Stand-up Comedy Research Articles

Comedy As Arts Learning Method

Comedy can come from anywhere, a stimulus that makes people laugh. Events that are unusual, odd, strange, distorted, or unnatural often make people laugh. The stand-up comedy phenomenon has been a hot topic in recent years. The stories told are designed so that they are interesting to watch. The material can be crafted around a desired topic, even topics that are uncommon or are often considered taboo to be transformed into a liquid discussion and invite laughter. Theory material in certain subjects that are usually delivered verbally by educators could be improved using comedy methods – employing a deliberate and structured joke that both involves students and develops their understanding of the main material delivered. The ability of educators to deliver jokes is an important part of the success of this learning method. Students become more engaged, instead of merely spectators / listeners in the learning activities. An enjoyable learning atmosphere will build active interaction and create bright ideas in the learning process.
 Keywords: Comedy Teaching Method; Teaching Using Comedy; Humor in Learning

Winning Over the Audience: Trust and Humor in Stand-Up Comedy

ABSTRACT This article advances a novel way of understanding humor and stand-up comedy. I propose that the relationship between the comedian and her audience is understood by way of trust, where the comedian requires the trust of her audience for her humor to succeed. The comedian may hold (or fail to hold) the trust of the audience in two domains. She may be trusted as to the form of the humor, such as whether she is joking. She may also be trusted as to the content of the joke. This approach has two distinct virtues. The first is that it makes sense of partial successes. These are cases where the humor neither completely succeeds nor fails because the audience does not fully trust the comedian. The second is that it explains intuitions about ethically dubious humor and why certain classes of humor, especially those dealing in racialized and gendered identities, are more readily (but not necessarily) accepted from humorists of those identities.

Is Stand-Up Comedy Art?

ABSTRACT Stand-up so closely resembles-and is meant to resemble-the styles and expectations of everyday speech that the idea of technique and technical mastery we typically associate with art is almost rendered invisible. Technique and technical mastery is as much about the understanding and development of audiences as collaborators as it is the generation of material. Doing so requires encountering audiences in places that by custom or design encourage ludic and vernacular talk-social spaces and third spaces such as bars, coffee houses, and clubs. Cultivating uncultivated speech and cultivating real audiences in found settings form the background of developing the stand-up comedian, neither of which lend themselves to the conservatory tradition we think of when we think of the development of artists. This article addresses two areas of the overall question of stand-up as art, starting with the ontological question of stand-up comedy: if it is an art where is it located, and what we may mean by “artworks” and “artworld” in stand-up comedy? Then I consider whether stand-up comedy as practiced can be reconciled with several recent definitions for art and note some of the special conditions and contexts for stand-up.

