Taking a Stand

Contemporary US Stand-Up Comedians as Public Intellectuals

Jared N. Champion, Peter C. Kunze, Jared N. Champion, Peter C. Kunze

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781496835499
  9781496835482
• eBook ISBN:
  9781496835529
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Television

Contributions by Jared N. Champion, Miriam M. Chirico, Thomas Clark, David R. Dewberry, Christopher J. Gilbert, David Gillota, Kathryn Kein, Rob King, Rebecca Krefting, Peter C. Kunze, Linda Mizejewski, Aviva Orenstein, Raúl Pérez, Philip Scepanski, Susan Seizer, Monique Taylor, Ila Tyagi, and Timothy J. Viator

Stand-up comedians have a long history of walking a careful line between serious and playful engagement with social issues: Lenny Bruce questioned the symbolic valence of racial slurs, Dick Gregory took time away from the stage to speak alongside Martin Luther King Jr., and—more recently—Tig Notaro challenged popular notions of damaged or abject bodies. Stand-up comedians deploy humor to open up difficult topics for broader examination, which only underscores the social and cultural importance of their work.

Taking a Stand: Contemporary US Stand-Up Comedians as Public Intellectuals draws together essays that contribute to the analysis of the stand-up comedian as public intellectual since the 1980s. The chapters explore stand-up comedians as contributors to and shapers of public discourse via their live performances, podcasts, social media presence, and political activism.

Each chapter highlights a stand-up comedian and their ongoing discussion of a cultural issue or expression of a political ideology/standpoint: Lisa Lampanelli's use of problematic postracial humor, Aziz Ansari's merging of sociology and technology, or Maria Bamford's emphasis on mental health, to name just a few. Taking a Stand offers a starting point for understanding the work stand-up comedians do as well as its reach beyond the stage. Comedians influence discourse, perspectives, even public policy on myriad issues, and this book sets out to take those jokes seriously.

Table of contents

• Cover
• TAKING A STAND
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION. LAUGHING OUT LOUD Stand-Up Comedians in the Public Sphere
• 1. MO’NIQUE Con Woman and Sister Citizen in I Coulda Been Your Cellmate
• 2. SCORCHED-EARTH COMEDY Laughing Off Wounded Warriors with the Humor of Bobby Henline
• 3. MARIA BAMFORD A/Way with Words
• 4. AWKWARD EMBRACE Tig Notaro and the Humor of Social Discomfort
• 5. COMEDY FROM THE INTERSECTIONS Chris Rock on Class and Race
• 6. WHITE COMEDIANS, STRATEGIC RACIST HUMOR, AND THE (RE)NORMALIZATION OF RACISM Lisa Lampanelli as a Case Study
• 7. LEGUIZAMO’S COMIC FRAME Identity and the Art of Impersonation
• 8. “OF COURSE, BUT MAYBE” Louis C.K. and the Contradictory Politics of Privilege
• 9. JERRY SEINFELD VERSUS PC SOCIAL MEDIA Professional Dissonance and the Public Intellectual as Gatekeeper
• 10. STANDING FLAT-FOOTED AND TALKING W. Kamau Bell Talks Race in an Age of “Post-Race”
• 11. SMARTPHONE SOCIOLOGY Aziz Ansari on Intimacy in the Twenty-First Century
• 12. STEWART HUFF, P.I. Intellectual at Large
• 13. LARRY THE CABLE GUY The Anti–Political Correctness Public Intellectual
• 14. “KILLER CLOSER” Doug Stanhope and the White Libertarian Stand-Up Tradition
• 15. THE COMEDIAN AS PREACHER Bill Hicks and the Rhetoric of Fundamentalism
• ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS