A Cultural History of Comedy in the Modern Age (The Cultural Histories Series)

Drawing together contributions by scholars from a variety of fields, including theater, film and television, sociology, and visual culture, this volume explores the range and diversity of comedic performance and comic forms in the modern age. It covers a range of forms and examples from 1920 to the present day, including plays, film, television comedy, live comedy, and comedy on social media. It argues that the period covered was marked by an explosion of comic forms and a flowering of comic creativity across a range of media. From the communal watching of silent films at the start of the period, to the use of Twitter and other online platforms to share and comment on comedy, technology has brought about significant changes in its form, consumption, and social effects. As comic forms have shifted and developed, so too have attitudes to what comedy can and cannot do. This study considers its role in entertainment and in provoking consideration of a range of social and political topics. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: form, theory, praxis, identities, the body, politics and power, laughter, and ethics. These eight different approaches to comedy add up to an extensive, synoptic coverage of the subject. How has our expression, use and reception of comedy developed from antiquity to the present day? What role has it occupied in Western culture, and what can it tell us about how society has changed? In a work that spans 2,500 years, these ambitious questions are addressed by 55 experts, each contributing their overview of a theme applied to a period in history. The volumes describe various manifestations of comedy, its use in religion, theatre and literature, and its historical and philosophical significance. Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole, and to make it as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one of the volumes, or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the six. Themes (and chapter titles) are: Form; Theory; Praxis; Identities; The Body; Politics and Power; Laughter; and Ethics. The page extent is approximately 1,824pp with c. 250 illustrations. The six volumes cover: Volume 1: A Cultural History of Comedy in Antiquity (500 BCE - 1000 AD) Edited by Michael Ewans (University of Newcastle, Australia) Volume 2: A Cultural History of Comedy in the Middle Ages (1000 - 1400) Edited by Martha Bayless (University of Oregon, USA) Volume 3: A Cultural History of Comedy in the Early Modern Age (1400 - 1650) Edited by Andrew McConnell Stott (University of Southern California, USA) Volume 4: A Cultural History of Comedy in the Age of Enlightenment (1650 - 1800) Edited by Elizabeth Kraft (University of Georgia, USA) Volume 5: A Cultural History of Comedy in the Age of Empire (1800 - 1920) Edited by Matthew Kaiser (University of California, Merced, USA) Volume 6: A Cultural History of Comedy in the Modern Age (1920 present) Edited by Louise Peacock (De Montfort University, UK) Cover page 1 Halftitle page 2 Series page 3 Title page 4 Copyright page 5 CONTENTS 6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 8 CONTRIBUTORS 10 SERIES PREFACE 13 Introduction 16 FORM 18 EARLY FILM 19 THEATER 23 RADIO 25 TELEVISION 26 CHAPTER ONE Form BRETT MILLS 38 INTRODUCTION 38 FILM 39 RADIO 44 TELEVISION 47 THE INTERNET 53 COMIC FORM 55 CHAPTER TWO Theory PETER BUSE 58 INTRODUCTION 58 RITUAL, HOLIDAY, MYTHOS 60 BAKHTIN AND AFTER: CARNIVAL, THE BODY, THE COMIC HERO 65 COMIC POLITICS 69 PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 73 FINALLY . . . 76 CHAPTER THREE Praxis “If You Laugh at Something, Then I’ll Potentially Keep It”: The Praxis of Live Comedy 78 MATERIAL 81 REHEARSAL 90 PERFORMANCE 93 WORKING HARD 99 CHAPTER FOUR Identity Laughs Last—Gender, Power, and Comic Identity 102 FUNCTIONS AND THEORIES OF HUMOR 104 COMIC PERSONAE AND AUDIENCE PERCEPTION 105 AMY SCHUMER AS A NEW BAWD 106 THE MARGINAL PERFORMANCE OF WANDA SYKES 109 GENDER AND POWER IN POPULAR SITCOMS 112 SEXIST OR SUBVERSIVE? THE BIG BANG THEORY 113 HOW MODERN IS MODERN FAMILY ? 120 CONCLUSION 124 CHAPTER FIVE The Body LOUISE PEACOCK 126 CONCLUSION 144 CHAPTER SIX Politics and Power CHRIS VOGNAR 146 CHAPTER SEVEN Laughter ERIC WEITZ 164 THE VIEW FROM MARS 164 TOWARD A STATE OF PLAY IN RESEARCH AND THOUGHT ON LAUGHTER 165 THE FUNCTION AND PURPOSE OF LAUGHTER IN SOCIETY 169 TWENTIETH-CENTURY LAUGHTERS 175 LAUGHTER AND PERFORMANCE 178 PERFORMED LAUGHTER 180 LAUGHTER AND DIGITAL CULTURE 183 IN PLACE OF A CONCLUSION 185 CHAPTER EIGHT Ethics MICHAEL PICKERING 188 INTRODUCTION 188 POLITICAL (IN)CORRECTNESS GONE MAD 195 STEREOTYPES IN HUMOR AND COMEDY 203 CONCLUSION 208 NOTES 210 REFERENCES 214 INDEX 232 Drawing together scholars with a wide range of expertise across the early modern period, this volume explores the rich field of early modern comedy in all its variety. It argues that early modern comedy was shaped by a series of cultural transformations that included the emergence of the entertainment industry, the rise of the professional comedian, extended commentaries on the nature of comedy and laughter, and the development of printed jestbooks. It was the prime site from which to satirize a rapidly-changing world and explore the formation of new social relations around questions of gender, authority, identity, and commerce, amongst others. Yet even as it reacted to the novel and the new, comedy also served as a receptacle for the celebration of older social rituals such as May games and seasonal festivities. The result was a complex and contested mix of texts, performances, and concepts providing a deep tradition that abides to this day. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: form, theory, praxis, identities, the body, politics and power, laughter and ethics. These eight different approaches to early modern comedy add up to an extensive, synoptic coverage of the subject