On Slucki, Finder, and Patt's Laughter After: Humor and the Holocaust

On Slucki, Finder, and Patt's Laughter After:Humor and the Holocaust Elyce Rae Helford Laughter After: Humor and the Holocaust. Edited by David Slucki, Gabriel N. Finder, and Avinoam Patt. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2020. 352 pp., ISBN 978-0-8143-4438-6 (pb), $34.99. I begin with a confession: I laugh at Holocaust-themed humor. From the Nazibashing wit of Mel Brooks to the taboo-breaking excess of Sarah Silverman, I find the subject of comedy after the Shoah fascinating and important. Thus, I share the interests of the editors of and contributors to Laughter After: Humor and the Holocaust: the power and problematics of post-Holocaust humor are compelling and worthy of scholarly attention. Today, as survivors die and antisemitism (including denialism) raises its dangerous head once again, understanding the politics of laughter is vital. Conventional wisdom and traditional scholarship have posited that we must present the Holocaust seriously and realistically. Anything else, the argument goes, will demean, devalue, and potentially lead to denial. Such a supposition neglects problems with claims of authenticity and the limits of verisimilitude. Representations are all and always artificial. Moreover, post-Holocaust humor can point to the limits—even the failures—of Holocaust tragedies and melodramas. As Slavoj Žižek posits, comedy, unlike dramatic realism, "accepts in advance its failure to render the horror of the Holocaust."1 [End Page 259] The 1990s brought debates over the place of post-Holocaust humor in response to films including Train de vie (1998) and Jakob the Liar (1999) but especially Life Is Beautiful (1997). As the editors state, Roberto Benigni's picture "marked a turning point, if not in humorous representations of the Holocaust, then at least in discussions about the ethics and functions of such humor" (6–7). The collection Laughter After is possible, they argue, because the distance of twenty years have seen the "explosion of Holocaust humor on television, in stand-up comedy, and in literature in the Americas, Israel, Europe, and Australia" (7). Indeed, the volume offers valuable international and generic diversity, from Yiddish humor in Europe to Latin American caricaturas. One can only wonder what the editors might have concluded about the impact on Holocaust humor studies of the Oscar-winning Jojo Rabbit (2019). The editors divide the book, semi-historically, into two sections: "Aftermath" and "Breaking Taboos." "Aftermath" contains three chapters focused on Yiddish humor in the Soviet Union, Poland, and the Netherlands and then shifts to post-Holocaust writing and film in two additional chapters about US texts dating from 1939 to 1972. "Breaking Taboos" contains nine chapters, all post-Holocaust in focus, from the 1960s to the present, in texts from Latin America, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Israel, and the United States, including literature, film, television, stand-up comedy, newspaper comics, and shared jokes. If I am a bit unsure of the rationale for and effectiveness of the book's structure (there are no section introductions), I am entirely engaged by the wideranging content of the chapters themselves. Although the "classics" are covered in several chapters—for example, The Great Dictator (1940), The Producers (1969), and so on—the collection's linchpin is its trio of chapters on Yiddish humor. Anna Shternshis begins with "Hitler Hanging on the Tree: Humor and Violence in Soviet Yiddish Folklore of World War II." She presents a compelling archival study that interrogates the mobilization of communist ideology in jokes and stories collected between 1941 and 1947 by Soviet Yiddish journalists. Her goal would have been to compare such official discourse with uncensored Yiddish jokes, but these are available only via previously collected and published volumes. In this context, Shternshis posits that the Soviet collection reveals "an attempt by the state to use Yiddish humor as a weapon against fascism" (17). In "Too Soon? Yiddish Humor and the Holocaust in Postwar Poland" and "Is It Still Funny? Lin Jaldati and Yiddish Satire Before and After the Holocaust," [End Page 260] authors Marc Caplan and David Shneer consider additional Yiddish texts. The former analyzes the "conflicting imperatives of Yiddish humor and Holocaust commemoration" (40) through Moyshe Nudelman's 1947 volume Laughter through Tears, the Polish film Undsere kinder (1948...

Stand-Up Comedy, Authenticity, and Assertion

ABSTRACT Stand-up comedy is often viewed in two contrary ways. In one view, comedians are hailed as providing genuine social insight and telling truths. In the other, comedians are seen as merely trying to entertain and not to be taken seriously. This tension raises a foundational question for the aesthetics of stand-up: Do stand-up comedians perform genuine assertions in their performances? This article considers this question in the light of several theories of assertion. We conclude that comedians on stage do not count as making genuine assertions-rather, much like actors on a stage, they merely pretend to perform speech acts. However, due to norms of authenticity that govern stand-up comedy, performers can nonetheless succeed in conveying genuine insights. Thus, our account accommodates both the seemingly incompatible aspects of our ordinary appreciation of stand-up comedy and points toward deeper philosophical understanding of stand-up comedy as a unique art form.

