergence of the stand-up comedy genre in the 1950s and 1960s. Brodie convincingly argues that stand-up comedy is a dialogic form in which performers talk with—and, importantly, not just to—their audiences; he diligently works to [End Page 393] lay the theoretical framework upon which the book rests, underlining the reconciliation of intimacy, distance, and shifting social contexts that comprise the cultural scene where stand-up comedy takes place. His emphasis on the dynamics of vernacular talk, supported by assiduous transcriptions and analytical annotations of joke routines, will undoubtedly meet with appreciation from oral historians. Moreover, Brodie's measured awareness of his readers is evident in the great care he takes to reiterate his methodological approaches and folkloristic background throughout the volume without obfuscating his subject matter; he moves seamlessly from considerations of live performance to the folk processes at work in broadcast and recording iterations of stand-up comedy, including its commercial distribution. The book is laced with acerbic wit and meticulous analysis, giving readers a front-row view of how comedians use the stage and microphone to bridge sociocultural distance between themselves and their audiences, recreating the intimacy of face-to-face encounters in order to allow for vernacular talk to emerge. The book analyzes routines from a variety of performers to underscore the performative and identity delineations stand-up comedians forge, with close examinations of numerous routines from the likes of Lenny Bruce, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, and Bill Cosby, as well as a series of revelatory interviews with Canadian comic Ron James. Brodie himself acknowledges that one of the weaknesses of previous studies of stand-up comedy has been the curious absence of interviews with actual comedians or their fans. Fittingly, his conversations with James, which are coupled with extensive background information on the comedian and chronicle everything from how he dressed and marketed himself to the different receptions that the same comedy routine garnered in different geographic areas, provide a unique oral history of the life of a stand-up comedian in all of its complex glory. Although somewhat dense at times, and likely best suited for graduate students and academic audiences...

This thesis examines stand-up comedy and its relation to everyday life and presents a model of everyday life in the commodity society. It seeks to define stand up comedy and how it works as a performance mode and will offer a definition of the stand-up comedian. It will examine how jokes reflect opinions and attitudes within everyday life and how they can communicate negative cultural myths, stereotypes and ideologies but also reach beyond the merely absurd and comical to present authentic moments that enable us to locate the truth about ourselves. The thesis seeks to locate a stand-up comedy that enables us to understand ourselves in relation to life in the commodity society. The thesis traces a subversive lineage through post-Second World War comedy from The Goon Show through the satirists of the 1960s and Monty Pylhon's Flying Circus to Alternative Comedy and stand-up comedians in the present day. The 'Alternative Comedy moment' between 1979 and 1981 is central to the thesis as is the relation to American stand-up comedy, Punk and the rise of reactionary humour in Britain. Alternative Comedy is identified and placed in a social, political and counter-cultural context. The achievements and failures of this comedy will be discussed with particular focus on the redefinition of the role of women and sexual politics in stand-up comedy and the creation of a thriving London cabaret and comedy scene. An argument against televised stand-up comedy and for live comedy will be put forward, as will an argument for a National Comedy Archive that will reflect the richness and continual changes within stand-up comedy in the last fifty years.

Stand-up comedians are rhetors who use humor as a rhetorical tool to inform and persuade mass audiences in the classical rhetorical tradition. In this dissertation, I work to recover the rhetorical motives of stand-up comedy, just as rhetoric and composition scholars before me have reread and recovered the legacy of the Sophists. To that end, I align stand-up comedians first with the historical heritage of Sophists and jesters, and then with the more contemporary tradition of public intellectuals and social activists. Using excerpts from stand-up comedy performances, I demonstrate how stand-up comedians are able to persuade and educate with humor. Moreover, I argue that stand-up comedians represent a shift in access to messages, away from the prerequisite of formal education required by many forms of rhetoric and toward a more innately compelling method of information sharing, available to wide, diverse audiences.

Stand-up comedy is one of the important entertainment sources for the younger generation today. The humour involved in the comedy not only entertains people but also helps to raise issues and sensitise people about several societal problems and many times breaks stereotypes in society. However, few stand-up comedians also reinforce certain stereotypes and one of them is ethnic stereotyping where these stand-up comedians joke on the ethnicity of people from different states and cultures. The paper analyses the portrayal of Bihar in stand-up performances of Priyesh Sinha and Sumit Saurav and finds out how stand-up comics stereotype an ethnicity. Stand-up comedy is performed both on television shows as well as through online video streaming platforms like Prime Video, Netflix, etc. In this paper, the stereotyping of Bihar and the people of Bihar are discussed through textual and content analysis of two different videos, and Dependency Theory are used utilised for drawing the theoretical framework of the study. One video was aired on the SET channel and the other was an online show by Prime Video. Both videos reinforce stereotypes about Bihar and present the state as backward, violent, and underdeveloped.

