Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette, Trauma as Humor, and

Volume 2, Number 2 Epistemic Responsibility Fall 2019 DOI: 10.25335/PPJ.2.2-07 Kamili Posey Abstract This essay examines whether trauma has a nonexploitative place in marginalized comedy. Through the lens of Hannah Gabsby’s 2018 Netflix performance,Nanette , it analyzes two questions: (1) if marginalized trauma in the context of comedy extends the traditional framework for evaluating comedy and (2) if audiences are responsible for being “good consumers” of traumatic narratives from marginalized performers. Considering three analyses of Gadsby’s Nanette offered, respective- ly, by Rebecca Krefting, Peter Moskowitz, and Fury, this essay argues that a new framework for thinking about marginal- ized trauma in comedy ought to start with the responsibilities of the audience and suggests that we can begin to think about what this means by looking to Lorraine Code’s concept of “epistemic responsibility.”

In 2018, the streaming service Netflix host- man realizes his mistake, calls Gadsby a “lady ed Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby’s faggot,” and brutally assaults her. She explains one-woman show, Nanette. Gadsby delivers as much to the audience: a unique and transformative performance that both pushes the boundaries of stand-up He beat the shit out of me and no- body stopped him. And I didn’t re- comedy as well as the extent to which a per- port that to the police. And I did not former can hold an audience accountable for take myself to hospital. And I should examining what they choose to laugh at and have. And you know why I didn’t? It’s why they are comfortable laughing at all. As a because I thought that was all I was gender nonconforming public figure, Gadsby worth. And that is what happens reads both herself and her performance as a when you soak one child in shame story of inclusion (i.e., a recognizably diverse and give permission to another to 2 body who gets to tell a public story) and ex- hate. clusion (i.e., a recognizably diverse body who So what are we to make of this telling and must minimize and/or diminish that story as retelling of the same experience within the the price of inclusion). Gadsby tells many sto- context of the performance? For Gadsby, it ries during her performance in Nanette. For serves as a test of sorts. “I decided to see how example, early in the performance, she humor- people would react to a story that I have made ously discusses a time when a man mistook funny—but also reveal that it isn’t really a funny her for a man and threatened her for talking to his girlfriend. Upon discovering that Gadsby cisgender individuals. Gadsby’s joke about being mistak- is a woman, the man backs off. “Oh, sorry!” he en for a man—“Oh, sorry! I don’t hit women!”—emphasizes exclaims, followed by “I don’t hit women.” Now this expectation by initially playing on “confusions” of gen- der identity for laughs. Taking my cue from Gadsby, my the audience is allowed to laugh at both the analysis here also rests on the dynamic between a mostly man’s mistake and, presumably, at Gadsby’s mainstream cisgender audience and a gender noncon- failure to live up to the heteronormative status forming performer (or in Gadsby’s own speak, a “gen- quo. That is, the joke invokes the assumption der-not-normal” comedian). I fully expect that my analysis would be different if the audience members represented a that “women are women and men are men” wider spectrum of gender diversity and thus presumably a and implies that identities that fall outside of wider spectrum of beliefs about gender identity and gen- this gender binary are merely fodder for jokes. der performance. I want to thank the editorial team of the Only later in the performance, as Gadsby retells PPJ for pointing out the importance and necessity of this note. the joke, do we, the audience, understand that 2. Jon Olb and Madeleine Parry, dirs., Hannah Gadsby: Na- 1 this was not the full story. In the full story, the nette, Netflix Productions, 2018, https://www.netflix.com/ watch/80233611. Additional references to Nanette refer to 1. The assumption that underlies the following analysis is the Netflix special cited here and are not indicated in the that Gadsby’s audience is mostly comprised of mainstream text. Posey PPJ 2.2 (2019) 2 story, “she notes, “That is what Nanette is—to sider how streaming services like Netflix give show how much you have to adapt in order to audiences access to a diverse range of come- make an audience laugh.”3 In her performance, dians who may not be mainstream enough Gadsby explicitly analyzes the cost of “adapt- to headline costly touring shows; this, in turn, ing” in