Funny How? Sketch Comedy and the Art of Humor

IF 0.9 0 HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Studies in American Humor Pub Date : 2022-09-01 DOI:10.5325/studamerhumor.8.2.0390

Michael H. Epp

{"title":"Funny How? Sketch Comedy and the Art of Humor","authors":"Michael H. Epp","doi":"10.5325/studamerhumor.8.2.0390","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"the 2016 presidential election, and the visible white supremacist reaction to Trump’s appointment, Wood argues that it continues Mabley’s legacy by speaking truth to power. Without apology, these comedians forgo respectability politics or the desire to “find common ground” with audiences who might have historically contributed to anti-Black, antiqueer, and antitrans thought (110). Instead, they use their comedic expertise to hold white people accountable for their complicity in white heteropatriarchy. Scholars looking to laugh and learn will enjoy Cracking Up. It curates a community of Black feminist stand-up comedians and activists and draws attention to key disruptors of white supremacist thought. Both visually and thematically, Mabley is a presence across the text, from the pixilated image of Mabley on the cover of the book to the final screen grab of Wanda Sykes’s impersonation of Mabley from a 2019 episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Wood honors Mabley while telling a more complex story about Black women in stand-up comedy. Through laughter and pleasure, Wood asserts that “the black feminist comic demands more. Nothing short of pure freedom will do” (50). Wood’s book cracks us up, bringing us together and pushing us to toward a more hopeful and joyful future.","PeriodicalId":53944,"journal":{"name":"Studies in American Humor","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Studies in American Humor","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5325/studamerhumor.8.2.0390","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

the 2016 presidential election, and the visible white supremacist reaction to Trump’s appointment, Wood argues that it continues Mabley’s legacy by speaking truth to power. Without apology, these comedians forgo respectability politics or the desire to “find common ground” with audiences who might have historically contributed to anti-Black, antiqueer, and antitrans thought (110). Instead, they use their comedic expertise to hold white people accountable for their complicity in white heteropatriarchy. Scholars looking to laugh and learn will enjoy Cracking Up. It curates a community of Black feminist stand-up comedians and activists and draws attention to key disruptors of white supremacist thought. Both visually and thematically, Mabley is a presence across the text, from the pixilated image of Mabley on the cover of the book to the final screen grab of Wanda Sykes’s impersonation of Mabley from a 2019 episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Wood honors Mabley while telling a more complex story about Black women in stand-up comedy. Through laughter and pleasure, Wood asserts that “the black feminist comic demands more. Nothing short of pure freedom will do” (50). Wood’s book cracks us up, bringing us together and pushing us to toward a more hopeful and joyful future.

查看原文本刊更多论文

有趣的是吗?小品喜剧与幽默艺术

2016年总统大选，以及明显的白人至上主义者对特朗普任命的反应，伍德认为，它通过向权力说真话，延续了马布利的遗产。没有道歉，这些喜剧演员放弃了体面的政治或与观众“找到共同点”的愿望，这些观众可能在历史上对反黑人，反酷儿和反跨性别思想做出了贡献(110)。相反，他们用自己的喜剧专长让白人为自己在白人异性父权制中的同谋行为负责。喜欢笑和学习的学者会喜欢《爆笑》。它策划了一个由黑人女权主义单口喜剧演员和活动家组成的社区，并提请人们注意白人至上主义思想的主要破坏者。无论是在视觉上还是在主题上，Mabley都存在于整个文本中，从书封面上Mabley的像素化图像到旺达·赛克斯在2019年《了不起的麦瑟尔夫人》中模仿Mabley的最后一个屏幕截图。伍德在向梅布利致敬的同时，讲述了一个关于黑人女性单口喜剧的更复杂的故事。通过笑声和愉悦，伍德断言“黑人女权主义喜剧要求更多。只有纯粹的自由才行”(50)。伍德的书让我们开怀大笑，把我们团结在一起，推动我们走向一个更有希望、更快乐的未来。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Studies in American Humor HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

1.40

自引率

90.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Welcome to the home of Studies in American Humor, the journal of the American Humor Studies Association. Founded by the American Humor Studies Association in 1974 and published continuously since 1982, StAH specializes in humanistic research on humor in America (loosely defined) because the universal human capacity for humor is always expressed within the specific contexts of time, place, and audience that research methods in the humanities strive to address. Such methods now extend well beyond the literary and film analyses that once formed the core of American humor scholarship to a wide range of critical, biographical, historical, theoretical, archival, ethnographic, and digital studies of humor in performance and public life as well as in print and other media. StAH’s expanded editorial board of specialists marks that growth. On behalf of the editorial board, I invite scholars across the humanities to submit their best work on topics in American humor and join us in advancing knowledge in the field.