University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School January 2015 Was It Something They Said? Stand-up Comedy and Progressive Social Change David M. Jenkins University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Communication Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Sociology Commons Scholar Commons Citation Jenkins, David M., "Was It Something They aidS ? Stand-up Comedy and Progressive Social Change" (2015). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/5710 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Was It Something They Said? Stand-up Comedy and Progressive Social Change by David M. Jenkins A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy with a concentration in Performance Studies Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Co-Major Professor: Elizabeth Bell, Ph.D. Co-Major Professor: A. David Payne, Ph.D. Mahuya Pal, Ph.D. John Barnshaw, Ph.D. Date of Approval: June 26, 2015 Keywords: Culture, Humor, Performance, Rhetoric Copyright © 2015, David M. Jenkins DEDICATION This project is dedicated to many, all of whom are partially responsible for getting me here. First, the educators: Dr. Lee Beger, Dr. Patrick Finelli, David Frankel, Dr. Ralf Remshardt, Dr. Mikell Pinkney, Dr. David Shelton, Dr. Stacy Holman Jones, Dr. Elizabeth Bell, Dr. David Payne, Dr. Mahuya Pal, Dr. John Barnshaw, Dr. Jane Jorgenson, Dr. Rachel Dubrofsky, Dr. Marcyrose Chvasta, Dr. Michael LeVan, and Dr. Christopher McRae. Thank you all for sharing with me. I am also infinitely indebted to my devoted wife, Summer Rae Bohnenkamp, who has been exceedingly patient with me throughout this process. My mother, Catherine Louise Kramer, has been there for me since Sesame Street and The Letter People, helping me in meaningful ways at every step of this journey. No longer with me but never forgotten for their roles in my evolution include Betty Louise and Bob Jakway, Ruby Lee, and Michael Glenn Jenkins. Finally, I am indebted to the board of directors and artistic associates of Jobsite Theater who have stepped in often to help pick up the end of a load so that I could complete this program. Ad Astra Per Aspera. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract……………………………………………………………………….………………….iii Chapter One: Introduction……………………………………………………………………...1 Beginnings……………………………………………………………………………….1 Why Stand-up Comedy?........................................................................................8 Key Arguments…………………………………………………………………..…….11 References……………………………………………………………………………..16 Chapter Two: Definitions, Foundations, and Connections………………………………...18 Methodology……………………………………………………………………………19 The Comic Persona…………………………………………………………………...21 Performances of Comic Texts…………………………………………………..……22 Social Drama………………………………………………………………………...…22 Additional Notes on this Method……………………………………………………..27 Defining Change……………………………………………………………………….29 Philosophy of the Comic Spirit………………………………………………………..32 Comic Ambivalence……………………………………………………………35 Gargoyles and Grotesques………………………………………………..….36 How Does Postcolonialism Fit In?........................................................................38 Stand-up Comics as Modern Public Intellectuals…………………………………..41 Major Theories of Comedy……………………………………………………………47 The Comic Persona, Redux…………………………………………..……………...51 Why Rock, Silverman, and C. K……………………………………………………...53 Critical Reactions to These Comics……………………………………………..…..55 Remaining Chapter Summaries……………………………………………………...57 Chapter Three………………………………………………………………….57 Chapter Four……………………………………………………………………58 Chapter Five……………………………………………………………………58 Chapter Six………………………………………………………………….….59 References………………………………………………………………………….….59 Chapter Three: Chris Rock: Race, Politics, and the Politics of Race…………………….64 Was it Something They Said?..............................................................................65 Chris Rock: Never Scared…………………………………………………………….75 Kill the Messenger……………………………………………………………………..77 A Problem of Both/And Logic and the Invisibility of Privilege……………………..84 Chris Rock and Social Drama………………………………………………………..89 i Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….……..97 References…………………………………………………………………………....101 Chapter Four: Sarah Silverman: The Laughing Medusa…………………………………103 Boy’s Club Crashers: American Women in Stand-up Comedy………………….103 The Sound of Women’s Laughter……………………………………………….….105 Accounting for the Unruly Woman: a Departure…………………………………..109 Comic Personas of Women in Stand-up………………………………………......110 The Evolution of Comic Personas for Women…….