order to tell one’s story versus being able may confer social power to a wider range of to tell one’s story with dignity. She repeatedly voices and contribute to the growth of both expresses the need to quit comedy because comedic forms and comedic audiences. It may “punchlines need trauma” and making jokes be the case that Gadsby’s Nanette offers us a out of trauma is not cost-free: paradigmatic case of this new delivery form. One drawback of streaming comedy is that I have built a career out of self-dep- audiences can easily turn off performances like recating humor and I don’t want to do that anymore. Do you understand Gadsby’s that provoke and/or challenge their what self-deprecation means when it worldviews. Thus, any new feminist analysis comes from somebody who already of comedy will have to contend with how the exists in the margins? It’s not humili- social power of performance may be further ty, it’s humiliation. I put myself down diluted by new delivery mechanisms. Regard- in order to speak, in order to seek less, Nanette may still point the way for new permission to speak, and I simply will feminist analyses of comedy that can “account not do that anymore, not to myself for the diverse ways people produce, perform, or anybody who identifies with me. If and consume comedy.”6 that means that my comedy career is over, then, so be it. However, not all of the reviews of Nanette As American Studies scholar, Rebecca Krefting have been positive and not everyone sees rightly puts it, “For Gadsby, comedy as perfor- the use of trauma in the context of humor as mance practice has problems. It encourages transformative as opposed to opportunistic or self-deprecation, which she insists doubles as inappropriate. For example, Peter Moskowitz ‘humiliation.’ It also forces comics to generate argues in “The ‘Nanette’ Problem” that Gadsby humorous resolutions to any tension created, uses trauma primarily for entertainment and which can function to diminish the serious not enlightenment. Unlike “real” transgressive nature of social critique.”4 comics, they argue, Gadsby uses trauma for the purpose of making her “straight, cis view- Some critics argue, however, that we ought ers feel comfortably woke.”7 At the beginning to ask if Gadsby is “doing comedy” at all. Or of Nanette, Gadsby starts a “bit” about being whether she’s delivering a type of meta-com- from a small town in Tasmania. “I don’t feel edy commentary. Or if she is merely trafficking comfortable in a small town,” she begins, “I get in trauma. Krefting suggests that we may be a bit tense. Mainly because I am this situation.” able to situate Gadsby’s Nanette within an ex- Gadsby gestures over her body, allowing her tended framework of feminist comedy studies audience to laugh at her masculine-present- by amending the framework to capture the ing appearance. “And in a small town, that’s politics of performance as opposed to focusing all right from a distance. People are like, ‘Oh, on women’s personal empowerment. This is good bloke!’ And then ... get a bit closer and because personal empowerment is challenged it’s like, ‘Oh no! Trickster woman, what are you by the real-world social and political condi- doing?’ I get a lot of side-eye.” Gadsby appears tions that Gadsby and other marginalized to encourage her audience to both join in on performers find themselves in when they exit the joke (“Oh, good bloke!”) and to feel as if the stage. As Krefting claims, citing comedian they would not have made the same mistake. Laurie Kilmartin, “the moment a female comic “I get a lot of side-eye,” she claims, while subtly steps offstage, her power dissipates. She is a implying, but not from people like you. Like woman, again.”5 However, we might also con- Moskowitz, Australian writer, Fury, argues that Gadsby’s “performance of trauma” enables a 3. Rebecca Krefting, “Hannah Gadsby Stands Down: Femi- nist Comedy Studies,” Journal of Cinema and Media Stud- 6. Ibid., 170. ies 58, no. 3 (2019): 165-70, 166. 7. Peter Moskowitz, “The ‘Nanette’ Problem,” The Outline, 4. Ibid., 166. August 20, 2018, https://theoutline.com/post/5962/the-na- 5. Ibid., 168. nette-problem-hannah-gadsby-netflix-review. Posey PPJ 2.2 (2019) 3 kind of “emotional tourism” that “undermines claims, because they give access to the diverse [her] attempt to hold privileged viewers ac- frameworks of experience that govern our dai- countable.”8 Fury further notes: “Gadsby’s pain ly lives. Laughter is the easy part because “it is is now a product, suspended in time and easily the honey that sweetens the bitter medicine.” downloadable. It makes me sick to think of the power this gives straight people. They, too, can Feminist scholars have long discussed the