Navigating the 'Darkness': Feminist, Trans, and Queer Comedy Against Ideology

Abstract:In this article I argue that dark comedy is an important democratic resource for challenging ideology. I build this argument by drawing from two voices—trans YouTube activist Natalie Wynn and feminist science fiction writer Joanna Russ. I begin by conducting a close reading of Wynn's video "The Darkness," in which she discusses the hypocrisies of free speech ideology. Critically responding to a transphobic performance by comedian Ricky Gervais, Wynn shows how the language of political correctness and free speech are used to conceal deeper structures of oppression. To think about this problem, I look at Joanna Russ's satirical "How to Suppress Women's Writing," a mock instruction manual for preventing women and people of color from becoming published authors. In this text, Russ theorizes ideology as an organized and escalating progression of responses to anti-hegemonic action. Russ's use of satire to expose these uses of ideology, however, has the effect of undermining their political projects. Drawing insight from this example, I conclude by returning to Wynn's case for the importance of comedy created by marginalized people (she terms this type of comedy "the darkness") as a political tool. While some leftist responses have tended to argue that the medium and structure of comedy facilitates bigotry and erasure, Wynn makes a case for dark comedy as a means of transcending these structures. She shows that dark comedy is an antidote to dominant ideologies, and is a political tool that is more readily available to the oppressed than to their oppressors.