Privileged Humor: Producing Gender and Race Privilege Through Stand-up Comedy

• In Event: 21061 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Media, Art, and Culture

Abstract

Stand-up comedy historically has been a site where self-deprecation is applauded. As a result of stand-up comedy’s celebration of self-deprecation, this performance scene is ripe for exploration into contemporary strategies individuals take to discursively distance themselves from privilege in order to secure more resources for themselves. After all, as Bridges and Pascoe (2014) write, “privilege works best when it goes unrecognized” (256). If comedy is supposedly a space for outsiders and self-deprecation, how is it that privileged individuals tend to succeed the most? How do comedians with various forms of race and gender privilege alter their self performance strategies in order to maintain their hegemony in an industry (and a society) that is increasingly aware and critical of such privilege? My project addresses these topics through an ongoing ethnographic and interview study of the Los Angeles stand-up comedy scene. In particular, much of my research focuses on comedy classes because students are learning to create their stage personas for the first time, and instructors talk openly with students about how to make themselves and their lives funny. I also incorporate observations of and interviews with working comics and comedy teachers to understand how they negotiate these topics as their careers progress. I find that comedians with gender and race privilege engage in performances of hybrid masculinity and femininity as a way to fit into the self-deprecating world of stand up and experience success, thereby maintaining their privilege and resources. Furthermore, my findings suggest that white men and women engage in such performance not only because these strategies serve to distance them from their increasingly-critiqued privilege, but also because performances of hybrid masculinities and femininities tap into a shared amusement of portrayals of masculinity and femininity that diverge from traditional expectations of (white) men and women’s behavior.

Author

• Riley Ceperich, University of California-Los Angeles