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Palgrave Macmillan

The Dark Side of Stand-Up Comedy

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Editors:
  1. Patrice A. Oppliger

    1. Department of Mass Communication, Boston University, Boston, USA

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Eric Shouse

    1. School of Communication, East Carolina University, Greenville, USA

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Combines arguments and personal experiences from a broad range of contributors, including scholars and stand-up performers
  • Avoids and complicates the stereotype of tragic comedians or sad clowns to explore the nuances of ‘darkness’ in comedy
  • Addresses the paradox of comedy and tragedy

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Comedy (PSCOM)

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Table of contents (16 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-ix
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  2. Darkness from the Outside

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. Introduction: Come to The Dark Side

      • Eric Shouse, Patrice A. Oppliger
      Pages 3-27

    3. Person, Persona, and Act: The Dark and Light Sides of George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Robin Williams

      • Eric Shouse
      Pages 29-49

    4. “I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die”: George Carlin’s Comedic Catharsis

      • Steven S. Kapica
      Pages 51-70

    5. Between Goofball and Rebel: Steve Martin’s Disney-Styled Comedy

      • Sean Springer
      Pages 71-87

    6. Addiction, Abjection, and Humor: Craig Ferguson’s Confessional Stand-Up

      • Philip Scepanski
      Pages 89-107

    7. Comedian Mike Ward v. The Quebec Human Rights Commission: The Moral Boundaries of Jokes About the Disabled

      • Christelle Paré
      Pages 109-128

    8. Stop! You’re Killing Me: Food Addiction and Comedy

      • Carey Marie Noland, Michael Hoppmann
      Pages 129-149

    9. Comedy in the Era of #MeToo: Masking and Unmasking Sexual Misconduct in Stand-Up Comedy

      • Patrice A. Oppliger, Kathryn Mears
      Pages 151-171

    10. An Incongruous Blend of Tragedy and Comedy: How Maria Bamford Lightens the Dark Side of Mental Illness

      • Kathryn Mears, Eric Shouse, Patrice A. Oppliger
      Pages 173-193

  3. Darkness from the Inside

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 195-195
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    2. Stand-Up Comedy and Mental Health: Critiquing the Troubled Stand-Up Stereotype

      • Sheila Lintott
      Pages 197-222

    3. Busting the Sad Clown Myth: From Cliché to Comic Stage Persona

      • Edward David Naessens
      Pages 223-246

    4. Shit Talking and Ass Kicking: Heckling, Physical Violence and Realistic Death Threats in Stand-Up Comedy

      • Eric Shouse
      Pages 247-267

    5. The Ballad of Drunky McCreepster

      • Blayr Nias
      Pages 269-276

    6. The Ethics of “Rape Jokes”

      • Cait Hogan
      Pages 277-292

    7. Picking Up the Dead

      • Louis Bishop
      Pages 293-303

    8. The Complete and Utter Loss of Time

      • Larry Fulford
      Pages 305-315

  4. Back Matter

    Pages 317-320
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Keywords

About this book

This book focuses on the “dark side” of stand-up comedy, initially inspired by speculations surrounding the death of comedian Robin Williams. Contributors, those who study humor as well as those who perform comedy, join together to contemplate the paradoxical relationship between tragedy and comedy and expose over-generalizations about comic performers’ troubled childhoods, addictions, and mental illnesses. The book is divided into two sections. First, scholars from a variety of disciplines explore comedians’ onstage performances, their offstage lives, and the relationship between the two. The second half of the book focuses on amateur and lesser-known professional comedians who reveal the struggles they face as they attempt to hone successful comedy acts and likable comic personae. The goal of this collection is to move beyond the hackneyed stereotype of the sad clown in order to reveal how stand-up comedy can transform both personal and collective tragedies by providing catharsis through humor.

 

Reviews

“The Dark Side of Stand-Up Comedy reminds us that tragedy can be equally the source, target, inspiration, and frictional underside of our laughter … . The Dark Side of Stand-Up Comedy provides an important introduction to an obviously germane aspect of the form and is very welcome in the rapidly emerging field of (Stand up) comedy studies.” (Antti Lindfors, The European Journal of Humour Research, Vol. 10 (2), 2022)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Mass Communication, Boston University, Boston, USA

    Patrice A. Oppliger

  • School of Communication, East Carolina University, Greenville, USA

    Eric Shouse

About the editors

Patrice Oppliger is Assistant Professor of Mass Communication at Boston University, USA. Her most recent book is Tweencoms Girls: Gender and Adolescence in Disney and Nickelodeon Sitcoms.

Eric Shouse is Associate Professor of Communication at East Carolina University, USA. His work has been published in HUMOR, Comedy Studies, and Text and Performance Quarterly.

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