role now play god with her; to press pause, rewind of women’s comedy in subversive politics and and make her perform suffering for them critiquing the status quo. As Alison Fraiberg whenever they like.”9 notes in “Between the Laughter: Bridging Feminist Studies through Women’s Stand-Up In this essay, I take seriously the question of Comedy,” “feminist critics who study women’s whether trauma has a nonexploitative place comedy in general have emphasized its sub- in Gadsby’s comedic performance. First, I con- versive potential.”11 Fraiberg, like Krefting, cites sider Krefting’s argument that Gadsby’s use of the work of Nancy Walker and Regina Barecca, trauma in Nanette may open up new feminist who claim, respectively, that women’s comedy analyses of comedy where marginalized come- often presents a “subversive protest” against dy can serve less as a source of empowerment the real, lived experiences of power inequality than as a public place for thinking about the for women as well as a way for women to “re- “networks of power that reproduce social in- flect the absurdity of the dominant ideology equalities and perpetuate masculinist comic while undermining the very basis for its dis- traditions.”10 Second, I consider the related course.”12 This is achieved, at least in part, by claims by Moskowitz and Fury that Gadsby’s juxtaposing real-world versus staged, or rhe- performance is problematic because it renders torical, marginality where “performing margin- queer trauma superficial and fails to hold the ality positions women’s comic performances audience accountable for that trauma. Both as emancipatory and oppositional.”13 However, Moskowitz and Fury argue that audiences as Krefting argues echoing Gadsby, “the optics ought to be held responsible for the pain and of stand-up comedy—an individual command- trauma shared during comedic performances ing everyone’s attention—inflates the amount by marginalized artists. They should not be of power women actually have and ignores made comfortable, and they should not be ways that performing comedy may negatively able to look away so easily. To this, and lastly, affect a woman’s self-worth.”14 One could argue I suggest that audiences do have an epistem- that this negative aspect pertains not only to ic responsibility to be “good consumers” of women but to all performers with marginal- marginalized comedy. Using Lorraine Code’s ized identities. As Krefting suggests, the power conception of “epistemic responsibility,” I sug- that may be conferred by the stage and by gest that audiences are morally responsible the attention of the audience is temporal and for the content of their beliefs and thus are re- often fails to reflect the real-world power rela- sponsible for understanding the sociopolitical tions that dictate life beyond the stage, and it is origins of the traumatic experiences relayed in this real-world power differential that limits the the context of marginalized comedy. To put it transgressive power of marginalized comedy. plainly, if you are going to laugh at the jokes, and bear witness to accounts of trauma, then Consider the description that Jessie Lafrance you need to understand the frameworks of ex- Dunbar gives as to why the African-Ameri- perience that give rise to the joke, or the trau- can comedian, Dave Chappelle, left his wildly matic experience, in the first place. For Gadsby, popular Comedy Central television show in telling stories constitutes a call to responsibility 2005. Dunbar describes this controversial to the lives of others, particularly those who move—marked by the abandonment of over are marginalized. “Stories hold our cure,” she 11. Alison Fraiberg, “Between the Laughter: Bridging Femi- nist Studies through Women’s Stand-Up Comedy,” in Look 8. Fury, “Trauma Tourism: The Complicated Comedy of Who’s Laughing: Gender and Comedy, edited by Gail Fin- Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette,” Metro Magazine 199 (2018): ney (Langhorne: Gordon and Breach, 1994), 319. 44-47, 46. 12. Ibid. 9. Ibid., 46. 13. Rebecca Krefting, “Hannah Gadsby Stands Down: Femi- 10. Rebecca Krefting, “Hannah Gadsby Stands Down: Femi- nist Comedy Studies,” Journal of Cinema and Media Stud- nist Comedy Studies,” Journal of Cinema and Media Stud- ies 58, no. 3 (2019): 165-70, 167. ies 58, no. 3 (2019): 165-70, 170. 14. Ibid., 167. Posey PPJ 2.2 (2019) 4