Comic Impossibilities

ABSTRACTMagic and stand-up comedy have a lot in common. For example, when successful, both tend to elicit laughter, and many magicians regularly perform in comedy clubs. Nevertheless, the close relationship between magic and comedy is poorly understood. The goal of this article is to explore this relationship and to defend the thesis that magic is actually a form-arguably a limit case-of stand-up comedy. This requires first introducing definitions of both stand-up comedy and magic. The core argument then deploys one of today's best-developed philosophical theories of comic amusement to show that magic, when successful, is humorous. In this way, the article contributes to our understanding of both the emotional response to magic and the nature and scope of comedy. The article begins with an analysis of Steve Martin's 1968 TV debut on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, in which he performs a “socko-boffo comedy routine” that seamlessly integrates absurdist comedy with magic tricks.

Irreverence Rules: The Politics of Authenticity and the Carnivalesque Aesthetic in Black South African Women's Stand-Up Comedy

ABSTRACTThis article argues that the aesthetic practices of black women stand-ups in South Africa take up the concrete ways black people all over the world use performances, within theatrical or everyday practices, to create, shape, and transform their worlds. Reading stand-up as a genre of diaspora culture meant to contend with issues of antiblack racism, economic and social marginalization, and the legacy of (neo)colonialism, this article examines the ways humor and comedy manifest transnational intimacies and affinities via the circulation of black women's comic culture. Black women's stand-up comedy enables us to orient our understanding of the inextricable link between aesthetic choices and diaspora as the locus of the production of blackness, and as a particular sensibility rooted in the struggle against colonialism, antiblack racism, and the struggle for human rights and recognition.

Caste, gender, and “global Indian-ness”: spaces of safety in stand-up comedy in global Mumbai

ABSTRACT This paper argues that stand-up comedy produces the places it uses in the city of Mumbai as “safe” for new middle-class women by excluding Dalit and working-class people who are deemed “dangerous.” Such exclusion is achieved by mobilising places and infrastructure that are built to make Mumbai a “world-class” city, a process that requires the dispossession and exploitation of the masses from which the new middle-class benefits. In the context of the sexual harassment charges that hit the stand-up comedy scene in 2018 and the responses to those charges, I posit that stand-up comedy is a site where “appropriate” gender hierarchies are formulated in the pursuit of “global Indian-ness.”

On the Chinese Translation of English Online Stand-up Comedy from the Perspective of Eco-translatology

As a carrier of laughter and culture, stand-up comedy is becoming more and more popular with Chinese audience. However, the Chinese translation of stand-up comedy has not received enough attention in translation circle. From the perspective of Eco-translatology, this paper explores the translation strategies of stand-up comedy. By investigating the subtitle translation of online stand-up comedies, it finds that translators employ various translation strategies to convey humorous effects, including the use of cultural annotations, rhetorical devices, and cultural transplantations. It is a new attempt to combine Eco-translatology with the translation of stand-up comedy. It is hoped that the paper could provide a new perspective for the study and improve the quality of stand-up comedy translation, so as to better meet the needs of Chinese audience.

Feminism’s Last Frontier in the Quest for Social Theory: American Stand-up in the Age of Political Correctness

The socio-cultural status of stand-up comedians allowed them to comment with impunity on sensitive social issues, giving them the ability to normalize and abnormalize certain societal behaviors and beliefs. This Foucaultian social tool attracted the use of many historically disenfranchised groups on the merits of sexuality and race. Feminists noted a gender discrepancy in pay and appearance in the hierarchy of this industry and attributed it to systemic flaws, not just with the industry but with humor’s theoretical and conceptual structures. The aim of this research work is to assess the impact of their ideological quest for a new theory of humor on the integrity of American stand-up comedy. The application of Peterson’s “Political Correctness Game” framework suggests that there are possible ulterior motives behind calls to change the foundational structure of American stand-up. The problem that this paper attempts to address is whether calls for inclusivity in the framework of intersectionality theory in humor can be characterized as a legitimate call to limit, what the feminist labeled, as acts of hubris and humiliation against victimized minorities? Or are these calls permeating into dangerous social and even legal territories, where comedians’ rhetoric is regulated and their artistic freedom is infringed upon? This paper contended that feminist calls for a new theory of humor derived from intersectionality lens would only create “echo chambers” of already like-minded individuals, rather than exerting social change through the subaltern social power that can be generated from stand-up humor.