……………………………...112 Gracie Allen: a Bridge from Vaudeville Hal to Comedy Club…………….113 Phyllis Diller: an Iconic Unruly Woman………………………………….…114 Jackie “Moms” Mabley: Intersections and Crossing Over……………….116 The Comic Persona of Sarah Silverman…………………………………………..118 Sarah Silverman: We Are Miracles…………………………………………………124 Sarah Silverman and Social Drama………………………………………………..130 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….136 References……………………………………………………………………………140 Chapter Five: Louis C. K.: Whiteness, Masculinity, and Privilege……..……………….143 The Comic Persona of Louis C. K………………………………………………….147 Louis C. K. in Oh My God……………………………………………………….…..156 Questioning Privilege and History: “Of Course … but Maybe”…………..158 Louis C. K. and Social Drama………………………………………………………164 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….171 References…………………………………………………………………………....176 Chapter Six: Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..178 Restatement of Purpose……………………………………………………………..179 Recap of Analysis Chapters…………………………………………………………183 Chapter Three: Chris Rock………………………………………….………183 Chapter Four: Sarah Silverman…………………………………………….185 Chapter Five: Louis C. K…………………………………………………….186 Justifications…..………………………………………………………………………188 Significance of this Study……………………………………………………………191 Polysemic Laughter…………………………………………………………..191 Failed Irony………...………………………………………………………….192 Do We Even Have the Right to Be Offended?........................................193 Future Research Opportunities…………………………………………………..…195 References……………………………………………………………………………197 About the Author…………………………………………………………………..…..End Page ii iii ABSTRACT From our earliest origins in every civilization across the globe, comic performances have fulfilled an important social function. Yet stand-up comedy has not attracted the serious academic inquiry one might expect. This dissertation argues that in the absence of public intellectuals stand-up comics are important to how we talk about and negotiate complicated issues like gender and race. These comic texts are sites of cultural critique, public discourse, tools for articulation, a means of persuasion, and serve to galvanize communities. This dissertation argues that stand-up comedy performances are a vital part of modern American intellectual and social life and are heavily enmeshed in ongoing processes of progressive social change. In the absence of public intellectuals in what is generally an anti-intellectual modern America, Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, and Louis C. K. are currently three highly relevant stand-up comics who generate and contribute to discourses that galvanize or polarize publics and counterpublics. Their comic performances, recordings, and other artifacts (like internet memes) that live on after the live event circulate in the public sphere and our most quotidian exchanges. They contribute to discourses that move us toward progressive social change and also act as a barometer for where we are as a nation during any particular moment. Through the discourses generated by their performances, their involvement in social dramas, and iv their role they perform as public intellectuals, stand-up comics are capable of healing, reconciling, or otherwise mediating breaches in the social order. This dissertation uses 1) a critical examination of the construction and performance of the comic persona, 2) a close analysis of the comic routine as an aesthetic text, and finally 3) an examination of social dramas and the discourses they generate to see where and how these comics possibly contribute to progressive social change. This study finds Chris Rock to be a potent mediator, Sarah Silverman a transgressive instigator, and C. K. a subversive healer. This study makes contributions to a wide arrat: of stakeholders: Communication, Sociology, Performance Studies, and Postcolonialism. Finally, I offer new terms to discuss the interaction of comic and audience and directions for future research. v CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION All the acts of the drama of world history were performed before a chorus of the laughing people. Without hearing this chorus we cannot understand the drama as a whole. - Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World There’s no way in fuck I was ever supposed to be shit. – Richard Pryor Beginnings I grew up in the middle of nowhere before the rise of cable TV and the internet in a relatively conservative, very white southern environment: A double-wide trailer on the north side of Jacksonville, Florida, just minutes from the Georgia border. It was a time and place not usually very tolerant of those who didn’t look or live like “us.” My mother