$50 million dollars in pay—through Chappelle’s marginalized comedy often stops at the edge interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey. of the stage. Those with social power still dic- Dunbar explains Chappelle’s growing dis- tate the terms of the performances, including comfort with his television show through the who gets to be onstage in the first place. Thus, experience of a white employee laughing at a it is critical to assess the power structures that comedy sketch involving a pixie in blackface: shape chosen performers, venues, audiences, and dissemination mechanisms for the most This employee, Chappelle asserted, popular comedic performances. However, and was laughing at rather than with him. Although he intended the mark while important, this type of analysis does little of blackface on the pixie to denote to address whether the use of pain and trauma a physical representation of the in marginalized comedy, be it Chappelle’s pixie N-word, it quickly became apparent in blackface or Gadsby’s account of assault, to Chappelle that “the way people is appropriate in the first place. Audiences use television is subjective” ... his em- have applauded Gadsby’s courage and have ployee chose to accept the stereo- sympathized with Chappelle’s concerns about type of black inferiority that the pixie racist tropes, but what should an audience represented rather than reading the do with these confessions within the context pixie as an indictment of racialized systems of oppression.”15 of humor? What are they responsible for? As Krefting aptly notes, “there are ways that satire, Similar to Gadsby’s critique of the alleged pow- because it bends to the humorous, mitigates er of the stage, here again the stage obfuscates personal responsibility.”17 real-world power inequality. More than that, it turns the pain and trauma of racial discrimi- Writer Peter Moskowitz argues that Gadsby’s nation and racial oppression into pointed and use of trauma is problematic because she is too uncomfortable laughs. As Chappelle has noted eager to let her audience off the hook for what on many occasions, it was ultimately not clear they are laughing (or not laughing) at. That is, that his mostly white audience was laughing she mutes the question of audience respon- with him or at him. We can see the limitations sibility. Moskowitz claims that Gadsby is too of subversive comedy not only in terms of what reluctant to tap into real anger (“I have a right the audience laughs at but also in terms of to be angry,” she says, “but not to spread it”) what those laughs mean for the person telling and too quick to reject the idea that self-depre- the jokes. For Chappelle it meant walking away cation can be a useful tool for communicating from the stage, from lucrative pay, and from one’s pain (“It’s not humility. It’s humiliation”). an environment that bordered on de facto They argue that Gadsby blunts the force of her minstrelsy. For Gadsby, it means considering social criticism by making her comedy too po- leaving comedy in order to tell her story with- lite and maneuvering her trauma into an easily out resorting to self-humiliation. digestible, and thus easily forgettable, form for her audience. How, they insist, is this any differ- Krefting argues that the transgressive power ent from humiliation? “I don’t see how reliving of marginalized comedy is limited by both the your trauma on a stage is any different than form itself as well as by the external realities ‘humiliating’ yourself for comedy,” they write, that dictate who gets to participate in the 17. In “Hannah Gadsby: On the Limits of Satire,” Krefting re- production and dissemination of comedy as fers to Gadsby’s Nanette as a form of satire, so I echo her a whole. Because the “deployment and re- language here. I am not wedded to this particular descrip- ception of satire is gendered and raced,” she tion of Gadsby’s performance but I find it useful in framing Krefting’s analysis of Gadsby’s work. Krefting argues that claims, “satire is a tool most successfully wield- Gadsby is using satire and critiquing it at the same time: ed by the powerful.”16 This is not to say that sat- “Gadsby is not a fan of self-deprecatory humor; however, ire fails to be a successful tool for marginalized she harbors greater ambivalence toward satire, which she comedians but that the transgressive power of views as both a useful tool and an insufficient weapon. She communicates this ambivalence by using satire in order 15. Jessie Lafrance Dunbar, “Teaching Satirical Literacy to cite the limitations of satire” (95). Whether Gadsby’s co- and Social Responsibility through Race Comedy,” MELUS: medic performance really counts as satire in a more ho- Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S. 42, no. 4 (2017): 79-91, 79. listic sense—as in her performance constitutes satire as 16. Rebecca Krefting, “Hannah Gadsby: On the Limits of opposed to temporarily employing it to make a point—is Satire,” Studies in American Humor 5, no. 1 (2019): 93-102, indeed an open question. I thank Deborah Williams for 99. bringing the issue to my attention. Posey PPJ 2.2 (2019) 5