Usage of code-switching in the scene of stand-up comedy is one of many creative strategies for comedians to deliver jokes and connect with a multilingual audience. However, not many employ this strategy, especially in Malaysia. Malaysian standup comedians rarely use code-switching in the delivery of their jokes as many use the local variety of English in achieving humour. Code-switching enables comedians to reach out to their audience and ensures their jokes are delivered more effectively and appreciated by the audience. Centring upon the use of codeswitching from English to Malay in two stand-up comedy performances by a wellknown Malaysian artist, Harith Iskander, this article delves into the frequently used forms and functions of code-switching found in the performances. Shana Poplack’s categorisation of code-switching and Hoffman’s functions of codeswitching frame the basis of this descriptive analysis. Both frameworks are used to determine the types of code-switching used and its functions. The findings show that intrasentential code-switching is the most used in one performance while tag switching is used most frequently in the other performances. The discrepancy of outcomes between the two performances is a result of language accommodation by the comedian for the target audience; the first performance is targeted to a Malay audience while the second has a more diverse audience. In terms of functions of code-switching in both performances, they differ only in frequencies; where code- switching is mostly used to talk about a particular topic and express group identity in the first performance while in the second, it mainly functions as interjection. The overall results show that the target audience influences the way code-switching is used by stand-up comedians in order to engage with them. The findings indicate that code-switching becomes less prominent when the audience is more diverse. This implies that the type of audience influences the extent and limits on code switching in stand-up comedy. This research can benefit stand-up comedians regarding the incorporation of code-switching in delivering jokes.

Gender relations are enacted in the day-to-day lived experiences of men and women. Mundane practices such as talks and jokes may not only reflect the prevailing gender relations in society, but may also offer opportunities to contest them. Stand-up comedy, as a genre of comedy, is especially suitable in this regard because it is discursive in nature. Stand-up comedians achieve their aim of entertaining and exciting laughter often through gendered manipulations of language — hence, the genre of stand-up comedy offers a veritable site for investigating dominant gender representations in Nigeria. This study seeks to argue that rhetorical strategies are a chief means by which stand-up comedians succeed in their various representations of women and men, and by so doing implicate rhetoric in gender relations of power, as contested in the Nigerian context of stand-up comedy. The data for the study comprise nine selected volumes of two stand-up comedy shows in Nigeria, Nite of a Thousand Laughs and AY Live, which are analysed to examine the rhetorical strategies employed by Nigerian male stand-up comedians in their gendered performances.

This chapter delves into feminine humour as reflected in the discourse of Persian stand-up comedy. It opens a window on the humour created by the female participants of an Iranian stand-up comedy contest in 2016. This contest was the first of its kind in Iran. More notably,it marked the debut of female stand-up comedians on Iranian TV. Millions of Iranian viewers watched and voted for their favourite stand-up comedians. In total,two female comedians took part in the contest,appearing four times on the stage. In this chapter,it is primarily discussed how humour can create a safe milieu for a stand-up comedian to adopt new identities and address controversial issues (particularly within a hegemonic society with limited freedom of expression). Hence,humour is,metaphorically,conceptualised as an antihistamine which enables a humourist to touch upon topics that otherwise may be frowned upon by authorities and/or the public. Through a content (thematic) analysis of the stand-up performances,several instances of such socio-cultural allergens are singled out and discussed. ‘Antihistamine’ within the context of this chapter is also a phonological pun on the Persian word ‘his’ (pronounced as /hɪs/ meaning hush,hence antihistamine: anti-hush). Thus,this chapter also sheds light on how humour empowers female stand-up comedians to speak up for Iranian women,giving voice to ‘the devoiced’ and making them safely heard by a huge number of audiences. This is further discussed by drawing upon Foucault’s notion of ‘reverse discourse’ and against a socio-cultural backdrop of (post-revolutionary) Iran. The chapter concludes with a note on the Aristotelian mode of persuasion and the healing and harming effects of stand-up comedy.

Laughter has become a serious business in India now. Over the last decade, the growth of stand-up comedy has been phenomenal in India. From having late-night comedy shows on televisions that employed the same stream of jokes repetitively, the comedy scene in India has evolved into an entire industry of stand-up comedians performing in pubs, clubs, auditoriums, and digital platforms like YouTube channels and other streaming platforms. The huge popularity of stand-up comedy hints at the license given to the stand-up comedians by the audience to discuss the current socio-political issues of the country. The audience’s laughter in response to the comedian’s joke might suggest a collective agreement to the stand-up comedian’s opinionated jokes. Therefore, an understanding of the relevance of stand-up comedy in contemporary culture becomes pertinent. Since stand-up comedians use the medium of language to connect with the audience to convey their jokes, it becomes important to take into cognizance the role language plays in the performance especially in a multilingual country, like India. This research paper is thus an aim to analyze the role of multilingualism in stand-up comedy in articulating issues pertinent to India to locate the contemporary pluralistic culture of India.

