What’s so funny? Audiences of women’s stand-up comedy and layered referential viewing: Exploring identity and power

ABSTRACT In this paper, I discuss audience reactions to stand-up clips by Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Margaret Cho. Women’s comedy is arguably at the height of its popularity, but there is a seeming lack of research on audience interpretations of humor produced by women. This research builds on and extends current notions of “referential viewing” in audience research. Utilizing focus group analysis, I elaborate audience decoding practices and the role of identity in layers of referential viewing. Audiences in this research centered their discussions on identification of the comedians, identification of the targets of jokes, and identification of whom they perceive to be the intended audience. Discussed are implications for how audiences understand various power dynamics through humor and distinctions created between comedy that “laughs with” or that “laughs at.”