Analysis of Sarcasm Found in Keith Alberstadt's Comedy

AbstractSarcasm (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.

HYPERBOLES USED BY RIN HERMANA AND GE PAMUNGKAS’S STAND UP COMEDY IN KOMPAS TV

In language study, figurative language is language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation. Hyperbolic expression is one kind of figures of speech that exaggerates things with overstatement. In this research focuses with hyperboles used by Rin Hermana and Ge Pamungkas’s Stand Up Comedy in KompasTV. The purpose of this research are to describe the form of hyperbole and the hyperbolic meaning used by Rin Hermana and Ge Pamungkas in the video which is downloaded from YouTube based on theory of Claridge. The types of the research in this study are qualitative and quantitative method. Qualitative research is used to analyze the data in the form text and quantitative research is used to calculate number of forms of hyperboles and types of hyperbolic meaning in Rin Hermana and Ge Pamungkas’s Stand Up Comedy video to conclude which dominantly used. To find out the data of hyperboles, the researcher used checklist method and color coding. This study found that there are 7 forms of hyperbole and also 7 types of hyperbolic meaning. This study shows, the dominant forms by both Stand Up Comedian is repetition and the dominant types of hyperbolic meaning is connotative meaning. Keywords: Figurative Language, Hyperbole, Stand-Up Comedy.

Staging science with young people: bringing science closer to students through stand-up comedy

ABSTRACT Although efforts are being made to bring science closer to secondary school students, science is still mostly perceived within stereotypic frameworks, hindering students’ identification with it. In this paper, we claim the role that arts-based approaches can play in science education to break these biased views and understandings and generate a more motivating science learning experience. For that purpose, we analyse research conducted with students from two secondary schools in Barcelona participating in a science education project applying drama-based activities within an inquiry process with early-career researchers. More specifically, we explore students’ perceptions of science and their attitudes towards learning science at school and pursuing scientific careers. We then evaluate and discuss how the triad ‘researchers’ interaction – scientific inquiry – artistic creation’ can potentially challenge their storylines about science and bring science learning closer to them. Findings suggest that the evaluated approach contributed to progress in this direction through two mechanisms: creating new rapports with science by offering a creative, inclusive and interactive learning experience, and broadening students’ perceptions in terms of what implies to do science and who can do it.

STAND-UP COMEDY: THE RELATION BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Stand-up comedy is a kind of entertainment which presents the art and speech competence. As a single performer on the stage without any supporting properties and partners, a comic is permitted to express any utterances and strived for making audiences laugh. So, language aspect is the most important element of this art in the form of utterances. Based on the theory that language both expresses and embodies cultural identity, concerning stand-up comedy a question then emerged; How are language and culture related by comics’ utterances? This study aims to describe the content and the way of the utterances expressed by comics in stand-up comedy; to reveal how language and culture are closely related. The data were collected from videos of Indonesian Stand-Up Comedy season 4 of the three winner comic performances. Through collecting, analyzing, presenting and interpreting the data as the steps of qualitative method employed, the finding shows that content of the utterances expressed by the comics represent their own culture included ethnicity and community which are related to the problem dealing with their social life. While, the way they express the utterances shows that there are striking differences among the three comics in uttering the sounds, words, sentences and gimmick. The content differences identify their cultural and social background. Stand-up comedy art reveals how the language closely related to the culture. Keywords: comic, culture, language, language identity, stand-up comedy

The internet and social media as a theme and channel of humor

Abstract This paper deploys the tools of relevance theory to establish a common pragmatic mechanism operating in humorous texts (stand-up comedy, jokes, sketches) themed on the omnipresence of the Internet and social media in human life. It is postulated that this mechanism resides in incongruity between shared cultural assumptions expressing high esteem for rational actions and informative communication, and private assumptions endorsed by internet application users, who find phatic communication pleasurable. It is claimed that incongruity so understood is not a central but additional pragmatic mechanism in various humorous genres, and it tends not to be resolved, as tension between these two sets of assumptions lingers on.

