When Comedy Goes Wrong (Comedy & Culture)

By: null Christopher J. Gilbert

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Synopsis: While conventional wisdom has it that humor embodies a spirit of renewal and humility, a dispirited form of comedy thrives in a media-saturated and politically charged environment.When Comedy Goes Wrong examines how, beginning in the late-twentieth and carrying into the early twenty-first century, a certain comic dispirit found various platforms for disheartening cultural politics. From the calculated follies on talk radio programs like the Rush Limbaugh Show through the charades of "cancel culture" and ultimately to so-called Alt-Right comedy, the transgressions, improprieties, and ego trips endemic to a newfangled comic freedom produced entirely unfunny ways of being. To understand these unfunny ways, Christopher J. Gilbert challenges the prevailing belief in humor's goodness, analyzing radio personalities, meme culture, films, civil unrest, and even the language of ordinary individuals and everyday speech, all to demonstrate what happens when humor becomes humorless. As such, Gilbert imagines a nuanced sense of humor for a tumultuous world.Ultimately, When Comedy Goes Wrong transcends partisanship to explore the uglier parts of American culture, imagining the stakes of doing comedy—and being comical—as a means of survival.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
Book Size:: 244 Pages
ISBN-13:: 9780253072542
Related ISBNs:: 9780253072528, 9780253072511, 9780253072535
Publisher:: Indiana University Press
Date of Addition:: 04/01/25
Copyrighted By:: IUP
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Entertainment, Nonfiction, Art and Architecture, Social Studies, Humor
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.