The primary focus of this paper is to apply Discourse Type theory to stand-up comedy. To achieve this, the study postulates two contexts in stand-up joking stories: context of the joke and context in the joke. The context of the joke, which is inflexible, embodies the collective beliefs of stand-up comedians and their audience, while the context in the joke, which is dynamic, is manifested by joking stories and it is made up of the joke utterance, participants in the joke and activity/situation in the joke. In any routine, the context of the joke interacts with the context in the joke and vice versa. For analytical purpose, the study derives data from the routines of male and female Nigerian stand-up comedians. The analysis reveals that stand-up comedians perform discourse types, which are specific communicative acts in the context of the joke, such as greeting/salutation, reporting and informing, which bifurcates into self-praising and self denigrating.

Stand-up comedy, as a humorous performance, is a quintessential narrative that chronicles sociological realities of human endeavours. Its humour, as a new subgenre of comedy, fused the roles of performers and their audiences in a scintillating way that provokes laughter and, at the same time, gives great excitement. The performers and their audiences are major stakeholders in the performativity of stand-up comedy. Existing scholars have largely examined its realities as a product of entertainment and laughter to the neglect of its deeper sociological realities of religious satire and linguistic dexterity. Therefore, this paper investigates how stand-up humour serves as a tool for critiquing societal foibles of religious gullibility and bewitchment within the Nigerian socio-political space. Besides, the paper examines the linguistic techniques employed by the selected stand-up comedians. This is in a bid to show how stand-up comedians serve as gatekeepers, watchdogs, and social critics of their societies through their humour. Schechner’s Performance, Freudian, and Jungian psychoanalytic theories were used to analyse the embodied behaviours of the stand-up comedians. Three digital discs of live performance recordings were purposively selected. They were: Halleluyan Volume 1 and Ward 2 Comedy Klinic by Godwin Komone Gordons and A Nite of a Thousand Laughs Vol. 13 by Francis Agoda (I Go Dye). The selected live recordings were based on informing religious realities, choice of satiric humour, and performative styles of the performers. Data were subjected to performance and literary analyses.

Our perception of humour has been altered by political satire. It would be true to claim that genuine journalism is less visible on successful news channels—also referred to as the fourth pillar of democracy—and more prevalent in stand-up comedians. With all of the needless yelling, screaming, and meaningless/baseless arguments, journalism has become a joke. Memes, stand-up comedies, and sitcoms have found a home on digital platforms. These content types have not only provided audiences with visual entertainment but have also had an impact on the daily lives of individuals from diverse backgrounds. The rise of political comedy on the internet has altered public perception of politics. The political satire of today disproves this notion through the use of memes, stand-up comedy, and situational comedy. This essay defines "enterprise Hindutva" as a mediation version of Hindu nationalism that has been influenced by social media's capabilities and the cultural norms that surround it in metropolitan India. Business Hindutva is able to reason, freely choose experiences, and collaborate with inconsistencies. It resides in the spectrum that is intended to be the ideological project.

Disrupting conventional screenwriting practice, several Australian stand-up comedians have used their stand-up comedy personas and material within a satirical autoethnographic approach to develop their narrative television comedy series. Stand-up comedians use autoethnographic tools of personal experience and a critique of cultural beliefs, with a satirical comedic style to develop onstage material. Their unique ‘point of view’ that may challenge societal norms, together with their cultural identity, contributes to their onstage persona. Stand-up comedy has democratized the Australian screen by giving diverse creators a platform to prove their talent and provide proof that there is an audience for their projects. This study examines how Australian stand-up comics, Josh Thomas and Kitty Flanagan, use a satirical autoethnographic approach to critique cultural beliefs, such as those relating to gender, sexuality and age, within their stand-up comedy and further develop their stage personas and material to create their respective narrative television comedy series, Please Like Me (2013–16) and Fisk (2021–22). The author will discuss how she similarly used satirical autoethnography to develop her Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, The MILF Next Door, subverting cultural expectations relating to mature divorced mothers. Finally, the author will discuss how aspects of her show may be developed for narrative television comedy using satirical autoethnographic approaches.

Sarcasm (sarcasm) is one of the figurative language or language styles most used with the intention to mock or tease others. Sarcasm can be observed in daily conversations and in reality shows and stand-up comedy. One of the world's stand-up comedians who use sarcasm in his humor is Keith Alberstadt. The purpose of this paper is to explain the types of sarcasm used by Keith Alberstadt in his stand-up comedy. The theory used to analyze the types of sarcasm is the theory of Elizabeth Camp (1994). There are four types of sarcasm classified by Elizabeth Camp namely propositional sarcasm, lexical sarcasm, like'-prefixed sarcasm, illocutionary sarcasm. The results of this paper show Keith Alberstadt uses four types of sarcasm with different presentation. The most dominant type of sarcasm is the illocutionary sarcasm with as many as (37%). Other dominant sarcasm types are lexical sarcasm (32%), propositional sarcasm (26%) and the least is like'-prefixed sarcasm (5%). It can be concluded that illocutionary sarcasm is the most dominant type of sarcasm used by comedian Keith Alberstadt in his stand-up comedy.