“Situated Comedy” — Thorn Austin

Identity of the Opposites by Papadakis, Michalis (1944-2020). Via Europeana. Source: Metropolitan Organisation of Museums of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki – MOMus, Greece.

The success of stand-up comedy heavily relies on shared experiences and nuance of language which leads me to believe that the identities that comedians hold are important within the context of the reception of their performances. British comedian and academic Oliver Double identifies that stand-up comedy is characterised by ‘personality,’ ‘direct communication’ and ‘present tense’ along with being funny (Double 2013, 19). These three characteristics highlight the importance of identity and connection in stand-up comedy.

Stand-up comedy in the liberal consensus in the 1990s and early 2000s was seen as an antidote to fake news and misinformation, using satire as dissent. Comedians were seen as truth-tellers or courageous speakers with special access to the truth of the world through comedy. This truth-telling was understood as a public role done out of moral conviction. The concept of parrhesia was used to forward this point; the parrhesiastes speaks without reservation. However, applying parrhesia to contemporary practices of truth-telling risks oversimplifying and de-historicizing Foucault’s original argument. It also pushes a false/harmful dichotomy of courageous versus obedient speech. Comedians speak from their experiences and backgrounds; their humor does not grant them a ‘special access’ to the world.

Intersectionality is a concept connected with an analysis of power which, when applied to comedy, requires a consideration of the polysemy of humour alongside the intersections provoked by the comedian, joke target and receptive and unreceptive audience (Weaver and Lockyer 2025). By looking at interlocking systems of oppression that shape comedians’ social position through an intersectional lens we receive access to specific forms of knowledge and relationships to systems of power. A black bisexual cis-woman comedian will have different relations to a system of power than a white lesbian cis-woman comedian despite both being part of marginalized communities. The overlapping identities situate each comedian in a different relationship with the audience and society as a whole.

As a reminder of partiality, standpoint epistemology shows us that some social positions offer privileged standpoints to make particular knowledge claims. As Dr. Samantha Pickette examines comedy’s “power as a performative medium [is] built around the exploration of the boundaries of identity”(Pickette 2022, 179). Comedian and professor, Joanne R. Gilbert explains that “when creating a staged, public autobiographical performance, we select bits and pieces of ourselves to share with an audience” (Gilbert 1997, 317). They perform both self and culture which creates a complex relationship with identity construction and reconstruction. Gilbert states, “[t]here is no “equal opportunity” humour. Some individual, group or institution is always the target of humour, especially marginal humour”(Gilbert 1997, 322). This becomes even more true when we consider the platform given to comedians through comedy specials on streaming services, such as Netflix, which widens their potential audience and elevates their status to a position of power, which still acknowledges their other identities but adds another; potential “truth-teller.”

References

Double, Oliver. Getting the Joke: The Inner Workings of Stand-Up Comedy. A&C Black, 2013.

Gilbert, Joanne R. “Performing Marginality: Comedy, Identity, and Cultural Critique.” Text & Performance Quarterly17, no. 4 (1997): 317–30. 9324907. https://doi.org/10.1080/10462939709366196.

Pickette, Samantha. “The Last Black (Jewish) Unicorn: Tiffany Haddish’s Black Mitzvah and the Reframing of Jewish Female Identity.” Studies in American Jewish Literature (1981-) 41, no. 2 (2022): 165–84.

Weaver, Simon, and Sharon Lockyer. “Intersectionality and the Construction of Humour in Contemporary Stand-up Comedy.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 28, no. 6 (2025): 1551–69. https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494241294156.