“both are exploiting personal tragedy for an ly tune out: “Instead of Gadsby commanding a audience.”18 For Moskowitz, it is the “reliving” of room, her power is reduced. Straight audiences trauma without the anger, without the holding can ‘sneak away’ from her show without suf- power to account, that is the most problematic fering the shame of a thousand eyes on them issue with Gadsby’s comedy. They imply that as they slink up the aisle.”23 They argue that the use of trauma uncoupled from anger runs this makes for a sad but familiar spectacle of dangerously close to respectability politics. queer trauma. Audiences have come to expect Gadsby appears to police marginalized voices that queer narratives end in pain, violence, by claiming that anger is toxic and even those and death, so much so Fury notes, “that the who can “position [themselves] as a victim” phenomenon has been dubbed the ‘bury your have no right to spread it.19 “Gadsby completely gays’ trope.”24 Both Moskowitz and Fury accuse lets her audience off the hook,” they claim, Gadsby’s Nanette of trafficking in queer pain, “transforming justified queer rage ... that is of- of letting straight audiences temporarily “play” ten ignored by the mainstream press and the inside marginalized trauma, and more impor- rest of society ... into a fault within herself, and tantly, of letting audiences off the hook for that by extension all of us.”20 Moskowitz argues that pain at the end of the day. marginalized anger deserves to be heard and not minimized for the comfort of others: Although I agree that audiences need to be held accountable for how they consume mar- As a queer person, I want my anger ginalized trauma in comedy, I disagree that to be heard. I believe my anger con- Gadsby has dulled or muted that trauma in structive, even if it’s self-deprecating, order to service her “comfortably woke” audi- and even if you don’t get it. By telling ence. However, the extent to which we can, or us we need to challenge our anger, ought, to hold Gadsby to account for letting her sublimate it into love and under- standing lest we destroy the world, audience off the hook, or for “trauma tourism,” Gadsby is not challenging her au- is a complicated question. It is a question that dience, she’s challenging her fellow will depend, in large part, on who constitutes queers to be more respectful, more the “we” at the center of the critique. If we start civil, to display our pain in ways that from the standpoint thesis that all knowledge cis, straight people can appreciate….21 claims are situated, embodied, and necessarily partial (there is no “disinterested or dislocated Fury’s article on “trauma tourism” also takes view from nowhere” as Lorraine Code argues), on this concern with the potential superficial then we will have to consider the hermeneu- role of queer trauma in Nanette. They argue: tical, or interpretative, gaps that may exist be- “It is no coincidence that Nanette—a show tween Gadsby’s social experiences, her critics’ driven by [Gadsby’s] own trauma—is the show social experiences, and the audiences’ social that has captured the eye of the mainstream ... experiences.25 Privileging one interpretation this type of content is a form of ‘trauma tour- of Gadsby’s performance over another might ism’ that [audiences] have been trained not lead us to deflate the credibility of another cri- to question.”22 Although Fury does not share tique that centers queer and nonbinary social Moskowitz’s skepticism about Gadsby’s intent, experiences; it might lead us to engage in what or their skepticism about Gadsby’s refusal to Rachel McKinnon calls epistemic gaslighting: use anger as a device, they do share the same concern about the ability of her performance to In this epistemic form of gaslight- hold audiences to account. Fury argues that it ing, the listener of testimony raises is the televised medium as opposed to live per- doubts about the speaker’s reliability formance that allows the audience to effective- at perceiving events accurately. Di- rectly, or indirectly, then, gaslighting 18. Peter Moskowitz, “The ‘Nanette’ Problem,” The Outline, involves expressing doubts that the August 20, 2018, https://theoutline.com/post/5962/the-na- harm or injustice that the speaker is nette-problem-hannah-gadsby-netflix-review. testifying to really happened as the 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 23. Ibid., 46. 21. Ibid. 24. Ibid., 46. 22. Fury, “Trauma Tourism: The Complicated Comedy of 25. Lorraine Code, “Taking Subjectivity into Account,” in Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette,” Metro Magazine 199 (2018): Feminist Epistemologies, edited by Linda Alcoff and Eliza- 44-47, 46. beth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), 20. Posey PPJ 2.2 (2019) 6