FACTORS AND CONDITIONS THAT INFLUENCE THE PERCEPTION OF OFFENSIVE HUMOR

The study is derived from a larger study, namely the author’s PhD dissertation, and it gives an overview of and illustrates the most essential factors that maneuver utterances into being perceived as humorous and/or offensive in the context of performed, edgy stand-up comedy. The paper introduces basic humor and offensive humor theories as well as certain pragmatic mechanisms that lie beneath the process which starts with the utterance and ends with the perlocutionary effect on the audience. The study elaborates on offensive humor theories, conventions of stand-up comedy, pragmatic concepts, the contrast between offensiveness and immorality, which is all complemented by a brief psychological perspective, linking people’s reactions to the notion of harm and one’s level of self-esteem. The pragmatic insight into the factors that make offensive humor function points at the necessity of strong, non-conventional, and complex stimuli, perceived and comprehended by the audience, based on which the offensive layer can be constructed.

DISFLUENCIES IN STAND-UP COMEDY: A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS ON DREW LYNCH'S STUTTERING

Difficulties of producing speech sound in stutterers are indicated by the repetition, pause, prolongation, revision, and filled pause on the speaking. However, such difficulties do not hinder the communication as shown in the speech of a stand-up comedian named Drew Lynch. This study aims at exploring the types of fluency disorder identified in Lynch’s utterances on stage. This study uses the descriptive qualitative method employed through the process of observing, transcribing, describing, and analyzing his utterances in American Got Talent videos. The result shows Lynch produces all kinds of disfluency covering filled pause, phrase repetition, revision, multisyllabic whole-word repetition, monosyllabic whole-word repetition, repetition of individual sound or syllable, prolongation of sound, and block. The monosyllabic whole-word repetition is more dominant. The combination happens between revision with monosyllabic whole-word repetition, prolongation, or multisyllabic whole-word repetition. These findings confirm that in the context of stand-up comedy, the disfluencies in stuttering do not hamper the transfer of meaning.

STAND UP COMEDY SEBAGAI UPAYA PEMERTAHANAN BAHASA INDONESIA

Languages nowadays are on the way to its disappearance, with almost 50% of them in the process of extinction. The most effective to language preservation is by way using the media. Jurieen Survey (2016) elaborates that 61% of TV viewers fond of watching humor programs, one of which is stand up comedy. Hence, TV media is expected to contribute on language preservation, Bahasa Indonesia in particular. How significant the influence of stand up comedy and what aspects of comedy represent against language preservation are the two primary focuses on the research. Based on the data sources and analysis results, Four aspects of stand-up comedy cover: linguistic, social, economic and religious. The conclusion is stand up comedy can be an effective mean to preserve language and to educate the community. Stand up comedy would be easily accepted and digested by the community, due to its light and humorous presentation style.

Stand-up Comedy and Young India: The Expression and Construction of Identity

ABSTRACT In this essay, I explore the genre of live comedy outside its traditional Western setting in popular and academic understanding. I argue that its ever-growing popularity in urban India is reflective of an expanding middle-class’s search for an authentic social identity. I demonstrate – through ethnographic and analytical detail – how stand-up comedy is well-placed to offer insight into this effort to move between and beyond the twin forces of deep-seated cultural traditions and the westernisation of public culture. In addition – as my four key comedic informants were keen to emphasise – its significance does not exist merely in the detail of the content they divulge but in the form itself, as an opportunity to divulge personal reflections in an intimate, communal space.

Studies of Verbal Humor from the Cross-Cultural Perspective

The present paper begins with the definitions of humor, followed by an introduction to Berger’s typology of humor. It then reviews the previous empirical studies, including studies based on Berge’s classification theory, studies of humor from the cross-cultural perspective, studies of stand-up comedy from the cross-cultural perspective and studies of Wong’s stand-up comedy. The paper ends with a summary of research gaps and questions for this study.