Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in African American Studies
Laughing At Ourselves: Music And Identity In Comedic Performance, Peter Trigg
Laughing At Ourselves: Music And Identity In Comedic Performance, Peter Trigg
Masters Theses
Standup comedy actively performs and engages with constructions of self and social identity, especially in terms of ethnic difference and the negotiation of American race relations. Musical comedy, wherein standup comedians perform song onstage, represents one facet of this expression that configures musical texts and expectations in the service of cultural observation and critique. Bo Burnham and Reggie Watts characterize two disparate approaches to the practice based on their aesthetic tastes, existential anxieties, and racial experiences. The two present their respective identities onstage in relation to a changing American political landscape of the early 21st century that has seen widespread …
Texts And Subtexts In Performing Blackness: Vernacular Masking In Key And Peele As A Lens For Viewing Paul Laurence Dunbar’S Musical Comedy, Spencer Kuchle
Texts And Subtexts In Performing Blackness: Vernacular Masking In Key And Peele As A Lens For Viewing Paul Laurence Dunbar’S Musical Comedy, Spencer Kuchle
Doctoral Dissertations
When Kegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele’s sketch-comedy show Key & Peele took Comedy Central by storm in 2012, the perceived need by the comedians to “adjust their blackness” to gain social recognition became a recurring theme. Throughout their comedic performances, language becomes a proxy for identity, and Key and Peele’s parodic employment of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and linguistic variation serves to challenge notions of black authenticity, while emphasizing the absurdity of racial essentialism. An embodiment of Jonathan Rossing’s concept of emancipatory racial humor, Key and Peele’s comedy creates nonthreatening spaces that facilitate the contestation of cultural authority …
Laughing Against White Supremacy: Marginalized Performance Of Resistance Comedy, Caren Holmes
Laughing Against White Supremacy: Marginalized Performance Of Resistance Comedy, Caren Holmes
Senior Independent Study Theses
This study examines the political influence of charged standup comedy as a form of protest in resistance movements against white supremacy. It examines the experiences of seven marginalized comics who confront oppression through this non-traditional and humor based form of protest. Over the course of two months I conducted and filmed eight in-depth, semi-formal interviews with seven comics of color; six women and one trans-non-binary person, as well as an academic who specializes in studying the production of “charged humor.” I attended more than 30 standup shows and filmed several performances. In my analysis I explore four major themes, (1) …