speaker claims.26 bellion because it turns the focus of her come- dic delivery away from the traditional object While I do not want to claim that Moskowitz of comedy, audience laughs, and reorients the and Fury failed to accurately perceive Gadsby’s performance around her need to tell her story performance, or that the harm that they saw on her terms. What Moskowitz and Fury take in Gadsby’s performance is no harm at all, I do to be trading in trauma, Gadsby explicitly tells think that there is room for a competing cri- us is her refusal to be a punchline, or her refusal tique of what Gadsby accomplishes in Nanette. to humiliate herself as the price of speaking in This is a nod to what José Medina calls, “poly- the first place. This is why, at moments during phonic contextualism,” or the idea that diverse her performance, she is unwilling to deliver standpoints often draw upon a diversity of the punchline that the audience appears to epistemic resources. Part of understanding the demand. We are conditioned to have displays critique given by Moskowitz and Fury requires of vulnerability in comedy relieved by laughter. an investigation into the epistemic resources When Gadsby tells the story of her assault, (e.g., concepts, meanings, etc.) that they draw and later, her violent rape, we are denied the upon in their reviews. When Fury notes that comfort of a punchline: “And this tension, it’s audiences can “sneak away” from Gadsby’s yours. I am not helping you anymore. You need performance without shame, they highlight an to learn what this feels like because this … this important limitation of an online platform like tension is what not-normals carry inside of Netflix. It allows audiences to turn off shows them all of the time because it is dangerous to and thus turn away from the pain and trauma be different!” of marginalized others. They also highlight a potential blind spot for straight audiences in Gadsby does not seek to entertain us or pro- particular, the failure to see their obligation voke us with her trauma. Public catharsis to learn about queer and nonbinary social can be self-directed and self-restorative in its experiences. The benefit of thinking through own right and it can (and clearly does) have a standpoints is that it allows us to address our valuable role in comedic performance. “I don’t own partial knowledge and to give greater want to unite you with laughter or anger,” she credence to the standpoints of marginalized tells us, “I just need my story heard.” Gadsby is others. In this case, by privileging marginalized not “transforming queer rage” into something perspectives (or what Sandra Harding calls, more digestible, and ultimately more humiliat- “strong objectivity”), we can frame new ques- ing, for her audience but is imploring her audi- tions about marginalized comedy that focus ence not to walk away from her story in spite less on how our critiques diverge and more on of her anger: “I must quit comedy. Because the the points where our critiques converge. only way … I can tell my truth and put tension in the room is with anger.” At the end of her That said, I do think there is some value in performance, Gadsby asks her audience to pointing to the places where our critiques di- help her “take care” of all that she has shared verge. For example, I would argue that instead with them. “I just don’t have the strength to of trading in trauma solely for laughs, Gadsby take care of my story anymore,” she states, “All trades in jokes in order to tell her story and I can ask is just please help me take care of my telling her story is of critical importance. “You story.” Gadsby’s request is a call for a different learn,” she claims, “from the part of the story kind of relationship between performers and that you focus on.” In Gadsby’s telling and their audiences, one that is not based on the retelling of jokes—the first time to extract a exploitation of marginalized pain and trauma, punchline, and the second time to recount her but instead on the shared responsibility to tell story—this process is made explicit. Recount- our stories and to listen. But Gadsby points out ing her story of trauma becomes an act of re- that the traditional framework for comedy may 26. Rachel McKinnon, “Allies Behaving Badly: Gaslighting not be able to accommodate showing more as Epistemic Injustice,” in Routledge Handbook of Epis- care and concern for the humanity of others: temic Injustice, edited by Ian Kidd, José Medina, and Gaile Pohlhaus Jr. ([Google eBook Edition]. New York: