Humoring the audience: performance strategies and persuasion in Midwestern American stand-up comedy
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Elise DeCamp
Elise DeCamp received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Indiana University, Bloomington. She is a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Western Michigan University. Her research reflects her twofold interest in the impact of racial humor in the space of the comedy club on conceptions of racial difference, and the theoretical implications of how performance, media, critical race, and humor studies intersect in interpreting audience uptake of these performances.
Abstract
This paper explores how performance strategies in stand-up comedy are employed to foster audience receptivity to a comedian’s social commentaries. Stand-up comedy, among other art forms within the live performance genre, possesses the unique ability to respond in real time to the mood, energy, and overall engagement level of a crowd. This responsiveness to audiences is evident to a lesser degree in satirical news shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in the United States or the recently cancelled Al-Bernameg in Egypt. Through the interweaving of long successful structural elements in a stand-up performance with the improvisational skill to manipulate and adapt them to each new crowd, Anglophone comedians from around the globe, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, have identified approaches to achieve the goal of an involved audience. Conducting an ethnography in the Midwest of the United States of five stand-up comedy clubs across three states, the researcher collected data through live stand-up performance observations and interviews of comedians and audience members from these shows. The analysis of these data reveals how the subtlety and art of stand-up performance strategies combine with the pleasurable medium of humor to lay the foundation for advancing social critiques.
About the author
Elise DeCamp received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Indiana University, Bloomington. She is a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Western Michigan University. Her research reflects her twofold interest in the impact of racial humor in the space of the comedy club on conceptions of racial difference, and the theoretical implications of how performance, media, critical race, and humor studies intersect in interpreting audience uptake of these performances.
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©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- From the Editor
- Thinking fast and slow in the experience of humor
- Humor in intercultural interaction as both content and process in the classroom
- Humorous communication, verbal aggressiveness, and father–son relational satisfaction
- A gender study of personality and humor in comedians
- Humoring the audience: performance strategies and persuasion in Midwestern American stand-up comedy
- On the role of vigilance in the interpretation of puns
- Book Reviews
- Friedrich W. Block and Rolf Lohse: Wandel und Institution des Komischen
- Rebecca Krefting: All joking aside: American humor and its discontents
- Marcello Cesa-Bianchi, Giovannantonio Forabosco, Carlo Cristini, Giovanni Cesa-Bianchi, and Alessandro Porro: Umorismo, creatività e invecchiamento
- Scott Balcerzak: Buffoon men: Classic Hollywood comedians and queered masculinity
- Simon Dickie: Cruelty and laughter: Forgotten comic literature and the unsentimental eighteenth century
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- From the Editor
- Thinking fast and slow in the experience of humor
- Humor in intercultural interaction as both content and process in the classroom
- Humorous communication, verbal aggressiveness, and father–son relational satisfaction
- A gender study of personality and humor in comedians
- Humoring the audience: performance strategies and persuasion in Midwestern American stand-up comedy
- On the role of vigilance in the interpretation of puns
- Book Reviews
- Friedrich W. Block and Rolf Lohse: Wandel und Institution des Komischen
- Rebecca Krefting: All joking aside: American humor and its discontents
- Marcello Cesa-Bianchi, Giovannantonio Forabosco, Carlo Cristini, Giovanni Cesa-Bianchi, and Alessandro Porro: Umorismo, creatività e invecchiamento
- Scott Balcerzak: Buffoon men: Classic Hollywood comedians and queered masculinity
- Simon Dickie: Cruelty and laughter: Forgotten comic literature and the unsentimental eighteenth century