Routledge, “We think it’s more important to be right than 2017), 339. Retrieved from https://play.google.com/books/ it is to appeal to the humanity of people we reader?id=ctORDgAAQBAJ&pg=GBS.RA1-PT293. disagree with.” So she says that her comedy ca- reer might simply be over. “If that means that Posey PPJ 2.2 (2019) 7 my comedy career is over,” she insists, “then, so totle. It implies that we as knowers have some be it.” conscious control over our “modes of cognitive structuring” and thus must be responsible for However, the inability to accommodate trau- what we choose to believe and why we choose matic stories without self-deprecating punch- to believe it.29 Our intentions, motivations, lines may tell us more about the limitations of and behaviors are all subject to analysis—as audiences than it does about the limitations of is our epistemic character. Thus, if we choose comedy. This further reinforces the claim made to engage superficially with Gadsby’s trauma, by Moskowitz and Fury that the audience’s role it is not a reflection on Gadsby’s performance, in consuming marginalized pain and trauma so much as it is a reflection on our willingness is not without complication and not without as audience members to familiarize our- some responsibility. It may be because, as audi- selves with the violence and oppression that ences, we are rarely asked to be responsible for LGBTQIA+ and gender nonconforming people what we know and choose to believe about the face on a daily basis. lived experiences of marginalized people. It is not enough to laugh at a joke or listen to an ac- Thinking through the lens of epistemic re- count of a traumatic experience. To participate sponsibility allows us to reorient the criticisms in public performance, and particularly perfor- put forth by Moskowitz and Fury away from mance by socially, politically, and economically Gadsby’s delivery and/or the offensive tropes marginalized people, we owe the experience that guide popular depictions of queer and our best efforts at a deeper understanding. nonbinary characters and toward audience re- However, the call for a deeper understanding sponsibility. Stephen A. Smith, citing Gary Fine, cannot be without sufficient nuance. Audi- describes the dual nature of comedy as a force ences are made up of a variety of perspectives that can either reinforce or subvert dominant and lived experiences; they are “polyphonic” social norms. That is, the other side of comedy and should be considered as such. What this as subversion is comedy as a tool to “main- means is that we should not talk about the re- tain social control through ridicule to enforce sponsibility that an audience has for their body norms and punish deviance.”30 But I would of knowledge as though audiences are neutral argue that we cannot lay all of this power at monoliths. Instead, we should talk about the the feet of comedic performance or comedic responsibility that individuals have for their depictions. Comedy is mediated by audienc- own bodies of knowledge. es, or by a “thinking public,” and although all situated knowers have selected ignorances, Feminist philosopher, Lorraine Code, argues they still have a responsibility to investigate for a “responsibilist” approach to epistemology places of epistemic dissonance where their where the knower and the world-to-be-known beliefs about the world fail to accord with (or are both epistemically significant. Responsi- fail to track on to) the beliefs of others. Looking bilist approaches move away from traditional at it this way, it fails to matter whether Gadsby analytic epistemology and its focus on the delivers her story with righteous anger or not, criteria for knowing “objects of knowledge,” or or if she is “too polite” or not, or if the online what Code refers to as “S knows that p” epis- medium allows audiences to “sneak away.” temology, and focuses on someone’s object of To be epistemically responsible in this case 27 knowledge. In order to “know responsibly,” or means that audience members need to hold “know well,” we require more information than themselves accountable for understanding the conditions that cause a knower to accept the punchlines, stories, or traumatic narratives 28 or reject a particular proposition, p. Knowing that they consume beyond the immediate dis- well demands that we consider who we are position to laugh, believe, or fail to believe. and how we have been shaped into the know- ers that we are. In this sense, knowing well be- Krefting suggests that satire, because it is hu- comes an intellectual virtue in the vein of Aris- morous, may weaken our responsibility to ana- lyze the content of the satire, but that is only if 27. Lorraine Code, “Taking Subjectivity into Account,” in Feminist Epistemologies, edited by Linda Alcoff and Eliza- 29. Ibid., 51. beth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), 17-18. 30. Stephen A. Smith, “Humor as Rhetoric and Cultural Ar- 28. Lorraine Code, Epistemic Responsibility (Hanover: UP of gument,” Journal of American Culture 16, no. 2 (1993): 51- New England, 1987), 27. 64, 51. Posey PPJ 2.2 (2019) 8 we think of humor as something that is invol- Laughing: Gender and Comedy, edited by untarily extracted from us and of which we can Gail Finney, 319-30. Langhorne: Gordon and claim no responsibility. Perhaps the argument Breach, 1994. goes something like this: humor is the aim of comedy and the state of “finding something Fury. “Trauma Tourism: The Complicated Com- humorous” is an involuntary dispositional state. edy of Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette.” Metro We do not have control over involuntary states, Magazine 199 (2018): 44-47. so we do not have control over what we find Haraway, Donna. “Situated Knowledges: The humorous, thus to assess the aims of comedy Science Question in Feminism and the (i.e., the stimulus that evokes humor) misses Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist the point of comedy itself. (Consider that we Studies 14, no. 3 (1988): 575-99. could construct a similar argument about trauma.) However, if the goal of comedy, and Harding, Sandra. “Rethinking Standpoint Epis- the use of trauma within the context of com- temology: What Is ‘Strong Objectivity.’” In edy, is only to elicit this involuntary state, then Feminist Epistemologies, edited by Lin- the content of the comedy would not matter. da Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter, 69-70. New But clearly it does matter. There are events and York: Routledge, 1993. experiences that evoke humor that we do not laugh at. There are complicated situations and Krefting, Rebecca. “Hannah Gadsby: On the loaded contexts where humor is deemed not Limits of Satire.” Studies in American Hu- just inappropriate but wrong (e.g., during a se- mor 5, no. 1 (2019): 93-102. vere emergency situation or while one is trying ———. “Hannah Gadsby Stands Down: Fem- to perform a professional duty). Comedians do inist Comedy Studies.” Journal of Cinema not merely extract humor from audiences, hu- and Media Studies 58, no. 3 (2019): 165-70. mor is mediated by the audience itself. That is why during some of the most painful moments McKinnon, Rachel. 2017. “Allies Behaving Badly: of Gadsby’s Nanette no one laughs. I think that Gaslighting as Epistemic Injustice.” In Rout- Krefting is right to claim that we need a new ledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, framework for thinking about the transgres- edited by Ian Kidd, José Medina, and Gaile sive power of marginalized comedy. But in this Pohlhaus Jr., [Google eBook Edition]. New new framework we need to turn the lens to the York: Routledge. Retrieved from https:// consumers of comedy, the audience, and ask play.google.com/books/reader?id=c- them to think clearly and unironically: “What tORDgAAQBAJ&pg=GBS.RA1-PT293. are you laughing at?” Medina, José. “Hermeneutical Injustice and Polyphonic Contextualism: Social Silences Bibliography and Shared Hermeneutical Responsibil- ities.” Social Epistemology 26, no. 2 (2012): Code, Lorraine. Epistemic Responsibility. Ha- 201-20. nover: UP of New England, 1987. Moskowitz, Peter. “The ‘Nanette’ Problem.” The ———. “Taking Subjectivity into Account.” In Outline, August 20, 2018. https://theoutline. Feminist Epistemologies, edited by Lin- com/post/5962/the-nanette-problem-han- da Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter, 15-48. New nah-gadsby-netflix-review. York: Routledge, 1993. Olb, Jon, and Madeleine Parry, dirs. Hannah Dunbar, Jessie Lafrance. “Teaching Satirical Gadsby: Nanette. Netflix Productions, 2018. Literacy and Social Responsibility through https://www.netflix.com/watch/80233611. Race Comedy.” MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Litera- ture of the U.S. 42, no. 4 (2017): 79-91. Smith, Stephen A. “Humor as Rhetoric and Cul- tural Argument.” Journal of American Cul- Fraiberg, Alison. “Between the Laughter: ture 16, no. 2 (1993): 51-64. Bridging Feminist Studies through Wom- en’s Stand-Up Comedy.” In Look Who’s Posey PPJ 2.2 (2019) 9 Contributor Information

Kamili Posey is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kings- borough Community College in Brooklyn, New York.

Current Publication, 12 August 2019: https://publicphiloso- phyjournal.org/full-record/?amplificationid=2017

Journal Publication, 24 August 2020: https://pub- lications.publicphilosophyjournal.org/record/?is- sue=6-18-224914&kid=6-15-224935